Book Review: Drori, The Seam Line

Israel Drori.
The Seam Line: Arab Workers and Jewish Managers in the Israeli Textile Industry.
Stanford University Press, 2000, 278 pp.
$US 18.95 paper (0-8047-3787-8), $US 49.50 cloth (0-8047-3785-1)

The Seam Line is one of the first ethnographic accounts conducted on working conditions among Palestinian women (or Israeli Arabs as the author decides to call them) in Israel. The book provides a comprehensive account on labor/management relations in the context of textile industry built in Arab villages in Israel. It is a live testimony to the intricacies of relations between managers, supervisors and workers within traditional family oriented social relations. In this specific context the book fills in an important gap in existing literature on this sector of the Palestinian (Arab) population.

Based within the context of social science research on female labor in a workplace which is largely considered as an extension to the domestic sphere, namely the garment industry, the author demonstrates sound familiarity with a particular strand of the feminist literature in the topic. Within the wider feminist framework, which articulates issues of gender, patriarchy and capitalist labor, the author has successfully described and analyzed Arab female working conditions in the Jewish labor market. As such, the book contributes to the existing feminist debates on gender and patriarchy within capitalism.

While the book would be highly recommended for the above reasons, there are some major reservations concerning issues of political, ideological and even ethical dimensions. These concerns are embedded in both the theoretical and the methodological components of the book.

Admittedly, it is much easier to conduct research on working conditions among Arab/Palestinian village workers in Jewish/Israeli industry, by focusing on gender issues, values, traditions, behavior, etc., than having to go deeply into the crux of the Palestinian/Israeli relationship which is fundamentally embedded in racial, ethnic and national conflicts and contradictions. However, by avoiding the politics of racism and nationalism, which are fundamental in constructing labor relations in a context of State/National minority, the study becomes extremely limited.

In a country like Israel which is self-defined as Jewish and therefore exclusivist, and where its Arab citizens (including the Druze which the author presents as a separate category without accounting to their long history of oppression by the state) are discriminated against, legally, constitutionally and in almost every sphere of life and mainly in labor, no study can capture the true reality of work conditions without theorizing the racial/national boundaries. By focusing on a specific feminist framework, which avoids the role of national/racial discrimination in the workplace, the study exposes itself to major criticisms.

To begin with, the author did not bother to ask his subjects how they define themselves; Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, Arabs, etc.; instead, he chose the very terminology used by the Israeli official establishment, referring to them as “Israeli Arabs”. In fact, he takes this officially imposed “non”-identity further and divides them into religious sects (Druze Muslims and Christians), following the “divide and rule” policy adopted by the Israeli state towards its Palestinian national minority. In some places he even de-Arabizes the Druze (p. 101). Throughout the first 90 pages or so of the book, the reader would be looking in vain to find a reason or justification for the omission of national/racial politics in the book, until p. 92 under the sub-title “politics and work”. Unfortunately, however, all the reader finds is some form of racism or ethnic cleavages not between discriminated citizens and the state, but among the same nationality, between the different religions! He begins this account by saying “political issues are almost taboo in the plant”. Nonetheless, he manages to impose his own political stand, stating: “Israel’s political agenda is intense, particularly with regard to relations between Jews and Israeli Arabs and between Israelis and Palestinians” (p.92). The problem here is two-fold. On the one hand the author takes a very clear political stand on the national/racial dimension by siding with the Israeli official establishment. On the other, he uses the phrase ‘no politics at work’ as a pretext to avoid issues of nationalism and racism, managing in the process to shift emphasis on conflicts within Palestinians themselves. The latter, it must be noted, is done with little success, for throughout the study one finds references made by the workers of all religions to the effect of their national sentiments and their solidarity with their people in the Occupied Territories.

Before commenting on the methodology of the study, it is worth noting that at several points throughout the book, the author is confronted with issues which could only be discussed within the context of state and nationalism, or more precisely the Jewish nature of the Israeli state. Yet, instead of doing that the author time and again shifts emphasis from the grand issues to parochial considerations of behavior, values and what he refers to as Arab patriarchal traditions. For example, in p. 62, the author speaks about workers’ absences on Fridays and discusses the issue within the confines of labor management relations. The author here fails to point out that at the core of workers’ absences is the Jewishness of the state and the disregard it affords its Palestinian citizens who make about 25% of the population and who overwhelmingly (Muslims and Druze) consider Friday as their religious holiday.

