The Rural Middle East: Peasant Lives and Modes of Production

223 Pages·1990·7.161 MB·English

by  Kathy Glavanis

The Rural Middle East
Peasant Lives and Modes of
Production
Edited by
Kathy & Pandeli Glavanis
Birzeit University
Zed Books Ltd
London and New Jersey
The Rural Middle East was lint published by Zed Books Ltd,
57 Caledonian Road, London NI 9BU, UK,
and 171 Fust Avenue; Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey07716, USA,
and by Birzeit University in 1990
Copyright • Kathy ft Pandeli Glavanis and
individual contributors, 1969.
Cover design by Andrew Corbett
Typeset by Photosetting, Yeovil, Somerset.
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom
by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn.
All rights reserved.
The Rural Middle East : peasant lives and modes of
production.
1. Middle East. Social conditions
I. Glavanis, Kathy II. Glavanis, Pandeli
956'.06
ISBN 0-86232-770-9
ISBN 0-86232-771-7 Pbk
The Rural Middle East : peasant lives and modes of
production/edited by Kathy A Pandeli Glavanis :
with a preface by Norman Long,
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-86232-770-9 : £29.95 ($55.00 U.S.).—
ISBN 0-86232-771-7 (pbk.) : £8.95 ($16.95 U.S.)
1. Peasantry—Middle East. 2. Middle East—Rural
conditions.
I. Glavanis, Kathy R.G. II. Glavanis, Pandeli M.
D1537.3.R87 1989
305.5'633'0956—dc20
Contents
A Note from Birzeit University vi
Acknowledgements vii
Contributors viii
Introduction 1
1. Modes of Production and Class: Coalitions on the Iranian
Plateau Nico Kielstra 33
2. Agriculture and Labour Transformation in Palestine
Sarah Graham-Brown S3
Developments in tenancy and labour during the Mandate 53
1948-1967: Jordanian rule 56
The impact of the Israeli occupation on agriculture 57
Patterns of labour in agriculture since 1967 61
The wage labour markers impact on villages of the
West Bank 63
A new proletariat? 67
3. From the Fruits of their Labour: the Persistence of
Sharetenancy in the Palestinian Agrarian Economy
Salim Tamari 70
Sharetenancy and ‘semi-feudalism’ 71
Sharetenancy and agricultural development 72
Sharecroppers as a category within the peasantry? 74
The forms of sharetenancy in Palestinian agriculture 76
Three functions of sharecropping arrangements in Palestine 79
Firestone’s conception of sharetenancy as a devolutionary
mechanism 81
Peasant ascendancy or subjugation? 83
Sharetenancy persists with the decline of patronage 87
4. Sharecropping in the North Jordan Valley: Social Relations of
Production and Reproduction Alex Pollock 95
Modes of production and their articulation 95
The setting 100
Articulation and reproduction of sharecropping 114
Conclusions 119
Capitalist Fanning and Small Peasant Hoastholds in Egypt
Georg Stauth 122
The agrarian farm versus the small peasant household 122
The internal 'izba processes and their variations 125
Labour-force formation and the privatization of reproduction 129
The power system of social and private relations 132
Pauperization of milieux of reproduction 138
Commoditization and the Small Peasant Household in Egypt
Kathy Glavanis 142
Productive consumption 143
Personal consumption 155
Mobility of land, credit and labour 157
Household Production and Capitalism: A Case Study of South­
eastern Turkey Zûlkuf Aydin 163
The debate 163
Gisgis 173
Kalhana 174
A typology of Turkish farming 176
Women and Household Production: The Impact of Rural
Transformation in Turkey Deniz Kandiyoti 183
The social organization of the Anatolian peasant household 185
Rural transformation in Turkey: its implications for women 186
Gender Hierarchy in a Palestinian Village: the Case of
Al-Balad Analiese Moors 195
Al-Balad 1920-30: a peasant village 196
Depeasantization, migration and wage work 201
Changes in gender hierarchy: contrasts and contradictions 206
Index 210
Tables
4.1 Village Adult Population by Sex 101
4.2 Dunumage of Crop Production by Crop and Agrarian Class 103
4.3 Form of Landholding by Agrarian Class 103
4.4 Numerical Analysis of Land Holdings, by Village and
Agrarian Class 104
4.5 Juridical Ownership of Means of Production 106
4.6 Real Economic Possession of Means of Production 109
5.1 Internal Functions and External Involvement 129
Figures
3.1. Firestone’s Conception of Sharetenancy as a
Revolutionary’ Mechanism 82
Dedicated to the memory of
’ALI MUKHTAR
A prominent Egyptian socio-political thinker who was central in the
development of many of the ideas and concepts in this book and
unique among Arab intellectuals in his critical and insightful approach
to the study of contemporary agrarian relations in the Middle East.
