Abstract
This article explores the effects of the neoliberal development paradigm on the restructuring of social formations through the external funding and promotion of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Palestine, 1 and more precisely in the West Bank towns of Ramallah and al-Bireh; they are the ‘missionaries of the new era’. 2 It argues that neoliberal rationality aims at transforming societies and subjectivities around the notion of enterprise and weakens the collective national resistance movement.
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References
1.I favour the term ‘Palestine’ over ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’ to highlight Palestine as an entity that is the reference point for its inhabitants and refugees, not just disconnected ‘territories’ whose inhabitants could live in ‘any other Arab country as well’, as the Zionist narrative would have it. Nonetheless, my hypothesis cannot be generalised to the situation in the Gaza Strip, but is specific to that in the central West Bank, recently bolstered with massive development and reconstruction aid. Throughout this article, unattributed quotes are taken from the author’s research and interview data .
2.The phrase is Yash Tandon’s from his ‘An African perspective’ in David Sogge, ed., Compassion and Calculation: the business of private foreign aid (London and Chicago, IL, Pluto Press and Transnational Institute, 1996), n.p., available at: http://www.tni.org/article/africa-perspective (visited 26 August 2011) .
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23.For more information, see: http://www.ndc.ps .
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25.I spent twelve weeks in Ramallah and conducted twelve semi-structured interviews, as well as recording numerous impromptu conversations with those I met during my daily work as an intern with a Palestinian NGO and in meetings with foreign donors .
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