Overview

Grounded in ethnographic research over five years in Palestinian villages near Bethlehem, Olive Growing in Palestine follows the lives of four families and fifty other individuals involved with olive growing as a form of resistance. Providing a counterpoint to Eurocentric studies of daily lives and labor, Simaan shares perspectives from Global South scholarship, which offers alternate analysis of why people do what they do and how they respond to adversity. The book focuses on two questions. First, how has Israeli settler colonialism affected olive farmers’ daily lives? And second, how do olive farmers respond to the restrictions on their daily activities imposed by structures and policies that aim to divorce them from their land and trees? Olive Growing in Palestine explores a collection of values and action that shape, and are shaped by, the daily lives of these farmers: Sutra (doing for being), ‘Awna (doing for belonging), and Sumud (doing for belonging and becoming). These values recalibrate and expand our understanding of Global South knowledge and practice. That recalibration gives communities, activists, and scholars new tools to counter global forces of ethnic-based discrimination, imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, and the human-made climate crisis.

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9780820374871

Table of Contents

Reviews

The topic and questions presented in Olive Growing in Palestine are timely, the research material is excellent, and the argument is fundamentally sound. It offers an important contribution to the disciplines of occupational therapy and occupational science. But more importantly for me as someone outside of those disciplines, the book contributes to our understanding of daily resistance and decolonial epistemologies. -- Muhannad Ayyash * author of Lordship and Liberation in Palestine-Israel: The Promise of Decolonial Sovereignties * Olive Growing in Palestine is essential reading for students of social justice and human rights, indeed, everyone concerned with Middle Eastern politics in these unsettled times. It shows the human face of people struggling to maintain age-old ways of living in ongoing conflict situations. -- Clare Hocking * Auckland University of Technology * Olive Growing in Palestine not only ignites a sense of urgency in the readers, but it also offers deep insights and useful practical pointers regarding how collective agency can be effectively exercised to survive, to resist dehumanization, and to maintain a sense of dignity under sustained oppressive conditions. -- Frank Kronenberg, PhD * Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town * Olive Growing in Palestine is like no other, not just for its lyrical text but for its accuracy and for its documentation of concepts being faded away by colonial and genocidal forces. In a world where Palestinians are described as uncivilized, Juman documents the poetry and tenderness of everyday life in Palestine, where care and well-being are communal efforts. Through his analysis of terms like Sutra and 'Awna, he provides a document for the ages that highlights indigenous ways of life as the true path to wellness. I am grateful that this book has been written. As someone born and raised in the culture of Sutra, Sumud, and 'Awna, I hope the whole world reads this book as an inspiration for how to be human in an inhumane world that sells self-help books as remedies for ailments produced by self-centered approaches to healing. I want to buy a copy for everyone I know. -- Vivien Sansour * artist and founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library *

Olive Growing in Palestine is essential reading for students of social justice and human rights, indeed, everyone concerned with Middle Eastern politics in these unsettled times. It shows the human face of people struggling to maintain age-old ways of living in ongoing conflict situations.--Clare Hocking ""Auckland University of Technology"" Olive Growing in Palestine not only ignites a sense of urgency in the readers, but it also offers deep insights and useful practical pointers regarding how collective agency can be effectively exercised to survive, to resist dehumanization, and to maintain a sense of dignity under sustained oppressive conditions.--Frank Kronenberg, PhD ""Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town"" The topic and questions presented in Olive Growing in Palestine are timely, the research material is excellent, and the argument is fundamentally sound. It offers an important contribution to the disciplines of occupational therapy and occupational science. But more importantly for me as someone outside of those disciplines and not that familiar with them, the book contributes to our understanding of daily resistance and decolonial epistemologies.--Muhannad Ayyash ""author of Lordship and Liberation in Palestine-Israel: The Promise of Decolonial Sovereignties""

The topic and questions presented in Olive Growing in Palestine are timely, the research material is excellent, and the argument is fundamentally sound. It offers an important contribution to the disciplines of occupational therapy and occupational science. But more importantly for me as someone outside of those disciplines, the book contributes to our understanding of daily resistance and decolonial epistemologies. -- Muhannad Ayyash * author of Lordship and Liberation in Palestine-Israel: The Promise of Decolonial Sovereignties * Olive Growing in Palestine is essential reading for students of social justice and human rights, indeed, everyone concerned with Middle Eastern politics in these unsettled times. It shows the human face of people struggling to maintain age-old ways of living in ongoing conflict situations. -- Clare Hocking * Auckland University of Technology * Olive Growing in Palestine not only ignites a sense of urgency in the readers, but it also offers deep insights and useful practical pointers regarding how collective agency can be effectively exercised to survive, to resist dehumanization, and to maintain a sense of dignity under sustained oppressive conditions. -- Frank Kronenberg, PhD * Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town *

Author Information

JUMAN SIMAAN (he/him) is an associate professor of occupational therapy at Edinburgh Napier University. He is an associate editor at the Journal of Occupational Science, and he works with communities in Palestine and in Scotland, where he currently lives, on issues of social justice, food sovereignty, and land rights.

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