Intractable violence in everyday life and the ‘big conflict' in the Middle-East

The phenomenon of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict generates global discourses and images which are oftentimes far away from the everyday experiences of those who are living in stigmatized neighborhoods and entangled in criminal networks in the region. At the same time, they have to deal with the images from outside as every step of interaction is ‘under observation’ by international media.

People living in poor districts of so-called mixed cities like Jaffa and Haifa have to deal with this contradiction between discourses about the Middle-East conflict on a global level and concrete practices of ‘back-alley struggles’ on a local level. Their life-world is characterized by violence as part of discourses and practices in a complex way.

In our paper we will show how discourses are narrated officially and internationally on the one hand and how people narrate their biographical first-hand experiences of violence on the other.

We will present ethnographic case studies on ‘urban backyards’ in Haifa and Jaffa; these studies are part of a trilateral Israeli-Palestinian-German research project funded by the German Research Foundation. In particular, we want to highlight how to link discourse material (like films and articles about violence and conflict) with biographical life stories and participant observation.

The analyses show that personal life stories are often reshaped into ‘presentable representations’. Furthermore, according to what we researchers expect ‘from outside’ during the interview, personal narrations are often turned into a kind of political speech for an international audience emphasizing discrimination and expressing claims for social justice. In our intercultural interview-settings, it needs considerable sensibility in order to show the interviewee that we are indeed interested in their ‘trivial’ and personal experiences and not in the ‘big global conflict’ and that we do not judge when and why violence is accepted.