A Note from Birzeit University
Birzeit University, an independent Palestinian university located in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank, or occupied Palestine, is pleased to have
hosted the 1983 and 1983 conferences on rural sociology, some of whose
papers constitute the present volume. These meetings of local and
international scholars and researchers embodied several facets of our core
concerns: relevant research on critical questions in our area, interaction
between the university and the community, and international exchange and
co-operation.
Today, the university campuses where this exchange took place have
been closed by military order for over 16 months, since 9 January 1988, and
the university's 2,650 students, 210 faculty and 330 staff members are
barred from using any of the facilities. Students and teachers are barred
from classrooms, researchers from the library, and scientists and engineers
from their laboratories. Faculty and students have attempted to continue
education off-campus, but have been harassed by the army and classes have
been banned by the authorities.
The five other Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza are
suffering a similar fate and all schools in the West Bank have been closed
for most of this period. Schoolchildren are thus banned from learning to
read and write. Israeli policy at present can be summed up in one phrase:
'Education is forbidden.* The military authorities have used the closure of
schools and universities as a means to pressure and punish an entire
population. To starve minds is perhaps a more sophisticated punishment
than to embargo food, but it is no less a fundamental violation of a basic
right. Birzeit University hopes the readers of this volume will both enjoy the
fruits of the 1983 symposium and act to ensure that future academic
endeavours may take place in fully functioning independent Palestinian
universities.
Dr Gabi Baramki, Vice-President
Birzeit University
Ramallah
Acknowledgements
The editors wish to thank the Department of Sociology and Social Policy
and the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Durham, the
Institute of Sociology and Social Anthropology at die University of
Amsterdam and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the
University of Birzeit for sponsoring the two conferences which generated
the ideas, arguments and contributions that led to the publication of this
volume. The editors also wish to thank the contributors for waiving their
royalties in order that Birzeit University could undertake the role of co­
publisher. Finally, the editors wish to thank the editors of Review who have
kindly given their permission to reproduce Georg Stauth's article
‘Capitalist fanning and small peasant households in Egypt* which was
initially presented at an earlier conference held in Durham in 1981.
Kathy Glavanis and Pandeli Glavanis
Ramallah
Contributors
Kathy R. G. Glanuife Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, Birzeit University, Palestine.
PaadeU M. Gbmuds Lecturer in the sociology of the Middle East and
Islamic Studies, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of
Durham, United Kingdom.
Nico Kielstra Senior Lecturer in social anthropology, Department of
European and Mediterranean Studies, University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands.
Sarah Graham-Brown Freelance writer on the Middle East, London,
United Kingdom.
Salfan Tamari Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthro­
pology, University of Birzeit, Palestine.
Alex Pollock Project Co-ordinator, United Nations Association Inter­
national Service, Palestine.
Georg Stauth Lecturer, Sociology of Development Research Centre,
University of Bielefeld, Federal Republic of Germany.
Zfilkfif Aydin Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Policy,
University of Durham, United Kingdom.
Deniz Kandiyoti Senior Lecturer, Social Sciences Division, Richmond
College, United Kingdom.
Annettes Moors Lecturer, Department of European and Mediterranean
Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Introduction
Kathy and Pandeli Glavanis
The continuing failure of capitalist relations of production to become
generalized within Third World countries has in recent years prompted a
re-examination of the nature of capitalism and its ability to dissolve and
supplant non-capitalist forms of production. This theoretical issue has
constituted one of the primary concerns of those scholars who focus on the
study of underdeveloped societies and in particular of agrarian relations.
