Quelques critiques universitaires ont été écrites sur des spectacles récents prenant pour thématique le conflit israélo-palestinien, mais il n’existe pas d’étude d’ensemble à ce sujet. Par ailleurs, depuis le début des années 2000, plusieurs recherches se sont attachées à préciser les relations qu’entretiennent le théâtre et la politique. Cette thèse vise à approfondir cette réflexion à partir des transferts culturels d’œuvres israéliennes et palestiniennes vers la France, des années 1970 à nos jours.Pour ce faire la méthodologie mise en œuvre articule historiographie du théâtre, histoire des représentations théâtrales et étude du champ de production culturelle en diachronie. Elle a permis de mettre en évidence la persistance de l’Orientalisme renforcé par le déphasage historique entre la France et Israël et l’inégal développement entre la France et la Palestine. La représentation théâtrale peut offrir un espace de résistance aux assignations identitaires subies par les artistes d’Israël et de Palestine, ou bien reproduire les rapports de domination lisibles à travers le degré de légitimité des dramaturg(i)es. La thèse rappelle la complexité des rapports de domination qui ne sont pas réductibles au racisme ou à un « choc de civilisations » mais relèvent d’une hégémonie culturelle entretenue par les institutions théâtrales et universitaires, et critiques dramatiques. Ces instances de légitimation sont analysées ici en tant que productrices d’un discours idéologique dont l’étude remet en question la posture de neutralité qui accompagne l’autonomie de l’art. / In a limited scope, academic critiques have been written on recent productions on the theme of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, still there exists no comprehensive study on the subject. Additionally, several studies have focused on clarifying the relationship between theatre and politics since the early 2000s. The thesis aims to expand on this line of thought, deriving from cultural transfers of Israeli and Palestinian works to France, from the 1970s to the present day.The methodology implemented articulates theatre historiography, history of theatrical performances and the study of the cultural production field in diachrony. The methodology allowed for the highlighting of the persistence of Orientalism, reinforced by the historic phase-shift between France and Israel and the unequal development between France and Palestine. The theatrical performance can either offer a space of resistance to the identity assignements suffered by artists from Israel and Palestine, or can reproduce domination relations that are legible through the degree of legitimacy of the theatre performances and performers. The thesis evokes the complexity of relations of dominance that are not reducible to racism or a "clash of civilizations" but are a cultural hegemony maintained by theatrical and academic institutions, and drama reviewer. These instances of legitimation are analyzed here as producers of an ideological discourse, the study of which challenges the posture of neutrality that accompanies the autonomy of art.

The lives of Palestinian refugee women are complex and layered, embedded in the constraints and dictates of a patriarchal class system within a conservative culture that has been shaped by resistance to the Israeli military occupation since 1948. Over six decades of Israeli military occupation, ongoing national resistance, poverty and a maledominated society are a few of the forces that continue to shape the lives of refugee women today. The Israeli occupation has obstructed the development of a viable Palestinian economy and legal institutions that could serve as a framework for attaining women’s rights. In addition, Palestinian women, especially refugee women have limited employment and education opportunities due to the military violence which serves to strengthen patriarchal norms that discourage women seeking either higher education or work outside the home. Military occupation and traditional patriarchal society are therefore two inter connected processes central to the formation of gender identities and roles for women living in refugee camps. Palestinian refugee women are also part of a unique experience of being refugees on their own land. A central question arises as to whether, in the absence of an independent Palestinian state, refugee women can be agents of transformation in their personal, familial and community relations. I t is necessary to explore the potential for resistance and empowerment at the local level as defined and expressed by women and men in Jabaliya camp in an effort to assist in responding to this question. The everyday experiences of women explored in this study from the standpoint of women and men in Jabaliya refugee camp and their interpretations and perceptions of those experiences, are the basis for identifying everyday acts of resistance and potential avenues of empowerment among women in the camp. Everyday resistance and the process of empowerment are evident in the lives of women. The data show both subtle and open acts of defiance to oppressive ideas and social structures as well as a clear development of a critical understanding of women’s roles and status in the camp.

