Buried in the Red Dirt: Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine

Frances S. Hasso

doi:10.1017/9781009072854

Buried in the Red Dirt

Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine

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Bringing together a vivid array of analog and non-traditional sources, including colonial archives, newspaper reports, literature, oral histories, and interviews, Buried in the Red Dirt tells a story of life, death, reproduction and missing bodies and experiences during and since the British colonial period in Palestine. Using transnational feminist reading practices of existing and new archives, the book moves beyond authorized frames of collective pain and heroism. Looking at their day-to-day lives, where Palestinians suffered most from poverty, illness, and high rates of infant and child mortality, Frances Hasso's book shows how ideologically and practically, racism and eugenics shaped British colonialism and Zionist settler-colonialism in Palestine in different ways, especially informing health policies. She examines Palestinian anti-reproductive desires and practices, before and after 1948, critically engaging with demographic scholarship that has seen Zionist commitments to Jewish reproduction projected onto Palestinians. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Winner, 2023 Interdisciplinary Studies Section Best Book Award, International Studies Association

Winner, 2023 ISA-IDSS Book Award, International Studies Association

'In this highly original book filled with riveting detail and sophisticated theoretical engagement, Frances Hasso leads us down new paths, raising questions about missing bodies, gendered subjectivities, racial policies, and the nature of politics in Palestine. Drawing on unique oral histories of women who faced childbirth and loss, Buried in the Red Dirt shows how intimate stories of sexuality and reproduction are central to understanding the lived experience of the mandate period and after. Her ethnographic approach to archives brings a fresh sensibility, as she convincingly demonstrates that women’s reproductive choices have been based on the futures envisioned or feared for their unborn offspring rather than on nationalist discourses.’

Beth Baron - City University of New York

‘Exploring the connections between race, reproduction and death in modern Palestine, Frances Hasso sheds new light on the relations between settler colonialism, politics of public health and hygiene, trauma, forced exile, race, migration, birth and death. Her analysis of who is encouraged to give birth and who is not in a colonial situation and of Zionist and Western anxieties around birth rates ends with an illuminating exploration of death and futurity in Palestinian literature and film. This book is indispensable for all those interested in anti-reproductive desire as resistance in settler-colonial situations.’

Françoise Vergès - author of A Decolonial Feminism

‘Folks professionally engaged in research on how gender and human reproduction are configured by - and resist - colonial governance will find [this book] worth their time. Be warned, however; this is a dark chronicle.’

Ian McGonigle Source: American Journal of Sociology

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Contents

Buried in the Red Dirt
pp i-ii
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Buried in the Red Dirt - Title page
pp iii-iii
Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine
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Copyright page
pp iv-iv
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Dedication
pp v-vi
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Contents
pp vii-vii
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Figures
pp viii-viii
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Tables
pp ix-ix
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Acknowledgments
pp x-xiv
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Introduction
pp 1-46
Historiography and History of Missing Palestinian Bodies
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1 - “We Are Far More Advanced”
pp 47-77
The Politics of Ill and Healthy Babies in Colonial Palestine
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2 - “Making the Country Pay for Itself”
pp 78-114
Health, Hunger, and Midwives
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3 - “Children Are the Treasure and Property of the Nation”
pp 115-151
Demography, Eugenics, and Mothercraft
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4 - “Technically Illegal”
pp 152-181
Birth Control in Religious, Colonial, and State Legal Traditions
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5 - “I Did Not Want Children”
pp 182-209
Birth Control in Discourse and Practice
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6 - “The Art of Death in Life”
pp 210-243
Palestinian Futurism and Reproduction after 1948
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CODA: Life, Death, Regeneration
pp 244-251
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Bibliography
pp 252-272
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Index
pp 273-288
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Buried in the Red Dirt

Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine

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Contents

Buried in the Red Dirt
pp i-ii

Buried in the Red Dirt - Title page
pp iii-iii

Copyright page
pp iv-iv

Dedication
pp v-vi

Contents
pp vii-vii

Figures
pp viii-viii

Tables
pp ix-ix

Acknowledgments
pp x-xiv

Introduction
pp 1-46

1 - “We Are Far More Advanced”
pp 47-77

2 - “Making the Country Pay for Itself”
pp 78-114

3 - “Children Are the Treasure and Property of the Nation”
pp 115-151

4 - “Technically Illegal”
pp 152-181

5 - “I Did Not Want Children”
pp 182-209

6 - “The Art of Death in Life”
pp 210-243

CODA: Life, Death, Regeneration
pp 244-251

Bibliography
pp 252-272

Index
pp 273-288

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Accessibility standard: Unknown

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Buried in the Red Dirt

Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine

Book description

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Contents

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