The Dynamics of Coexistence in the Middle East: Negotiating Boundaries Between Christians, Muslims, Jews and Samaritans in Palestine

242 Pages·2013·1.384 MB·English

by  Julia Droeber

Julia Droeber is a social anthropologist at An-Najah University
in Nablus, Palestine. She is the author of Dreaming of Change:
Young Middle Class Women and Social Transformation in Jordan and
has taught at universities in the UK, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, and
Jordan.
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THE DYNAMICS
OF COEXISTENCE
IN THE MIDDLE
EAST
Negotiating Boundaries Between Christians,
Muslims, Jews and Samaritans
Julia Droeber
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Published in 2014 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
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Copyright © 2014 Julia Droeber
The right of Julia Droeber to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by
the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof,
may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
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without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Library of Modern Middle East Studies 135
ISBN 978 1 78076 527 3
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction: Nablus as a religious and cultural space 1
2. Boundaries: Negotiated, embodied, manipulated 40
3. Distinction: The making of “selves” and “Others” 84
4. Gendered taboos: Marriage, hospitality, and dress 129
5. Networks: Exchange, relationships, and space 169
6. Fields: Tracing shifting relations 209
Notes 223
Bibliography 226
Index 233
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1
INTRODUCTION: NABLUS
AS RELIGIOUS AND
CULTURAL SPACE
When I for the first time went to speak to the minister of
the old Anglican church in the Old City of Nablus, I was
surprised to hear that the Church had actually given land to
the Muslim community to build a mosque. As a result, I was
able, while standing in the church yard, to see the minaret of
that particular mosque right opposite. This was not the first
time I was struck by such architectural closeness: my research
stay in Jordan provided me with a similar picture, as I have
explained elsewhere (Droeber 2005). Yet, while the research
I conducted in Jordan focused on Muslims alone, I had come
to Nablus to research the three different religious commu-
nities in the city: Muslims, Christians, and Samaritans. And
while in Jordan I quite naively took this image as a beautiful
symbol for the peaceful coexistence of religious communities
in this part of the so-called Middle East, I had, by the time I
visited that church and that mosque in Nablus, heard rather
conflicting stories about these relationships. The church and
the mosque did, however, become a symbol for this study,
inasmuch as they quite nicely represent the official version of
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2 THE DYNAMICS OF COEXISTENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
coexistence of religious communities in Palestine in general
and Nablus in particular. Spire and minaret sit peacefully next
to each other; tolerating each other’s call/tolling for prayer.
What this image fails to tell is the unofficial or hidden story
of inter-religious relations. In this book, I am trying to disen-
tangle these two stories and thus shedding some light on the
possible reasons behind the coexistence of diverging versions
of social relations. In this chapter, I will briefly introduce the
research project before providing an overview of the historical,
political, and socio-cultural position, in which it is located.
While I would argue that this study can speak to community
relations across Palestine, there are specific aspects that mark
Nablus as a particularly useful fieldwork site. As there cur-
rently exist very few anthropological and ethnographic studies
that deal with religious communities and/or minorities in
Palestine, it is useful to locate such a study in a geographically
circumscribed area, and as such it sees itself as continuing a
time-honoured anthropological tradition. Further studies can
then provide a more comparative framework.
Doing fieldwork in Nablus
I have had this research idea since the time I did my doctoral
research. As I have indicated above, that research was about
the role of religion in the lives of young women and its relation
to social change. By coincidence, and against my own orien-
talist stereotypes (that the so-called Middle East is Muslim),
my research sample included a fair number of Christian young
women. Back then, I was struck by the similarities between
the outlook and practices of Christian and Muslim women,
but did not pursue the issue of similarities and differences any
further. Yet, I was determined to return to this question at a
later point in my research career. This opportunity presented
itself in 2009, when a research grant from the University of
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INTRODUCTION 3
Aberdeen in Scotland, gave me the chance to pursue the issue
in a slightly different context: in Palestine.
The reason for choosing Palestine in general, and Nablus
in particular, are personal to an extent. Firstly, I wanted to
spend some extended period of time in Palestine in order to
get to know it better. Previously, I had only visited briefly.
Secondly, having lived in Dundee in Scotland, a city that is
twinned with Nablus, and being an active member of the
Dundee Nablus Twinning Association, I had some previous
knowledge of Nablus and its religious communities. I reck-
oned that this combination of facts would make it not only a
very interesting research site, but also relatively easy to find
entry to the research community, a problem that always haunts
anthropologists.
Against this background I designed the research project,
initially planned only for two months in the summer of 2009,
with possible return visits. What I did not anticipate at the
time was that I would, during this initial field stay, meet my
future husband and, a year later, get married there and stay for
good. In anthropological terms, this is of course an ideal situ-
ation, long-term fieldwork indeed. This book, then, is based
on two months of intensive fieldwork, as well as two years
of immersion into the community I was hoping to research.
Perhaps it was coincidence that my husband and his family
were from the local Christian community, so that I did, and
continue to have, access to local Christians in Nablus from a
very close range. This gave me the very rare opportunity to
conduct the intimate research I was hoping to achieve, namely
on what was going on “behind the scenes” of inter-religious
relations.
These circumstances, however, also harbour a signifi-
cant problem: the research may be unbalanced in favour of
Christians, as I have a lot more and lot more intimate informa-
tion from them than from and about the Samaritans. Muslim
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4 THE DYNAMICS OF COEXISTENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
research partners are relatively easy to get by, as I deal with
them on a day-to-day basis as neighbours, work colleagues,
students, and friends. The Samaritans, on the other hand,
must be sought out, as they have “removed” themselves from
the scene by moving out of town and into the settlement on
Mount Gerizim. In other words, they only come to town on
business, and have to be visited purposely in their settlement.
This I did only twice. I did, however, have further opportunity
to speak to them on a number of occasions, when their rela-
tively new cultural youth association organised events in the
local university, where I teach sociology and anthropology.
Obviously, this information does not come anywhere near
the ideal of participant observation that anthropologists have
made their favourite fieldwork methodology. In other words,
while the Christian component of the research leans more on
the “participant” side of the continuum, the Samaritan one is
largely “observation”. Only the Muslim element of the triangle
comes close to participant observation.
The research methods I have used in this framework are
standard anthropological fare: participation, observation,
unstructured and narrative interviews, historical research via
books, as well as to a limited extent household analysis, network
analysis, and genealogies. Most of this is detailed in Bernard
(1994), so I do not intend to go into any details here. What
I would like to note, however, is that the research approach I
have applied is strongly influenced by feminist views of the
research process. This has, for instance, been expressed quite
early in editions such as Bell et al. (1993), Reinharz (1992),
Moore (1988), and Altorki and El-Solh (1988). This means
that the way I have done the research, analysed the data,
and written this book reflects such ideas. It also means that
I am very much aware of my position as a female researcher
in a patriarchal society, such as Palestine, and the limits (and
opportunities) this presents. Being married to a local man has
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