PNINA MOTZAFI-HALLER
Professional Activities
(a). Anthropological field research
2005-2008
2000-2004
1997-2003
1981-2000
1975-1977
Israel: “Cleaning Labor in Israel” An interdisciplinary research project in
collaboration with Bar Ilan Sociologist Dr. Orly Benjamin and Social
Historian Haifa University Prof Debbie Bernstein. Interviews and participant
observation in Sde Boker, Yeruham, Dimona, Ofakim and Beer Sheva. The
three year project is funded by the Israeli Academy of Science.
Israel: Ethnographic research in the Negev development town of Yeruham
exploring gender relations and social change. Research focuses on the process
of increasing religiosity in the community. The Israeli Academy of Science
and the International Research Institute on Jewish Women at Brandeis
University funded this project.
Burkina Faso: Research coordinator in a collaborative research team that
included two Burkinabe and one Dutch scholar. The project entitled:
“Farmers’ Participation in Sustainable Development: A Socially Sensitive
Model for Intervention” was financed by The Netherlands-Israel Research
Program (NIRP). As a research coordinator, I oversaw the ongoing
administrative work linking four research institutions in Africa, Holland and
Israel. I also engaged in active field research in the Northwestern regions of
Burkina Faso, where problems of severe desertification due to soil erosion
were the focus of research and sacademically supervised the research work of
three Burkinabe graduate students.
Botswana: Intensive field research in the Tswapong Region on the links
between patterns of control over social space and collective identities. (2
months in 1981, 15 months 1982-1984, summer 1993, summer 2000).
Israel: Ethnographic research (with Dr. Yitzhak Elam) among Georgian
Jewish immigrants to Israel in the community of Ashkelon.
(b) Positions in academic administration
1999-present Member of the steering committee of the Humphrey Institute for Social Research,
Ben Gurion University.
2004-5 Organizer (with Dr. Daniel de-Malach) the yearly seminar of Humphrey on the topic of
“Identities and Social Class”
1997 BGU Faculty host of Prof John Comaroff on a President grant for Distinguished visitors.
Organized Prof Comaroff mini-course at BGU and a series of lectures at five
Israeli universities.
1998 BGU Faculty host of Prof. Homi Bhabha on a President grant for Distinguished visitors.
Organized a series of Prof. Bhabha’s lectures and hosted him and his family
during his 10 day first visit in Israel.
(c ) Professional functions outside universities/institutions
2005-6 Head of professional committee that evaluates research submissions for the Israeli
Academy of Science.
1999-2001 Member of the board of the Israeli Association for Gender and Feminist Studies
Pnina Motzafi-Haller-
1998-2001 Invited member of a professional forum in Social Science at Van Leer Institute,
Jerusalem
(d) Editor or Member of editorial boards of scientific journals
Acting co-editor in 2006-7 and co-editor (with Dr. Michael Feige) beginning in summer 2007
of the only Israeli English-language social science journal Hagar: International Social Studies
Review.
Member of editorial board of Political and Legal Anthropology Review (U.S.A.) 1993-1995
Member of editorial board of Te’orya Ve’Bikoreth ( Theory and Criticism) (Israel) 1999-2004
Member of editorial board of Hagar: International Social Studies Review (Israel) 1999-present
Member of editorial board of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power (U.S.A.) 20002005
(c) Reviewer
Professional Journals (* indicates more than one review)
Women’s Studies International Forum
*American Ethnologist
*Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power
Social Politics: International Studies of Gender, State and Society.
*Cultural Anthropologist
Political and Legal Anthropology Review
*Te’orya Ve’Bikoreth (Theory and Criticism)
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History
*Megamot
Israeli Sociology
Tarbut Democratit (Democratic Culture)
*Hagar: International Social Studies Review
Book Publishers
Cambridge University Press
The University of Chicago Press
Magness Press, Israel
Bar Ilan University Press, Israel
Research Granting Institutions
The Israeli Science Foundation (Ha’Akademya HaYisraelit Le’Madaiim)
Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute
The Ministry of Science (Misrad Hamada)
The Center for Research and Advancement of Women’s Health, Ben Gurion University.
The Center for Bedouin Studies, Ben Gurion University.
