The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 287)

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 287)

المحتوى

271
In Palestine, this was largely true, but there were some situations where peasants
were both exploited and exploiters (i.e., hired in labor and hired out labor). This
was the case when labor was hired in, especially during harvest time, to
compensate for the work of the family member who hired out. Obviously, this
made sense only when the wages paid out by the family were less than that made
by the family member working outside.”’
In the case of households who owned less than one feddan and trees only
and also worked as laborers, most of them clearly belonged to Patnaik’s “poor
peasants.” According to the 1936 and 1944 surveys, 63 and 50 percent,
respectively, of those holdings were less than 20 dunums (these percentages would
be somewhat higher when we consider that some holdings were owned by more
than one household). Regardless of what size area is taken as the “lot viable” for
extensive cultivation from the different estimates, a holding of less than 20 dunums
was hardly sufficient for subsistence. Given the high percentages of households
with less than 20 dunums, and even with less than 5 dunums, it certainly appears
that for the majority of households working for others was more important than
self-employment. If and when available, they worked for wages or cultivated land
on a share basis. As was discussed in the sections on debt and landholdings, the
sale of land by those households represented a sizeable proportion of the land sales
during the agricultural crisis of the mid-i930s and the price increase of the 1940s.
*1Sarah Graham-Brown, “The Political Economy of Jabal Nablus, 1920-48,” in
Studies, ed. Owen, 152-3.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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