TY - JOUR
T1 - Marginalized Yet Flourishing
T2 - The Remarkable Growth of the Palestinian Middle Class in Israel
AU - Haidar, Aziz
AU - Bar-Haim, Eyal
N1 - Funding Information:
Financial support for this study was provided by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/1/1
Y1 - 2022/1/1
N2 - Arab-Palestinian citizens are one of the most marginalized social groups in of Israel. It is therefore not surprising that a vast proportion of the sociological literature pertaining to this group focuses on mechanisms of oppression and/or alternative forms of political resistance. While undeniably important, this narrow focus has been blind to one of the most fundamental changes in Arab-Palestinian society: the steady emergence of an Arab-Palestinian middle class. The paper addresses this blind spot in the research literature. We present the previously untold story of this structural change by describing the historical processes and socio-political mechanisms that have led to this development. We focus on specific periods of time and show that in each period, the Arab middle class developed primarily by seizing opportunities paradoxically created by policies that were meant to marginalize Arab-Palestinians, identifying prospects unlocked by the free market, and pursuing higher education. We then present descriptive results indicating the rise of the Arab middle-class in the last three decades. In contrast to the pessimistic and often deterministic view of the conditions of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, this article, which required the authors to free themselves of the limits imposed by critical sociology, paints a picture of agency and change. Theoretical and political implications are discussed.
AB - Arab-Palestinian citizens are one of the most marginalized social groups in of Israel. It is therefore not surprising that a vast proportion of the sociological literature pertaining to this group focuses on mechanisms of oppression and/or alternative forms of political resistance. While undeniably important, this narrow focus has been blind to one of the most fundamental changes in Arab-Palestinian society: the steady emergence of an Arab-Palestinian middle class. The paper addresses this blind spot in the research literature. We present the previously untold story of this structural change by describing the historical processes and socio-political mechanisms that have led to this development. We focus on specific periods of time and show that in each period, the Arab middle class developed primarily by seizing opportunities paradoxically created by policies that were meant to marginalize Arab-Palestinians, identifying prospects unlocked by the free market, and pursuing higher education. We then present descriptive results indicating the rise of the Arab middle-class in the last three decades. In contrast to the pessimistic and often deterministic view of the conditions of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, this article, which required the authors to free themselves of the limits imposed by critical sociology, paints a picture of agency and change. Theoretical and political implications are discussed.
KW - Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel
KW - Israeli sociology
KW - Palestinian middle class
KW - Social mobility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144880360&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12108-022-09557-w
DO - 10.1007/s12108-022-09557-w
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85144880360
JO - The American Sociologist
JF - The American Sociologist
SN - 0003-1232
ER -