Everyday forms of resistance among olive-growing and shepherding communities in Palestine

Simaan, Juman

Abstract

here is a scarcity of Global South perspectives in scholarship relating to meaningful everyday activity and its relationship to human well-being and quality of life. Palestinians, living under settler colonialism, transform their daily occupations into acts of resistance, which provide alternatives to western concepts and practices and have the potential to be shared and exchanged with other Global South countries as a means to achieve daily justice. The chapter analyses decolonial ethnographic data from a study that explores how Israel's military occupation and settler-colonialism influence the everyday lives of olive-growing and shepherding communities in the West Bank of Palestine. It compares the findings of this study with Global North concepts such as occupation (meaningful daily activity), social and occupational justice, and with relevant Global South concepts and practices from Africa and the Americas.

Sutra-‘Awna-Sumud as everyday forms of resistance are shown to be means of doing and knowing that support farmers and shepherds in confronting the structural injustices caused by settler-colonialism and the segregation of communities from others and from their daily activities.

This chapter contributes to decolonising scholarship and praxis, addressing social and occupational justice through analysing practices and concepts from Palestine. This will help in expanding knowledge and models of practice to include pluriversal ways of life and values from the Global South, such as Ubuntu, Everyday Forms of Resistance, Living Well, and Mutual Aid.

Citation

Simaan, J. (2025). Everyday forms of resistance among olive-growing and shepherding communities in Palestine. In N. Deb, M. Nair, & G. W. Muschert (Eds.), Handbook of Social Justice in the Global South (24-39). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803921150.00010

• Publication Date: Mar 20, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 17, 2025
• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Pages: 24-39
• Book Title: Handbook of Social Justice in the Global South
• ISBN: 9781803921143
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803921150.00010
• Keywords: Everyday forms of resistance; Olive growing; Shepherding; Palestine; Social justice; Occupational justice
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/4176382