This research explores Palestinian refugee women’s political rights through a broader examination of the gender dynamics in one refugee camp in Lebanon. Using two focus groups and individual interviews with 20 women, the research highlights the patriarchal and colonial structures that dominate the women’s lives, preventing them not only from engaging in political activities, but also hindering their opportunities for work and socialization outside their immediate familial spheres. The political disillusionment within the researched and broader Palestinian community, as a result of the encroaching project of Empire as defined by Hardt and Negri, has created a divided Palestinian cause, a failed youth, and a society attempting to hold on to its identity. However, along with that comes the oppression of a sub-section of that society – the women; the remaining possession that the men have. Women who previously engaged in armed resistance have not advanced politically, socially, or economically – and in fact the history of their struggles are being erased as surely as their land is. Nonetheless, pockets of resistance – a Multitude – of women, agents in their own fates, are fighting the current towards a more emancipatory future for themselves and future Palestinian men and women.

In this research, two studies were conducted in order to examine the psychological, social, somatic and educational effects of chronic traumatic experience on Palestinian children over the six years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000-2006). Firstly, a quantitative study was conducted which aimed to explore the long-term effects of war and occupation on the Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. The sample consisted of 1,137 children aged between ten and 18 years randomly selected from all parts of the Gaza Strip to participate in the study. The participants completed a Checklist of Traumatic Experiences (CTE), a Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale (SPTSDS), a Network of Psycho-Social Support (NPSS) and a Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ). This study found that every child in Palestine is likely to have been exposed to at least three traumatic events. Importantly, this study also found that 41% of the participants suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD). This indicates that there are potentially more than 300,000 children in the Gaza Strip in need of psychological, social,and medical services in the areas of rehabilitation and therapeutic treatment. The study revealed that the support of family, friends, relatives, teachers, and spiritual leaders can be of great help. In addition to this, positive traits of personality can reduce the effects of PTSD. Secondly, a qualitative study aimed to explore, in more depth, the moderating factors relating to Palestinian children who have been exposed to chronic traumatic experiences, particularly the children who show low levels of PTSD. The sample consisted of six children interviewed in Arabic by using a semi-structured interview. They were aged between 13-18 years. The participants were selected according to the amount of traumatic events and level of PTSD experienced by the children who took part in the first study. This study found that the moderating factors and levels of influence which protected them from developing PTSD are positive personality traits and ideological commitment, psychosocial support, entertainment and adaptation or acclimatization. This research concluded that having a normal childhood in Palestine is unlikely in the current circumstances and the future psychological well-being of Palestinian children is at risk of being compromised by on-going traumatic experiences.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a critical evaluation of the neorealist theory of international relations and its soft balancing variant through the use of case studies referring to transatlantic relations in the post-Cold War era. Each case study indicates a specific category of power. These are: i) Military - the European attempt to create a common military arm from 1991 to 2003. ii) Diplomatic - the EU's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1991 to 2003. iii) Economic the EU-USA steel dispute in 2002/03. In particular, the thesis undertakes to analyse whether the EU balanced the USA in the post-Cold War period either as a result of the altered structural distribution of capabilities within the international system (unipolarity) or of a set of deliberate plans to do so. After introducing the concepts of unipolarity, hard and soft balancing, the thesis outlines three comprehensive answers that neorealist scholars have generated as to whether the USA can or cannot be balanced in the post-Cold War international system, namely the structural, the soft balancing, and the alternative structural options. Then, drawing on a defensive realist perspective, this research goes on to consider the creation of the EU as a great power in the post-Cold War era. In light of this, the thesis aims to find out whether the rise of the EU as a great power has had an impact upon unipolarity either because of structural incentives or because of a predetermination to frustrate the aggressive policies of the unipolar state. The thesis then proceeds to investigate whether throughout the case studies series the EU has balanced the USA. The case studies highlight that the EU, freed from the rigid bipolar stalemate it had been locked into during the Cold War, undertook to exert greater influence on the world stage in the post-Cold War period. To some extent the EU has accomplished this in all of the power dimensions analysed in this thesis. Nevertheless, the EU's efforts to hold sway within the international system were not aimed at addressing the relative power imbalance created by unipolarity, and there were no deliberate plans harboured by the EU to frustrate the influence of any aggressive unipolar state. Overall, this thesis found the causal logic outlined by neorealism to be convincing to the extent that the EU emerged as a great power in the post-Cold War era and had greater freedom of action under unipolarity. However, with the partial exception of the economic dimension of power, there was no persuasive evidence uncovered to support the anticipated outcome of the neorealist theoretical slant, namely that great powers tend to balance each other. Moreover, while the soft balancing claim is considered to have promise as an attempt to understand how the EU can respond to US power under unipolarity, this study did not find sufficient evidence of the EU's deliberate intentions of doing so.