The national/racial or ethnic concerns discussed above manifest themselves in yet more obvious ways as a result of the methodological approach, namely, ethnographic account taken up in the book. Like most ethnographies this book fails to assess worker-manager or labor relations within the larger structural context of a colonized national minority, whose citizenship status is second-class. This avoidance makes it possible to shift the blame from the victimizer to the victim. Thus the thread running throughout the book is that patriarchal relations in the shop floor are legitimized because of the patriarchal, traditional nature of the Arab village. It is, as most Orientalist anthropologists would have it, blaming Arab traditions, patriarchy, culture and religion, to be responsible for the patriarchal relations in the public. By failing to challenge the racial/ethnic division of labor, manifested in the exclusively male Jewish managers and exclusively female Arab workers as well as the presence of factories built in the Arab villages, the reader can be misled to thinking that such labor conditions, to begin with, might be natural. In fact, the very fact that the Israeli textile industry is based on the labor of Arab women, rather than women in general, is an indication to not only gender and class exploitation but also national or racial exploitation. Palestinian women workers in Israel’s textile industry face triple discrimination, based on gender, race and class.

Finally, I would like to comment on a minor but indicative observation, the names cited in the book. It is unfortunate that the author who spent years doing this research has failed to corroborate the names of his subjects. Most of the Arabic names mentioned in the book are misspelled to a degree where some of the names are distorted beyond recognition and others were given different meanings altogether. This is true for “Ivtisam” instead of Ibtisam, “Zohar” and “Zoher” instead of “Zuhair”, “Miyada” instead of “Mayyada”, “Mirbat” instead of “Mirvat”, “Zeda” (totally unrecognized Arabic term), “Zina” instead of “Zeina”, “Alham” instead of “Ilham” and “Hisan” instead of “Hussein”. The latter incidentally, comes in reference to a well-known public figure in Arab politics in Israel. One of the reasons for this problem relates to the author’s decision to translate the names not from their original Arabic language, but from the author’s own Hebrew language, according to his own convenience. Unlike Mizrahi Jews in Israel, Ashkenazi (European) Jews fail to pronounce a number of Arabic letters, thus for example, the term “sulcha” instead of “sulha”. My concern here is more than semantic, some of the names above were distorted beyond recognition, for example “Mirbat” and “Zeda” are simply meaningless. Even worse, the name “Zina” he uses means prostitution in Arabic and no Arab woman would ever be called as such!