Scientific publications
* indicates publication since 2003
Books
Authored:
1. P. Motzafi-Haller (2002) Fragmented Worlds, Coherent Lives: the
Politics of Difference in Botswana. (London and Westport, Connecticut:
Bergin & Garvey) 215 pages.
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Edited:
2. *P. Motzafi-Haller (ed.) (2005) Women in Agriculture in the Middle East.
Adlershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Press.(English) 177 pages.
3. * Pnina Motzafi-Haller, (with Abootbool Guy, Lev Greenberg, editors names
appear in alphabetic order) (eds.) (2005) Kolot Mizrahiyim: Towards a New
Mizrahi Discourse on Israeli Society and Culture. Tel Aviv: Masada Press;
(Hebrew). 438 pages.
4. * P. Motzafi-Haller. (Academic editor). (2004) A Short History of the Zionist
Underground Movement in Iraq by Shlomo Sheena, Yaacov Elazar and
Emanuel Nahtomi. Jerusalem: Research Institute of the Zionist-pioneer
Underground Movement in Iraq; (English).
5. P. Motzafi-Haller (with Hanan Hever and Yehouda Shenhav) (eds.) (2002)
Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel’s Ethnicity. Tel Aviv:
Van Leer Institute and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad Publishing House; (Hebrew) 328
pages.
6. P. Motzafi-Haller (with A. and J. Barnard) (eds.) (1993) Social Relations in a
Changing Southern Africa. Edinburgh: Center of African Studies, Edinburgh
University.(English)
Refereed articles in journals and books
1. *Eva Rathgeber and P. Motzafi-Haller 2006 “Engendering Water in the
Middle East” In Clive Lipchin, Eric Pallant, Danielle Saranga, and
Allyson Amster (eds.) Integrated Water Resources Management and
Security in the Middle East. Springer and AK/Nato Publishing Unit.
2. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2006 “Reading Bell Hooks in Israel: Radical
Feminism, Critical Thinking, and the New Sisterhood” In Yanay, N.,
El-Or, T. Lubin, O., and Nave, H. (eds). Introduction to Gender
Studies. Tel Aviv: Open University (Hebrew).
3. * P. Motzafi-Haller, Klaus Keuthmann and Rainer Vossen 2006
“Setswana Dialects and Inter-Dialectal Variation in the Republic of
Botswana: Setswapong” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft (English) 102:7-42.
4. *P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “The Politics of Academic Teaching in Israel:
How War Affects Our Teaching of Ethnicity, Gender and Social
History” Journal of Women’s History 17:4 pp. 170-175.
5. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “A Critical Assessment of Research on Gender
in the Israeli Rural Sector” In Motzafi-Haller (ed.) Women and
Agriculture in the Middle East (Adlershot, Hampshire, England
Ashgate Press). pp. 95-117
6. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “Introducing Gender into a Regional
Agricultural Development Project in the Middle East: Professional and
Political Challenges” In Motzafi-Haller (ed) Women and Agriculture in
the Middle East (Adlershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Press). pp.
1-13.
7. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “The Politics of Producing Knowledge in
Development: Gender in Rural production.” In Motzafi-Haller (ed.)
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Women and Agriculture in the Middle East (Adlershot, Hampshire,
England Ashgate Press). Pp 167-174.
8. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “An Outline for a Critical Feminist
Historiography in Israel” In Tova Cohen and Shaul Regev Isha
MeMizrach, Isha BaMirach (Women of the East, Women in the East)
(Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press) (Hebrew) pp 267-283.
9. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “New Challenges in Historiographic and
Sociological Research of Oriental Jewish Women” in Tova Cohen and
Shaul Regev (eds) Isha MeMizrach, Isha BaMirach (Women of the
East, Women in the East) pp 9-22.
10. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2004 “Religiosity, Gender and Class in a Desert
Town” in Yossi Yona and Yehuda Goodman (eds) In the Maelstorm of
Identities: A Critical Look at Religion and Secularity in Israel. Tel
Aviv: The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz HaMeuchad
Press. (Hebrew) pp. 316-346
11. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2004 “Crafting Multilayered Identities in Israel” In
Erela Shadmi and Chava Frankfort-Nachmias (eds.) Sapho in the Holy
Land: Lesbian Existance and Dilemmas in Contemporary Israel. (New
York: SUNY Press) (English) pp.135-151.
