Herders' Water Practices and Conflicts in a Palestinian Village (Wādī Fūkīn, West Bank)

Abstract

This article focuses on the political, economic and socio-ecological processes that have led to the gradual disappearance of mobile herding in the Palestinian village of Wādī Fūkīn (West Bank). Along with Israel's land legislation, urban development policies and redefinition of territorial borders, water centralisation and commoditisation, as well as agricultural modernisation, have brought radical changes to access to and rights over water and land. New socio-ecological conditions and marginalisation, both as a result of the policies of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and within the global economy, have led to the abandonment of mobile productive activities and affect villagers' claims for their identity as 'sedentary farmers' in opposition to 'nomadic pastoralists'.