Judean hagiographies are unusual. Some are unexpectedly structured: a saint’s life in the form of a history text. Others offer surprising content. Expected hagiographic stylizations, for example, often depict moments in which the saint is offered money for a miracle. In such cases the saint invariably refuses. Judean saints, however, accept gratitude willingly – often with cash amounts recorded. The peculiarities of these works have regularly been examined on literary and theological grounds. In this dissertation I propose a different approach: socio-economic context. The monasteries that produced these texts were utterly dominated by the environment of Christian Jerusalem. Although often commented upon, the unmined implications of this reality hold the key to understanding these hagiographies. It is only by examining these monasteries’ ties to – and embeddedness within – their peculiar context that we can perceive the mindset that produced such baffling texts. Lengthy historical, literary, and archaeological analysis force Judean hagiography to give up its secrets. These works were in fact not odd at all. Rather, they were hyper-specialized, a unique adaptation to a unique environment. True, we do not see their like in other eastern regions over the span of late antiquity. Yet this is to be expected. Nowhere else can we find the particular conditions that brought these works into being. Nor can we understand the Judean works absent their milieu. It is only upon the foundation of layers of context that these hagiographies stand high enough to view. They were, most accurately, Holy Land hagiographies: a label as unique as the land that produced them.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict brings up many questions considering and reaching into several different spheres, including the spheres of law. This thesis focuses on the question of the organized resistance movement against occupation and on its legal status. It is known that the inhabitants of every occupied territory are allowed to protect themselves and their territory from the occupier, thus they are allowed to resist the occupation and to claim a recognition of their resistance movement and of its acts as legal acts. Although the resistance movement is a well known term, there is no official definition of this movement and its legal framework is quite narrow; it only establishes the characteristics needed in order for its members to gain a status and a legal protection similar to the regular combatants. It is limited from its name that the resistance movement against occupation may only exists in the territory where an actual occupation takes place. In order to characterize the organized resistance movement against occupation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is necessary for this thesis to first answer several supporting questions concerning the actual status of the specific conflict and look closer whether or not is the concerned territory actually occupied. After reaching a...

The main focus of the thesis is the concept of jihad and martyrdom in Islam. It seeks to present these religious ideas from very diverse perspectives and argues that seemingly discontinuous dimensions are all parts of the nature of the phenomenon. In the world of Islam, religion is an omnipresent aspect of a public life. Hence, the historical experience, culture, socio-economics, and politics, they all manifest in religious narratives. Martyrdom embodies these complexities as well. Historically and culturally, martyrdom has been perceived as an expression of utmost activism in the struggle of a believer for the betterment of the Islamic society. Leading a responsible and truthful life sometimes demands the ultimate sacrifice of one's life for the cause. This worldly responsibility for the well-being of the Islamic umma is one dimension of complex dynamics of the Islamist movements like the Palestinian Hamas. For them, martyrdom is only one moment, the climax, which requires leading the whole life as a responsible believer in the first place. In this sense, martyrdom is a celebration of a meaningful life rather than death. This commitment of Hamas to the community, its radical understanding of the politics of the struggle, along with the particular socio-economic, and political situation in...