This volume reflects the recent introduction of such debates in the study
of the rural Middle East and as such constitutes an important landmark in
this field. Middle East studies, and in particular the study of rural society, is
characterized by a paucity of any serious theoretical and conceptual debate
and analysis. The predominant functionalist-orientalist paradigm and a
small, but influential, number of uncritical ‘Leninist’ interpretations
constitute virtually the sole models employed in rural social analysis.
This volume also constitutes a theoretical contribution in so far as it
contains important reinterpretations of agrarian relations that are based
upon a reformulation of conventional Marxism and its application to
contemporary Middle Eastern social reality. The significance of the
contributions derives from the fact that they employ categories originating
from within the discourse of historical materialism in order to analyse and
discuss such phenomena as the ‘persistence* of non-wage forms of labour
organization, ‘traditional’ and patriarchal household division of labour,
and informal co-operation. Whilst conventional historical materialism
tends to generalize about the effects of the expansion of capitalism on non­
capitalist relations, this volume locates such relations at the centre of their
analysis of capitalist expansion. In fact, the dynamic reproduction of non­
capitalist relations within the historical process of capitalist expansion
constitutes the major theoretical problem under consideration in this
volume.
This is in distinct contrast to the functionalist-orientalist paradigm
which sees such phenomena as reflecting essentialist characteristics of Arab
and Islamic society, and the ‘Leninist* tradition which either ignores them
or views them as merely ‘transitional’. Nevertheless, the contributions in
this volume do not primarily engage in a debate with the conventional
functionalist-orientalist paradigm or with the ‘Leninist* interpretations,
2 Introduction
but focus both substantively and theoretically on the analysis of the various
non-capitalist relations which tend to characterize socio-economic
relations in most parts of the rural Middle East. Thus, this volume
represents an important paradigm shift within rural Middle East studies.
The contributions, however, do not reflect a single elaborated theoretical
framework, but instead explore several issues and problematics which
together, we would argue, constitute a sound basis for the further
development of rural social theory.
The focus of the empirical investigations in the attempt to recon­
ceptualize agrarian relations is at the level of the productive unit, which is
usually household-centred. Particular attention is given to analysis of the
internal organization of these household-based units of production, with
the nature of the labour process and gender-related issues constituting the
primary concerns. Similarly, an analysis of the various factors affecting
decision-making by peasants in their struggle to guarantee their livelihood
is an important concern of the research. This is premised on a theoretical
assumption that the reproduction of these household-based units of
production does not derive from capitalist calculations, but from a form of
calculation which attempts to realise a certain level of income in cash and
kind, the specifics of which depend upon the changing socio-economic
circumstances within which the peasant producers are located.
The household, while it may be the basic unit around which production
and reproduction revolves, is differentiated internally with regard to the
production process and the distribution of the product according to gender
and age criteria. The specific nature of such differentiation is seen to
constitute a central aspect in the reproduction of these social units and an
important object of research. Once more, the structuration of these
relations is assumed to be dynamic rather than essentialist and thus
concern is shown for an understanding of processes such as the changing
relationship between the sexes. For example, the absence of males from the
household, due to labour migration, is likely to alter significantly the status
and role of females in the reproduction cycle of the unit of production.
Despite the centrality of the household as the predominant axis around
which these interpretations revolve, it is recognized that household units
are not autonomous nor isolated. Individual peasant households are
invariably enmeshed in a whole series of relationships with other units of
production, individuals and institutions, which are central to the process of
reproduction of the households themselves. It is necessary to delineate the
nature of these relationships which may be based, for instance, on kinship,
on living in the same neighbourhood or on cultivating plots of land in close
proximity. Such relationships may be within the geographic confines of the
village, or the larger rural locality (a neighbouring village), or they may
reach beyond to the national capital or even outside the boundaries of the
nation state. Typical examples are a son or daughter living in the city or a
relative sending remittances from abroad. Once more, the nature of such
relationships is assumed to be dynamic and hence their effect upon the