Doctoral Dissertation Research: Gender, Migration, and New Spaces for Palestinian Women

移徙通常被视为一种国际经验或从农村到城市的流动。巴勒斯坦的移民不符合这两种模式，而是表现出自己独特的移民流动和模式。这是由于巴勒斯坦领土内的流动受到限制，这反过来又限制了经济潜力，并极大地改变了整个巴勒斯坦经济。过去，这些移民流向巴勒斯坦领土以外。最近的一种适应策略是巴勒斯坦人向内部迁移到拉马拉，这个城镇迅速成为巴勒斯坦领土事实上的首都，同时也是西岸的经济和文化中心。在最近的拉马拉移民中，接受调查的是来自西岸各地的受过高等教育的单身年轻女性。这些年轻妇女的出现表明对巴勒斯坦社会的限制已开始在多大程度上改变巴勒斯坦妇女的性别角色和行为，因为这些妇女在摆脱父权家庭的新的社会和经济空间中发挥自己的作用。该项目通过探索移徙和离家生活的行为如何改变家庭角色、关系和年轻妇女的身份，审查巴勒斯坦经济变化对妇女的影响。关注移民的规模和独特的性别方面是一个主要的研究目标。所采用的方法是用阿拉伯语对年轻妇女本人、她们的家庭和其他关键线人进行半结构化访谈。访谈将辅以参与性观察。本博士论文研究结合了女性主义地理学、移民研究和中东地区研究的思想和理论。重点是理解性别和其他权力关系是如何在家庭、公民社会、民族国家和全球经济等不同尺度上构成的。巴勒斯坦妇女生活在不断变化的政治气氛中，这种气氛每天甚至每小时都在变化，对她们生活的深入研究将为整个移徙和性别研究提供信息。很少有人注意到单身的巴勒斯坦妇女，也很少有人注意到她们的国内移徙选择和结果是如何受到对流动的政治限制这一更大背景的制约的。这种新的移徙模式为研究性别与移徙之间的关系以及基于地点的身份的形成和家庭和家庭的结构提供了机会。对巴勒斯坦妇女的个案研究对当前的移徙模式是如何形成和受到个人无法控制的因素的影响有很多启示，尽管它们仍然可以说明赋予妇女权力和流动的途径。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将为学生建立强大的独立研究生涯提供支持。

Migration is often examined as either an international experience or as rural to urban movement. Migration in Palestine fits neither of these models, but rather displays its own distinct migration flow and pattern. This is due to restrictions on mobility within the Palestinian territories, which in turn have limited economic potential and dramatically altered the Palestinian economy as a whole. In the past, these migration flows have been to outside the Palestinian territories. A more recent adaptive strategy is for Palestinians to move internally to Ramallah, a town quickly emerging as the de facto capital of the Palestinian territories, and as such, the economic and cultural center of the West Bank. Among these recent Ramallah migrants is the population under examination: highly educated, single young women from various parts of the West Bank. The presence of these young women indicates the extent to which restrictions on Palestinian society have begun to alter gender roles and behaviors among Palestinian women, as these women exert themselves in a new social and economic space removed from patriarchal households. The project examines the ramifications of the changing Palestinian economy for women by exploring the ways in which the act of migration, and of living away from home, transforms household roles, relationships and young women's identities. The focus on the scale of the migration and on the unique gendered aspects of it is a primary research goal. Methods employed will be semi-structured interviewing in Arabic of the young women themselves, their families and other key informants. The interviews will be supplemented with participant observation. This doctoral dissertation research combines ideas and theory from feminist geography, migration studies, and Middle East areas studies. The emphasis is on understanding how gender and other power relations are constituted at varying scales such as the household, civil-society, the nation-state and the global economy. Palestinian women live in a constantly changing political atmosphere, which can vary from day to day and even hour to hour, and an in-depth examination of their lives will inform migration and gender studies at large. Little attention has focused on single Palestinian women, or on the ways in which their internal migration choices and outcomes are conditioned by the larger context of political restraints on mobility. This new migration pattern is an opportunity to study the relationship between gender and migration in conjunction with the formation of place-based identities and constructions of home and household. The case study of Palestinian women has much to teach about how current patterns of migration form and are influenced by factors beyond an individual's control, although they can still illustrate a route to women's empowerment and mobility. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a student to establish a strong independent research career.