Doctoral Dissertation Research: Everyday Relationships, Political Frontiers, and Industrial Market Zones

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Concentrated industrial and commercial zones on international borders are frequently promoted by their developers as both engines of economic development and catalysts for improved political relationships. Social scientists have been more skeptical, pointing out that when the countries involved have unequal power, special economic zones may perpetuate instability through increased economic and political inequality. However, there is little research on the on-the-ground processes through which either positive or negative outcomes are realized. University of Chicago doctoral student Jeremy Siegman, who is supervised by Dr. William Mazzarella, will undertake research in a commercial contact zone in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to address this knowledge gap. This is an ideal site because the idea that developing economic ties between Israelis and Palestinians might lead to peaceful coexistence between them and throughout the region has been a mainstay of foreign investment in the region. This will be the first detailed study of Israeli-Palestinian commercial contact in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.The researcher will undertake a 12-month ethnographic study of Israeli-Palestinian contact as it takes place in daily practice. He will focus on Israeli-controlled commercial and industrial zones where many Palestinians work and sometimes shop. Research methods will include participant observation of market practices, supplemented with content analyses of media and activist materials; extensive interviews with Israelis and Palestinian workers, shoppers, security agencies and activists; and interviews with local economic analysts. These data will allow him to assess how, through everyday work and shopping practices, Israelis and Palestinians frame their relations to each other and how such framings may also be disrupted or undermined by such ordinary events as workplace disputes, gendered tensions, political or religious debates, and security activities. Only detailed participant-observation and interviews, conducted in both Arabic and Hebrew, can shed light on these complex spaces where two separated social worlds come together. Building on previous experience in the area and his linguistic fluency, Stiegman's research will shed new light on the puzzle of Israeli-Palestinian commercial contact.