12. * P. Motzafi-Haller 2004 “Negotiating Difference in Israeli
Scholarship: Towards A New Feminist Discourse” In Adriana Kemp,
David Newman, Uri Ram and Oren Yiftachel (eds.) Israelis in Conflict
(Portland, Oragon: Sussex Academic Press). (English) pp. 162-188.
13. P. Motzafi-Haller 2002 “Mizrahi Intellectuals 1946-1951: Ethnic
Identity and Its Boundaries.” In Hever H., Shenhav Y., and P. MotzafiHaller (eds.) in Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel’s
Ethnicity. Tel Aviv: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and HaKibbutz
HaMeuchad Publishing House. (Hebrew) pp. 152-191.
14. Pnina Motzafi-Haller 2002 (with Hanan Hever and Yehouda Shenhav)
“Introduction” in Hever H., Shenhav Y., and P. Motzafi-Haller (eds.) in
Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel’s Ethnicity. Tel
Aviv: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad
Publishing House. (Hebrew). pp 9-14.
15. Pnina Motzafi-Haller 2002 (with H. Hever, Y. Yona, A. Khazoom, M.
Amor, A. Kemp and Y. Shenhav) “Mizrahi Epistemology in Israel” In
Hever H., Shenhav Y., and P. Motzafi-Haller (eds.) in Mizrahim in
Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel’s Ethnicity. Tel Aviv: Van
Leer Jerusalem Institute and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad Publishing House
(Hebrew). pp 15-27.
16. Pnina Motzafi-Haller 2002 (with H. Hever, Y. Yona, A. Khazoom, M.
Amor, A. Kemp and Y. Shenhav) “Mechanisms of Production of the
Canonical Knowledge on Mizrahim in Israel”. In Hever H., Shenhav
Y., and P. Motzafi-Haller (eds.) in Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical
Observation into Israel’s Ethnicity. Tel Aviv: Van Leer Jerusalem
Institute and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad Publishing House. (Hebrew) pp
288-306.
17. P. Motzafi-Haller 2001 “Research on Women in Rural Israel: The
Gender Gap.” Journal of Rural Cooperation. (English) 29,1: 3-25.
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18. P. Motzafi-Haller 2001 “Scholarship, Identity and Power: Mizrahi
Women in Israel.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 26,
3: 697-734.
19. P. Motzafi-Haller 2000 “Reading Arab Feminist Discourses: A
Postcolonial Challenge to Israeli Feminism” Hagar: International
Social Studies Review. 1,2: 63-89.
20. P. Motzafi-Haller 1998 “Beyond Textual Analysis: Practice, Interacting
Discourses and the Experience of Distinction in Botswana.” Cultural
Anthropology 13,4: 522-548.
21. P. Motzafi-Haller 1997 “Native Anthropologists and the Politics of
Representation.” In Reed-Danahay D. (ed.) Auto/ethnography:
Rewriting the Self and the Social. Oxford: Berg Publishers, pp. 169195.
22. P. Motzafi-Haller 1997 “You Have an Authentic Voice:
Anthropological Research and the Politics of Representation.” Teoriyah
U’bikoret. 11, pp. 81-99. (Hebrew)
23. P. Motzafi-Haller 1997 “The Politics of Space and Place in EastCentral Botswana.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 31, 2, pp.
229-268.
24. P. Motzafi-Haller 1996 “Power, Identity, and History in Central
Botswana.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 2, 4. pp.
325-350.
25. P. Motzafi-Haller 1995 “Liberal Discourses of Cultural Diversity and
Hegemonic Constructions of Difference: Basarwa in Contemporary
Botswana.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 18, 2. pp. 91-104.
26. P. Motzafi-Haller 1994 “When Bushmen are Known as Basarwa:
Gender, Ethnicity and Differentiation in Rural Botswana.” American
Ethnologist 21, 3, pp. 539-563.
27. P. Motzafi-Haller 1994 “Historical Narratives as Political Discourses of
Identity.” Journal of Southern African Studies 20, 3, pp. 417-433.
