Description

By (author) RA Kanaaneh; By (author) Kanaaneh Rhoda Ann; Foreword by Ashrawi Hanan

Short /annotation
Rhoda Kanaaneh examines the changing notions of sexuality, family and reproduction among Palestinians living in Israel. She contextualizes the politics of reproduction within contemporary issues affecting Palestinians and places these issues against the backdrop of a dominant Israeli society.

In this rich, evocative study, Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh examines the changing notions of sexuality, family, and reproduction among Palestinians living in Israel. Distinguishing itself amid the media maelstrom that has homogenized Palestinians as “terrorists,” this important new work offers a complex, nuanced, and humanized depiction of a group rendered invisible despite its substantial size, now accounting for nearly twenty percent of Israel”s population. Groundbreaking and thought-provoking, Birthing the Nation contextualizes the politics of reproduction within contemporary issues affecting Palestinians, and places these issues against the backdrop of a dominant Israeli society.

Table of contents
List of illustrations Foreword by Hanan Ashrawi Acknowledgments Introduction. Placing Chapter 1. Babies and Boundaries Chapter 2. Luxurious Necessities Chapter 3. Fertile Differences Chapter 4. Modernizing the Body Chapter 5. Son Preference Conclusion Bibliography Index

Review quote
“This well-written and theoretically informed book remains faithful to the reality of the politics of reproduction in Galilee-indeed to the reality of Galilee society. Throughout, the narrative rings true. Kanaaneh argues compellingly and convincingly that understanding reproductive behavior clarifies how Palestinians within Israel negotiate the tortured path of self-definition and definition.”-Rashid Khalidi, author of Palestinian Identity: The Construction of a Modern National Consciousness; “Birthing the Nation provides the first serious and comprehensive treatment of an issue full of intense meaning. Kanaaneh sets her unique study against a backdrop of Israeli political arithmetic, Palestinian subordination, nationalism, gender culture, globalization and modernity. Women”s bodies and reproductive potential are the sites on which this demographic contest is played out. Therefore, this book has relevance and resonance far beyond the ethnographic site.”-Julie Peteet, author of Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement

Biographical note
Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute”s Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies and the Mediterranean Programme.

Flap / cover copy
“Birthing the Nation provides the first serious and comprehensive treatment of an issue full of intense meaning. Kanaaneh sets her unique study against a backdrop of Israeli political arithmetic, Palestinian subordination, nationalism, gender culture, globalization and modernity. Women”s bodies and reproductive potential are the sites on which this demographic contest is played out. Therefore, this book has relevance and resonance far beyond the ethnographic site.”—Julie Peteet, author of Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement

“This well-written and theoretically informed book remains faithful to the reality of the politics of reproduction in Galilee-indeed to the reality of Galilee society. Throughout, the narrative rings true. Kanaaneh argues compellingly and convincingly that understanding reproductive behavior clarifies how Palestinians within Israel negotiate the tortured path of self-definition and definition.”—Rashid Khalidi, author of Palestinian Identity: The Construction of a Modern National Consciousness

“The [Palestinian-Israeli] conflict that shapes this book is sadly alive and indeed booming louder than ever. News broadcasts around the world