This book examines the phenomenon of individual and collective bereavement in Palestinian society. It seeks to explore the boundaries of the discourse of bereavement and commemoration in that society through the interactive relations between religion, nationality and gender, and the ways these influence the shaping of the mourning process for Palestinian parents who have lost their children in the second (al-Aqsa) Intifada. Over the course of the book's five chapters, Maram Masarwi scrutinizes how these components have shaped the differences in behavior between bereaved fathers and bereaved mothers: what characterizes these differences, how they are expressed, and how they have managed to shape the characteristics of the experience of Palestinian bereavement.

Uses field research findings to explore the subjective experiences of mourning among Palestinian parents and to examine how gender differences are manifested in these experiences Demonstrates how the conversion of personal bereavement into collective bereavement is gendered and facilitated by politics and religion Blurs the boundaries between the personal and the collective in understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

Autorentext
Maram Masarwi is Lecturer and Researcher at the Minerva Humanities Center at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She also teaches at the Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education, Israel. She holds a PhD from the Department of Social Work at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and an MA in Education from Lesley University, UK.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Overview: Coping with bereavement and trauma.- Part One: Loss as individual and collective.- Part Two: Gender, religion and nationalism in the grieving process.- Part Three: Coping with bereavement in the religious, cultural and societal contexts: How religion and culture shape bereavement.- Part Four: National identity and the way bereaved parents cope.- Part Five: The politics of memory and commemoration.