28. P. Motzafi-Haller 1993 Commentary on J. Solway and Richard Lee’s
“Foragers, Genuine or Spurious?” Current Anthropology 31, 2, pp.
132-33.
Non-refereed chapters in books
(1) * P. Motzafi-Haller 2006 “Judaism as Culture: An Anthropological Perspective” In
Teaching Judaism as Culture in Israeli Universities (Tel Aviv; The Yitzhak
Rabin Center) pp 31-37.
(2) * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “Introduction” In Pnina Motzafi-Haller, (with Abootbool
Guy, Lev Greenberg) (eds.) Kolot Mizrahiyim: Towards a New Mizrahi
Discourse on Israeli Society and Culture. (Tel Aviv: Masada Press) pp 1-15.
(3) * P. Motzafi-Haller 2005 “Mizrahi Intellectuals” In Pnina Motzafi-Haller, (with
Abootbool Guy, Lev Greenberg) (eds.) Kolot Mizrahiyim: Towards a New
Mizrahi Discourse on Israeli Society and Culture. (Tel Aviv: Masada Press) pp
70-79.
(4) P. Motzafi-Haller 2000 “Mizrahi Women in Israel: The Double Erasure” In
Helen Epstein (ed.) Jewish Women 2000. Waltham, MA: Research Institute
on Jewish Women, Brandeis University, pp. 79-97.
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(5)
P. Motzafi-Haller 1993 “Social Space and the Politics of Difference in Central
Botswana.” In A. Barnard, J. Barnard and P. Motzafi-Haller (eds.) Social
Relations in a Changing Southern Africa. Center of African Studies,
Edinburgh University. pp. 4-29.
Non-refereed articles in Journals
(1) *P. Motzafi-Haller September 2004 “Forging New Research and Academic Links with
Chinese Social Scientists” A Voice from the Desert Ben-Gurion University.
(2) *P. Motzafi-Haller December 2004 “Tibet for the Independent-minded Traveler”
National Geographic (Hebrew edition). pp.44-53.
(3) *P. Motzafi-Haller 2004 “Canadian Feminist Scholarship and the Question of
Difference” Heker Migdar BaAretz (The Newsletter of the Israel Association for
Feminist and Gender Studies)
(4) P. Motzafi-Haller 2001 “From the Position of the Other: Towards an Alternative
Feminist Discourse in Israel” Heker Migdar BaAretz (The Newsletter of the Israel
Association for Feminist and Gender Studies- IAFGS) 8:21-23.
(5) P. Motzafi-Haller February 2001 “The Bushmen of the Kalahari” National Geographic
(Hebrew edition). pp. 132-134.
(6) P. Motzafi-Haller 1998 “A Mizrahi Call for a More Democratic Israel” In a Special
Issue: “Israel At Fifty” of Tikkun : A Bimonthly Jewish Critique of Politics, Culture and
Society. March 1998, pp. 50-53.
(7) P. Motzafi-Haller 1998 “Reflections of a Mizrahi Intellectual Woman.” Noga: The
Israeli Feminist Magazine 33, pp. 20-23.
(8) P. Motzafi-Haller 1993 “The Duiker and the Hare: Tswapong Subjects and Ngwato
Rulers in Pre-colonial Botswana.” Botswana Notes and Records, 25, pp. 59-71.
(9) P. Motzafi-Haller 1986 “Whither the ‘True Bushman’: The Dynamics of Perpetual
Marginality.” Sugia 7, 1, pp. 295-328.
(10) P. Motzafi-Haller 1998 “The Future of Israeli Society” Svivot 41,
December. (Hebrew)
Invited book reviews
(1) P. Motzafi-Haller 2000 Review of Eleanor Abdella Doumato “Getting God’s Ear: Women,
Islam and Healing in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf” International Women Studies Forum.
(2) P. Motzafi-Haller 1997 Review of Annelies Zoomers (ed.) “Supporting Small-Scale
Enterprise: Case Studies in SME Interventions.” Journal of Rural Cooperation 25,1, pp.
50-52.
