Farming, resistance and coping in the occupied West Bank : a study of Palestinian agricultural actors’ framing of farming

Abstract: Farming has a long cultural tradition in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) but today it is affected by the Israeli occupation. This thesis investigates how different agricultural actors in the West Bank frame farming as a practice and what collective action frames they have developed connected to their understanding of farming. The aim is to illuminate how these different actors construct meaning around the practice of farming, and how people can understand and use farming in different ways. Some of my informants clearly link farming practices to a bigger symbolism of farming as a practice of resistance against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Little attention has been given to the non-violent resistance in the occupied Palestinian territories and esspecially to farming as a tool of resistance. However, not all of my informants align the same symbolism to the practice of farming, as for some of the informants it is considered to be foremost a coping strategy. This research contributes to the discussion around the the concept of food sovereignty. Different scholars have addressed the existence of contradictions inside the food sovereignty movement since different contexts have different understandings of or implementation-approaches to the concept. In Palestine, the idea of food sovereignty is becoming more popular as part of the nonviolent resistance movement, and the study reveals how some actor’s link patriotic interests to ideas of (silent) food sovereignty.