(Un)veiled bodies of resistance: How women in the Occupied West Bank village of Budrus oscillate organised and everyday resistance practices against the Israeli occupation since the ending of the Second Intifada in 2005

Abstract

This thesis contributes to bridging the theoretical gap between practices of organised and everyday resistance by analysing the case study of resistance practices among women in the Occupied West Bank village of Budrus. Previous research has failed to systematically link more organised forms of resistance to acts of everyday resistance. Taking an individualist, interpretivist approach with a focus on practices and narratives, this thesis answers the following research question: How are practices of everyday resistance oscillating with organised resistance practices of Palestinian women in the West Bank village of Budrus since the ending of the Second Intifada in 2005? Based on fieldwork observations and in-depth interviews, ten core forms of resistance are identified: the weekly Friday protests, responses to ‘alarm calls’ and Facebook activism (as organised resistance) and Friday morning ‘picnics’, farming the land and the annual olive harvest, checkpoints and the refusal of immobility, motherhood, education and narratives and creating counter safe spaces (as everyday resistance). By systematically analysing these resistance practices through the four dimensions of repertoires, relationships, spatialisation and temporalisation, this research explains how these forms of resistance synthesise in social life. This thesis argues that a distinction between organised and everyday resistance does not, however, sufficiently allow us to understand how women oscillate between different resistance practices. The concepts of ‘veiled bodies of resistance’ and ‘overt bodies of resistance’ are hence introduced. Urgency in the form of a direct threat to the land or another villager are required for women to move between these two roles and to negotiate this role shift with the men in their community. By critically reviewing existing notions of resistance through a gendered lens, this research adds a more feminist perspective on female agency in conflict and resistance.