(3) P. Motzafi-Haller 1994 “The Last Romantic of the Kalahari.” A review essay of ValienteNoailles “The Kua: Life and Soul of the Central Kalahari Bushmen.” Journal of
Religion in Africa.
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RESEARCH GRANTS
1. * (2004-2007) P Motzafi-Haller, Deborah Bernstein and Orly Benjamin.
HaAkademya HaYisraelit LeMadaiim. The Israeli Academy of Science.
“Cleaning Labor in Israel”.
2. (2002-2003) P. Motzafi-Haller. Israeli Association for Canadian Studies. Faculty
Enrichment Award.
3. (2002-2003) P. Motzafi-Haller “A Postcolonial Reading of Canadian Feminist
Scholarship” Faculty Research Award by the Israel Association of Canadian
Studies.
4. (2001-2004) P. Motzafi-Haller, The Israeli Academy of Science. “Religiosity
and the Construction of Self in a Desert Town”.
5. (2001-2002) P. Motzafi-Haller, International Research Institute on Jewish
Women, for ongoing ethnographic work carried out in Yeruham.
6. (1998-2003) P. Motzafi-Haller, Netherlands-Israel Research Program (NIRP).
“Farmers’ Participation in Sustainable Development: A Socially-sensitive Model
for Intervention”
7. (1999-2004) P. Motzafi-Haller, Abdul hamid Musa, Zienab Al Tobshy, Laith
Rowsan. DANIDA (The Danish International Development Association).
Research grant for a regional project on “Women in Agriculture”
8. (1995-1997) P. Motzafi-Haller and Alex Weingrod. Israeli Ministry of Science.
A two year grant for research on Israeli ethnicity in historical perspectives
9. (1984) P. Motzafi-Haller American Association for University Women,
International Fellowship.
10. (1983) P. Motzafi-Haller Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, a grant-inaid for research in Botswana
11. (1982) P. Motzafi-Haller Sachar International Fellowship, Brandeis University.
Support for field research
12. (1982-1984) P. Motzafi-Haller National Science Foundation, Anthropology
section. Dissertation research grant
13. (1981) P. Motzafi-Haller American Philosophical Society, research grant for
fieldwork in Botswana.
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SYNOPSIS OF CURRENT RESEARCH & SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES
Pnina Motzafi-Haller
February 2007
My research interests include: international development, gender in cross-cultural perspectives,
African societies, Middle-East and North-African feminist scholarship, feminist theories, and
Israeli ethnography among marginalized populations (mainly Mizrahim, but also Bedouins). A
key concern linking these diverse areas of research and expertise is the study of social
inequality.
After almost two decades of professional work (I earned my PhD in 1988), I had developed a
comparative framework for such exploration of social inequality. My research work includes
ethnographic work in Botswana (1982-2000), in Burkina Faso (1999-2003), The Middle East
(Egypt, Jordan, PA, 1999-2004) and Israel (2000-2004). In each of these research settings I
looked at several axes of such reality of inequality: along class, gender, nationality and ethnic
identity. This extensive empirical research work has been the basis for my more theoretical
work on the issues of global feminist theory and on the intersections of ethnicity and class.
By the summer of 2002, when I began my sabbatical year in Canada, this empirical and
theoretical work in Africa and the Middle East has resulted in the publication of three books
(one single authored and two co-edited volumes) and 16 refereed essays. Since October 2003,
when I was officially promoted to Senior Lecturer status, I had completed the work on three
more edited volumes (one single edited and two co-edited) and 13 new refereed articles (7
among which were already published, three are in press at the time of this report, and three
more are being revised following journal referees comments in order to be resubmitted).
In October 2005, I began a new collaborative research project (together with Prof Deborah
Bernstein of Haifa Univ and Dr. Orly Benjamin of Bar Ilan). The project will examine cleaning
labor in Israel as a focal site for exploring the formation of class of powerless workers, mostly
women of minority background. The new project is supported by a research grant provided by
the Israeli Academy of Science for the next three years.
