Vulnerability and precarity of Palestinian women in the Naqab

Abstract

Many studies have broadly addressed the status of the Naqab/Negev Bedouins in Israel, particularly the status of women. However, women from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who are married to male Bedouin citizens of Israel in the Naqab face a particular experience of vulnerability that has not been sufficiently explored. Based on 26 semi-structured interviews with women from the West Bank and Gaza who are married and living in the Naqab, as well as additional interviews with six psychosocial and legal professionals working with these women, this article describes the vulnerability and precarity of these women within the precarious context of the Naqab. Drawing on Judith Butler’s concept of precarity as a heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement and exposure to violence without protection, this study examines layers of precarity in these women’s lives. These layers are described through an examination of the intersections between Israel’s settler colonial management of Palestinians’ lives and the Palestinian patriarchal management of women’s lives, thereby uncovering how both these controlling structures intensify women’s precariousness and make them the precariat of the Naqab. Further, the study addresses women’s performativity through their self-erasure and creation of invisible communities as a way to survive.