Notes
- I would like to express heartfelt thanks to Sharry Lapp, in particular, for her patient and incisive criticism in the writing process; Rosemary Sayigh for her generous and perceptive advice and comments (in letters that had to be rerouted via second countries in order for me to receive them in the West Bank from Lebanon);Islah Jad for her insights and assistance; and Roger Heacock for reading and criticizing an earlier draft of this article. I also thank women's History Review's anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.The research for this article was funded in part by a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Grant.A version of this article was delivered at the Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, in November 1993
- This article primarily deals with my research experience in the West Bank, Israel and Jerusalem from September 1992 through June 1994.I also did research in Jordan and England. Because I was restricted by time and financial resources, I had to focus the work in those areas where I could find relevant sources on my topic while making effective use of the time. Thus, I chose to focus on geographic Palestine, where the largest concentration of Palestinians resides.The global dispersal of the Palestinian people, coupled with the effects of war, forced expulsions and other factors, has also resulted in the scattering of their historical record, making it difficult for historians to collect the necessary pieces to reconstruct Palestinian history. For example, I attempted to travel to Lebanon, where I could have found additional rich resources both in people and documents, but the travel restrictions imposed on Americans by the US State Department made this impossible. For a cogent discussion of the many difficulties inherent in any research project on Palestinian women, see Sayigh Rosemary Femmes palestiniennes: une histoire en quête d'historiens Revue d'études palestiniennes 23 13 33
- Fatawa,(plural of fatwa ), formal legal opinions in Islamic law
- The library at Georgetown University, where I was a doctoral student, does not subscribe to any oral history journals, for example, nor does the history department provide training in oral history
- Scott Wallach Joan Gender and the Politics of History Columbia University Press New York 1988 8
- Thompson Paul The Voice of the Past: oral history p. 27 Oxford University Press Oxford 1988 6 7
- Women in Middle East History Keddie Nikki Baron Beth Yale University Press New Haven 1991 1 Note the passive voice here, implying the objectification of women as subjects of research
- Not surprisingly, perhaps, Middle Eastern researchers themselves are the exception, as they recognize the importance – indeed, the urgency – of utilizing oral history to record their pasts. One such research project is Bir Zeit University's Center for Palestinian Studies and Documentation, which is exhaustively documenting and ‘memorializing’ through oral history interviews the Palestinian Arab villages destroyed in 1948'see Slyomovics Susan 0 The memory of place: rebuilding the pre-1948 Palestinian village Diaspora 1994 3 156 168
- In the intervening years, a new generation of historians has begun to utilize different methodologies and approaches from that of their predecessors. See for example Beinin Joel Lockman Zachary Workers on the Nile: nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian working class, 1882-1954 Princeton University Press Princeton 1987 Badran Margot Feminists, Islam, and Nation Princeton University Press Princeton 1995 and individual contributions in Burke Edmund III Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East University of California Press Berkeley 1995 Nonetheless, methodologically, Middle East history still lags behind such subfields as European and American history, which have rich genres within their own specialities, such as labor, women's, cultural and social history. Very little oral history has been produced by Middle Eastern historians in the West; anthropologists have provided historically-oriented anthropological studies. See for example Swedenburg Ted Memories of Revolt: the 1936-1939 rebellion and the Palestinian national past University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis 1995 and Sayigh Rosemary From Peasants to Revolutionaries Zed Press London 1979
- Tucker Judith E. Problems in the historiography of women in the Middle East: the case of nineteenth-century Egypt International Journal ofMiddle East Studies 1983 15 321
- Swedenburg Ted Problems in oral history: the Palestine Revolt of 1936 Birzeit Research Review, 1985/86 2 31
- Ghosh Amitav In an Antique Land Alfred Knopf New York 1993 16 17
- An exception to this lacuna is Altorki Soraya El-Solh Camillia Fawzi Arab Women in the Field:studying your own society Syracuse University Press Syracuse 1988 This excellent book, as the title suggests, focuses primarily on the personal experiences and issues specific to Arab women researchers studying their own societies. None of the contributors is a historian, however, and although many of the methodological issues raised are helpful and relevant, many problems one encounters in oral history research are not addressed
- This suggests that anthropologists also face similar problems of isolation and lack of training; indeed, they empathized with my situation. Surprisingly, some of the more experienced and helpful of these colleagues were also unaware of some of the resources I subsequently stumbled upon
- Palestinian researchers engaged in interviewing confront their own particular set of obstacles related to their identity as a ‘native’ daughter or son. Sonia Nimr, whose dissertation is an oral history of the Strike and Revolt of 1936-39, told me that she had to contend with people's personal disapproval of her ‘Westernization’, her prison record (she had been imprisoned for political activities by the Israeli authorities), and the fact that her interviewing partner was a (American) man who was not her husband. In addition, her belonging to a certain clan limited some of her contacts or access to particular individuals
- I offer here an example. In trying to express what kind of information I was seeking from villagers, instead of saying I was interested in ‘the role of women in the Revolt’ or ‘the role of women in the political realm during the British Mandate’, I said things like ‘what women did during the British period’, or ‘under the British’. The latter are vague and often elicited correspondingly vague responses, to which I responded by prompting, that is, saying,‘but didn't the women help the thuwwar?' or, ‘did you do anything to help the Revolt?’ Words like ‘role’ simply do not have much meaning to villagers; they do not use this kind of language, and when someone else does, they clam up in the presence of someone speaking such ‘good’ -- i.e. classical and not ordinary – Arabic. On the other hand, prompting can produce a certain amount of faking.(See below for more discussion of this.)