My work in the Middle East involved collaborative work with Egyptian, Jordanian and
Palestinian scholars and focused on the role of women in agricultural production. The project
begun as a consultation to DANIDA, the Danish International Development Agency. It evolved
into a full academic project that spanned four years. In the book I edited based on the results of
the collaborative work produced by the four Middle eastern scholars, I explored the challenges
of working as an academic in development, of inserting gender into the development agenda,
and of collaboration in a turbulent time in the Middle East. The book titled Women and
Agriculture in the Middle East was published by Ashgate Press in 2005.
In the summer of 2006, I was invited to India to BITS University in Rajastan to give a keynote
address at a conference of Safe Motherhood. My academic host, Prof Prakash is invited to Sde
Boker to work with me on a collaborative research project that will link our two institutes and
will introduce gender into the larger agenda of desert research.
Finally, I am working these days on completing my manuscript tentatively titled Al Olaman shel
Nashim BaPeripherya HaYisraelit (On the Lifeworld of Women in the Israeli Periphery) based
on my three years of ethnographic field research in the Negev town Yeruham. The research
examines processes of social change in the community due to increasing religiosity observed in
the town. The Israeli Academy of Science and the International Jewish Women Research Center
at Brandeis University granted research funds. Initial research results were presented in several
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Pnina Motzafi-Haller-
academic and public forums in Israel. Four articles, based on this research, were published to
date.
ACADEMIC and RESEARCH ACTIVITY IN PROGRESS
In addition to on-going active research work described above, I am also working on laying
out the theoretical foundation for my work. Feminist theory as it is presented in the West
proved to be inadequate for the Third World and marginal social settings within which my
research takes place (in Africa, The Middle-East and in peripheral Israel). Over the past
five years, I have explored alternative feminist theories developed by minority women in
the United States, as well as by theorists known as “postcolonial,” in order to find a more
appropriate theoretical framework for my empirical studies among non-western
communities in Israel. In the course of this theoretical exploration, I have developed and
taught three new graduate-level courses on the subject at B.G.U. “The Politics of Identity”
explored the intersections of class, ethnic, and gendered identities as factors that
simultaneously shape social realities. “Critical Anthropology of Development” deals with
theories of social change as they pertain to non-western settings. “Gender and
Development” explores the literature that looked at gender as a critical factor in
development thinking and programs.
I have also researched and published five articles on the topic. The first article, published
by Hagar: International Social Studies Review deals with Arab feminist scholarship and
the implications it has for Israeli feminist practice and theory. The second, published by the
prestigious feminist journal Signs, focuses on the way gender intersects with ethnicity and
class in Israel. The third article, dealing with difference in Israeli scholarship was published
in 2004 in an edited volume on Israeli society (Kemp et al., eds.). The article deals with the
discourse known as “Mizrahi feminism” and the impact such discourse has had on Israeli
academe. A fourth essay, based on my work with the Middle Eastern gender team,
published in Journal of Rural Cooperation, critically assesses the scholarship on rural
women in Israeli academe. A fifth, recently completed essay, deals with the prominent
African American radical feminist bell hooks (she insists on writing her name in lowercase letters) and her work. The essay was invited by the Open University for a new volume
that will present to the Hebrew reader key classical works in feminist theory. Niza Yanay
and others edit the volume.
Over the past five years or more I was also engaged in two exciting, yet difficult
collaborative work project with Arab feminist scholars. In the first project I edited, together
with a Moroccan colleague—Dr. Fatima Sadiqi--a book titled “New Directions in Feminist
Scholarship in the Middle East and North Africa.” The book is based on work presented in
a workshop we organized and co-directed in the European University Institute international
conference held in Florence, Italy in March 2001. The workshop brought together Israeli
and Arab women scholars from around the region (Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, and Egypt).
The book project, completed during the 2002 summer, is held back until the political
situation will be less threatening for my co-editor, Dr Sadiqi. The second book, Women in
Agriculture in the Middle East, published by Ashgate Press in 2005, was also a result of
collaborative work with Egyptian, Palestinian, and Jordanian scholars.
In closing, I see my work in Africa, the Arab Middle East, Canada, and most recently, in
Israel as interlinked parts of a larger intellectual quest to understand social inequality.
Gender is only one line of such structure of inequality. I seek to understand gender in
shifting contexts of cultural, class and national settings. I see my theoretical work as
directly related to my practical ethnographic field research work. The one stimulates and
feeds back into the other.
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