Alternative development: a response to neo-liberal de-development from a gender perspective

Abstract

This article is a critical reflection on, and contextualisation of, the Palestinian ‘de-development’ process over the last 50 years of Israeli settler colonial occupation. It also highlights the Palestinian Authority’s neo-liberal economic practice of structural adjustment post Oslo, that resulted in weakening the resistance economy and community development initiatives, while blocking any opportunity for steadfastness and self-reliance. It presents local community responses in a historical and gender perspective. Kuttab re-examines and re-visits ‘alternative development’ as a concept and paradigm through a case study of the women’s cooperative ‘Our Production is Our Pride’, which endorsed principles of resistance, steadfastness, independence and liberation