Palestinian Research Research Articles

Democratic Transition: South African Sociology

Like other sociologists in the Arab World, Pal estinian sociologists have an obsessive fascination with quantitative surveys as markers of scientific authenticity. This is partly in response to the local audience, which perceives social science predominantly in terms of facts and hard numbers, but it also fulfills the need for basic data on Palestinian society and its institutions. Decades of colonial rule by Israel have denied Palestinian researchers access to information from public institutions, and, even today, there is no population frame available to enable social scientists to construct scientific sampling procedures. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, survey questionnaires have always been the preferred research method, but these have been produced largely without adequate regard to sampling procedures even on the micro level. Nevertheless, a limited number of such surveys have been able to act as baseline data for purposes of historical projections, as well as for regional comparisons. In 1992 a group of Norwegian and Palestinian social scientists constructed a comprehensive sampling frame and completed the first comprehensive household survey of the West Bank and Gaza population (Heiberg et al. 1993). Since then, a pivotal role in survey research has been played by the newly established Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. In its short history of less than three years, the PCBS has managed to produce a large number of statistical reports (more than 80 publications by the spring of 1997) that cover the whole range of social data across all Palestinian districts: criminal policy records, educational data, labor surveys, household composition, fertility patterns, etc. Of particular relevance to sociologists has been a very ambitious demographic survey of the population of the West Bank and Gaza whose results are still being published (PCBS 1996). It is clear, however, that a proper population frame for sampling, and substantial data for systematic analysis of attributes of the Palestinian population, will not be available until a census of housing and populations is conducted. Such a census is being planned for 1998.

Nuha Salib Salibi: On Car-Bombs and People

On the 5th of February 1983 a car bomb exploded outside the offices of the Palestinian Research Centre in Beirut. Many of people were killed and wounded. They called it the massacre of Hamra. Many were to follow, more devastating and violent, but in the collective memory of Beirut, this particular incident remained horrific as the first of its kind.