Women, water and memory : recasting lives in Palestine / by Nefissa Naguib.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Naguib, Nefissa, 1960-

Series:

Women and gender, the Middle East and the Islamic world ; v. 6.

Women and gender, the Middle East and the Islamic world, 1570-7628 ; v. 6

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women, Palestinian Arab--Social life and customs.

Women, Palestinian Arab.

Women storytellers--Palestine.

Women storytellers.

Women, Palestinian Arab--Social conditions.

Women and religion--Palestine.

Women and religion.

Manners and customs.

Physical Description:

xii, 173 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2009.

Summary:

This book tells a different story about water. Against the backdrop of the end of the Ottoman Empire to the Palestinian uprisings, old Palestinian women recount life before and after piped water. While talking about fetching and managing household water, women also talked about being women. Women, Water and Memory speaks of many different lives. We hear stories about women's own strength and beauty, and about the woman who married a man whose ugly face made her sick. While one woman married the man "she cared for", another was relieved that her husband died when she was too old to be forced to remarry. We learn about the joy they feel each time they dance at a wedding, the sheer satisfaction of lighting a cigarette, the loyalty and shared despair towards families with members in prison, and about the tears of sorrow at each death and the delight at each birth.

Contents:

Glossary of Arabic Terms Often Used by the Women or Discussed in the Text vii

Fetching Water xv

Being in the World 2

Households 4

Society of Women 6

The Women and Their Stories 11

Things Have Been Said Before 17

Recasting Lives 21

What They Remember 23

Crossing Checkpoints 27

When They Stare Back at You 28

Outline and Rationale 31

Part 1 About Musharafah

Chapter 1 Musharafah 37

Countryside 38

Cast in Stone 41

New Homes 44

Red Village 46

Chapter 2 Palestine-A Contested Site 57

Part 2 Life Worlds

Chapter 3 Women, Water and Memory 69

Um Muhammad 69

Um Qays 78

Um Fathi 83

Um Khaled 88

Um Jihad 94

Um Ali 97

Samiha 100

Um Ibrahim 101

Chapter 4 Being in the World 105

Daughters, Wives, Mothers, Grandmothers 106

"This is the Way We Do Things Here" 108

Family 114

To Know God 116

Disruptions 123

Chapter 5 Women and Places Outside 125

Clean Water is a Good Thing 125

Place, History, Tradition 128

Leaving the Spring 129

Male and Female Water 133

Stories about Stones 134

Chapter 6 Telling Stories 139

Stories 140

Repositories of Memory 143

Life Worlds 147.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [163]-167) and index.

ISBN:

9789004167780

9004167781

OCLC:

259716095