Cette thèse propose d’étudier les choix et les pratiques relatifs à la fécondité et au contrôle des naissances à travers le prisme des rapports de genre à l’œuvre au sein du couple palestinien et ce, dans un contexte social, économique et politique marqué par l’instabilité et une importante restriction à la mobilité. La recherche s’appuie sur une analyse secondaire des données d’enquête menée par le Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics en 2006 auprès de 5266 Palestiniennes mariées âgées de 15 à 54 ans et sur une enquête de terrain réalisée entre 2010 et 2011 en Cisjordanie et à Jérusalem-Est auprès de Palestiniens mariés, de personnels médicaux et acteurs du développement qui travaillent sur la question des femmes et de la santé reproductive. J’ai tout d’abord mis au jour les principales évolutions sociodémographiques de la société palestinienne. Puis, j’ai exploré les caractéristiques de la structure conjugale palestinienne, le fonctionnement interne du couple et la perception qu’en ont les partenaires qui le composent. L’analyse révèle un large spectre de comportements, du plus conforme aux normes et aux valeurs véhiculées par la société, jusqu’au plus individualisé ou « conjugalisé », obéissant à des logiques continuellement rediscutées et réajustées entre les conjoints. Ce travail montre également comment le contexte socio-politique façonne les trajectoires individuelles ou conjugales et participe au réagencement des rapports entre conjoints. Enfin, j’ai examiné l’organisation conjugale de la procréation. Les résultats mettent en lumière les choix et les pratiques relatifs à la fécondité et au contrôle des naissances et ce, de manière différenciée selon les relations et les rapports de genre à l’œuvre au sein du couple. Ces comportements dépendent par ailleurs des représentations et des normes procréatives socialement véhiculées. Plus globalement, cette recherche donne à voir des transformations des rôles conjugaux, modifiant en particulier les représentations de la masculinité et de la féminité et soulignant l’existence d’un couple plus autonome, égalitaire et investi de liens affectifs. / This PhD aims to study the choices and practices relating to fertility and birth control through the prism of gender relations within the Palestinian couple, in a social context, marked by economic and political instability and a significant restriction on mobility. This research combines two complementary approaches. First, we made a secondary analysis of the Palestinian Family Health Survey (PFHS) conducted in 2006 by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). Only the women at reproductive age (15-54 years) who were married at the time of the survey (N=5,266) were selected for this study. Second, the analysis is based on a field survey conducted between 2010 and 2011 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Palestinian spouses, medical workers and development actors working on women's issues and reproductive health. First of all, we highlight the main sociodemographic evolutions of the Palestinian society. Then, we explored the characteristics of the Palestinian conjugal structure: the functioning of the couple and the perception that the partners have on themselves. The analysis reveals a wide spectrum of behaviors: from compliance with the standards and values disseminated by the society, until the most individualized or "conjugalized". This work also underlines how the socio-political context shapes the individual or marital trajectories and participates in the re-organization of relationships between spouses. Finally, we examined the conjugal organization of procreation. The results highlight the choices and practices relating to fertility and birth control and show that these behaviors are differentiated according to gender relations within couple. These behaviors also depend on representations and procreative norms which are socially disseminated. On the whole, this research allows one to see transformations in marital roles, more particularly in representations of masculinity and femininity. It also underlines the existence of a more autonomous, more equal and loving couple.

À partir d’un travail de terrain mené auprès de la diaspora palestinienne en France et de l’analyse de la base de données MAROB (Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior) de l’Université de Maryland, cette thèse s’intéresse à la pluralité des engagements des Palestiniens en France vis-à-vis de leur pays d’origine. Leur devoir identitaire semble absolu et l’ombre de la trahison guette leur moindre écart. Les résultats indiquent que le rapport à l’engagement – et plus généralement à l’identité – des Palestiniens en France ne résulte pas uniquement d’un processus de socialisation ou d’une appartenance historique et contemporaine. En effet, les engagements à distance sont aussi façonnés par les représentations et les attentes normatives émanant de la société d’accueil. Par ailleurs, l’engagement à distance s’émancipe bien souvent de toutes enclaves institutionnelles pour se réaliser et prendre forme à un niveau plus maîtrisé par les individus. La coexistence d’une diversité d’engagements traduit la capacité des membres de la diaspora à trouver des voies d’expression et d’action qui permettent aux exilés de conjuguer leur engagement avec la poursuite de leurs projets personnels. Loin d’être vecteur de conflits, la diversité des engagements vis-à-vis du pays d’origine se réalise au sein d’une pluralité pacifique. / The thesis is based on fieldwork conducted with the Palestinian diaspora in France and on the analysis of the “Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior” (MAROB) database compiled at the University of Maryland. We focus on the plurality of Palestinians’ commitments towards their home country. Their absolute duty to keep their identity is overseen by their constant concern not to betray the Palestinian cause. Our results indicate that both the commitment of the Palestinians living in France and their identity more broadly, do not solely originate in a direct socialization process or in historical and cultural belonging. Their commitment from afar is also shaped by the normative representations and expectations deriving from the host society. Furthermore, commitment from afar often emancipates itself from institutional boundaries and materializes at a more individualistic level. A diverse spectrum of engagement with the Palestinian cause shows that diaspora members find ways of expression and action allowing them to combine their commitments with the pursuit of their personal aspirations. That diversity, far from leading to conflict, gives way to peaceful plurality.