- This is the commonly used term in Arabic to refer to prominent people such as political activists, well-known academics and leaders in Palestinian society (singular: shakhsiya )
- Peteet Julie Authenticity and gender: the presentation of culture, in Tucker Judith E. Arab Women: old boundaries, new frontiers Indiana University Press Bloomington 1993 49 57
- Interview with ‘Abd al-Rahman Kayyali, Amman, March 8 1993.(He was a schoolteacher in the 1930s and provided recollections about political life and women in this period.)The comment struck me; others made similar remarks
- It is indeed the case that urban, educated upper middle-class women led the organized women's movement in this period, and the large number of women I interviewed came from these classes in the cities and towns. Yet people tended to direct me to certain women only because they were educated, regardless of whether or not they were politically active, conflating the two
- Scott Gender and the Politics of History 18
- There was a marked difference in the response to requests for interviews and the behavior of the upper middle-class women living in Jordan compared to their counterparts in the Occupied Territories. The former readily acceded to requests, speedily made appointments, and were generally relaxed and comfortable while conversing
- This fear was a relatively recent phenomenon that developed since the intifada. At the beginning of the intifada, people were quite open with foreigners, particularly the press, since they viewed them as conduits to world opinion. After the Israeli authorities began to use collaborators and agents posing as journalists, however, Palestinians became more suspicious about outsiders asking them questions. This information is from my own experiences living in the West Bank in 1986-88 and 1992-94, and was confirmed by others working in the field
- Although this article was written before the creation of the Gaza and Jericho enclaves, and deals for the most part with the period preceding the Oslo and Cairo accords, I understand from communications with friends and colleagues living and working in the West Bank and Jerusalem that the fear, distrust and problems with collaborators remain. As of this writing, the security situation had not fundamentally changed
- Minister Minister A feminist frame for the oral history interview Gluck Sherna Berger Patai Daphne women's Words: the feminist practice of oral history Routledge London 1991 29
- Sayigh ‘Femmes palestiniennes’ 23
- Muhawi Ibrahim Kanaana Sharif Speak Bird, Speak Again University of California Press Berkeley 1988 2
- Scott Gender and the Politics of History 7
- Many of the upper-class women I interviewed in the West Bank were refugees from the coastal cities, whereas the village women I talked to had not been uprooted. I did not interview camp women who were refugees from inside the Green Line, i.e.present-day Israel
- Carr E. H. Davies R. W. What is History? , 2nd edn Macmillan London 1986 xx
- Patai Daphne US academics and Third World Women: is ethical research possible? in Gluck Patai women's Words 1991 142
- Thompson Oral History 110
- Hale Sondra Feminist method, process, and self-criticism: interviewing Sudanese women, in Gluck Patai women's Words 1991 125
- Swedenburg Memories of Revolt 22 For more discussion of this ‘rescue’ effort and Palestinian strategies for constructing their own historical narrative, see especially pp. 17-43
- Patai ‘US academics’ 137
- Stacey Judith Can there be a feminist ethnography? in Gluck Patai women's Words 114
- Hale ‘Feminist method’ 133
- Swendenburg Memories of Revolt 3 4
- Patai ‘US academics’ 147
- Carr What is History? xx