Transnational Palestinian families in the West Bank, Israel, and Germany. A trilateral study of changing gender relations, marriage patterns, and honor semantics

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This project wants to contribute to the study of changing patriarchal Arab family traditions in taking “transnational Palestinian families” as an example. The thrust of the project is to explore the impact of migration and separation on the social cohesion and cultural identity of extended Palestinian families with branches living in the West Bank, Israel and Germany. The focus is on exploring (with qualitative interviews, longitudinal family case studies, focus groups) cross-border exchange relations between family branches separated by political borders. Hence, three questions will be addressed: (1) What kind of differences will emerge when dislocated, yet transnationally connected family branches are exposed to living under long-term conditions in highly contrasting life worlds and social orders? (2) How do families cope with experiencing intra-familial differences coming up in the course of exchanging family stories, gifts, and remittances with relatives who have somehow become strangers? (3) What is the contribution of “encounters of difference” to inducing “social change from below” and how are the new social media (Facebook, Skype etc.) involved here? To gain new insights, we want to combine two strands of social research (Middle East anthropology and sociology, transnational migration studies) in a novel way and draw synergies from a collaborative research effort of Palestinian, Israeli, and German scholars.