Nahla Abdo
Sociology and Anthropology
Carleton University
nabdo@ccs.carleton.ca



		Canadian Journal of Sociology Online September - Octobert 2001 Israel Drori. The Seam Line: Arab Workers and Jewish Managers in the Israeli Textile Industry. Stanford University Press, 2000, 278 pp. $US 18.95 paper (0-8047-3787-8), $US 49.50 cloth (0-8047-3785-1) The Seam Line is one of the first ethnographic accounts conducted on working conditions among Palestinian women (or Israeli Arabs as the author decides to call them) in Israel. The book provides a comprehensive account on labor/management relations in the context of textile industry built in Arab villages in Israel. It is a live testimony to the intricacies of relations between managers, supervisors and workers within traditional family oriented social relations. In this specific context the book fills in an important gap in existing literature on this sector of the Palestinian (Arab) population. Based within the context of social science research on female labor in a workplace which is largely considered as an extension to the domestic sphere, namely the garment industry, the author demonstrates sound familiarity with a particular strand of the feminist literature in the topic. Within the wider feminist framework, which articulates issues of gender, patriarchy and capitalist labor, the author has successfully described and analyzed Arab female working conditions in the Jewish labor market. As such, the book contributes to the existing feminist debates on gender and patriarchy within capitalism. While the book would be highly recommended for the above reasons, there are some major reservations concerning issues of political, ideological and even ethical dimensions. These concerns are embedded in both the theoretical and the methodological components of the book. Admittedly, it is much easier to conduct research on working conditions among Arab/Palestinian village workers in Jewish/Israeli industry, by focusing on gender issues, values, traditions, behavior, etc., than having to go deeply into the crux of the Palestinian/Israeli relationship which is fundamentally embedded in racial, ethnic and national conflicts and contradictions. However, by avoiding the politics of racism and nationalism, which are fundamental in constructing labor relations in a context of State/National minority, the study becomes extremely limited. In a country like Israel which is self-defined as Jewish and therefore exclusivist, and where its Arab citizens (including the Druze which the author presents as a separate category without accounting to their long history of oppression by the state) are discriminated against, legally, constitutionally and in almost every sphere of life and mainly in labor, no study can capture the true reality of work conditions without theorizing the racial/national boundaries. By focusing on a specific feminist framework, which avoids the role of national/racial discrimination in the workplace, the study exposes itself to major criticisms. To begin with, the author did not bother to ask his subjects how they define themselves; Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, Arabs, etc.; instead, he chose the very terminology used by the Israeli official establishment, referring to them as “Israeli Arabs”. In fact, he takes this officially imposed “non”-identity further and divides them into religious sects (Druze Muslims and Christians), following the “divide and rule” policy adopted by the Israeli state towards its Palestinian national minority. In some places he even de-Arabizes the Druze (p. 101). Throughout the first 90 pages or so of the book, the reader would be looking in vain to find a reason or justification for the omission of national/racial politics in the book, until p. 92 under the sub-title “politics and work”. Unfortunately, however, all the reader finds is some form of racism or ethnic cleavages not between discriminated citizens and the state, but among the same nationality, between the different religions! He begins this account by saying “political issues are almost taboo in the plant”. Nonetheless, he manages to impose his own political stand, stating: “Israel’s political agenda is intense, particularly with regard to relations between Jews and Israeli Arabs and between Israelis and Palestinians” (p.92). The problem here is two-fold. On the one hand the author takes a very clear political stand on the national/racial dimension by siding with the Israeli official establishment. On the other, he uses the phrase ‘no politics at work’ as a pretext to avoid issues of nationalism and racism, managing in the process to shift emphasis on conflicts within Palestinians themselves. The latter, it must be noted, is done with little success, for throughout the study one finds references made by the workers of all religions to the effect of their national sentiments and their solidarity with their people in the Occupied Territories. Before commenting on the methodology of the study, it is worth noting that at several points throughout the book, the author is confronted with issues which could only be discussed within the context of state and nationalism, or more precisely the Jewish nature of the Israeli state. Yet, instead of doing that the author time and again shifts emphasis from the grand issues to parochial considerations of behavior, values and what he refers to as Arab patriarchal traditions. For example, in p. 62, the author speaks about workers’ absences on Fridays and discusses the issue within the confines of labor management relations. The author here fails to point out that at the core of workers’ absences is the Jewishness of the state and the disregard it affords its Palestinian citizens who make about 25% of the population and who overwhelmingly (Muslims and Druze) consider Friday as their religious holiday. The national/racial or ethnic concerns discussed above manifest themselves in yet more obvious ways as a result of the methodological approach, namely, ethnographic account taken up in the book. Like most ethnographies this book fails to assess worker-manager or labor relations within the larger structural context of a colonized national minority, whose citizenship status is second-class. This avoidance makes it possible to shift the blame from the victimizer to the victim. Thus the thread running throughout the book is that patriarchal relations in the shop floor are legitimized because of the patriarchal, traditional nature of the Arab village. It is, as most Orientalist anthropologists would have it, blaming Arab traditions, patriarchy, culture and religion, to be responsible for the patriarchal relations in the public. By failing to challenge the racial/ethnic division of labor, manifested in the exclusively male Jewish managers and exclusively female Arab workers as well as the presence of factories built in the Arab villages, the reader can be misled to thinking that such labor conditions, to begin with, might be natural. In fact, the very fact that the Israeli textile industry is based on the labor of Arab women, rather than women in general, is an indication to not only gender and class exploitation but also national or racial exploitation. Palestinian women workers in Israel’s textile industry face triple discrimination, based on gender, race and class. Finally, I would like to comment on a minor but indicative observation, the names cited in the book. It is unfortunate that the author who spent years doing this research has failed to corroborate the names of his subjects. Most of the Arabic names mentioned in the book are misspelled to a degree where some of the names are distorted beyond recognition and others were given different meanings altogether. This is true for “Ivtisam” instead of Ibtisam, “Zohar” and “Zoher” instead of “Zuhair”, “Miyada” instead of “Mayyada”, “Mirbat” instead of “Mirvat”, “Zeda” (totally unrecognized Arabic term), “Zina” instead of “Zeina”, “Alham” instead of “Ilham” and “Hisan” instead of “Hussein”. The latter incidentally, comes in reference to a well-known public figure in Arab politics in Israel. One of the reasons for this problem relates to the author’s decision to translate the names not from their original Arabic language, but from the author’s own Hebrew language, according to his own convenience. Unlike Mizrahi Jews in Israel, Ashkenazi (European) Jews fail to pronounce a number of Arabic letters, thus for example, the term “sulcha” instead of “sulha”. My concern here is more than semantic, some of the names above were distorted beyond recognition, for example “Mirbat” and “Zeda” are simply meaningless. Even worse, the name “Zina” he uses means prostitution in Arabic and no Arab woman would ever be called as such! Nahla Abdo Sociology and Anthropology Carleton University nabdo@ccs.carleton.ca http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/reviews/seamline.html October 2001 © CJS Online