Women, Resistance, and Mental Health in Palestine

Since 1948, Palestinians have experienced ongoing oppression in the face of settler colonial violence resulting in long-term psychological harm. Studies from Palestine have found that the mental health risks and consequences of settler colonial violence are greater for women, even when there is no significant difference in the level of exposure to violence. Political and civic engagement has been identified as a protective factor for the mental health of women experiencing settler colonial violence, enabling increased feelings of empowerment, purpose and dignity. However, engaging in acts of resistance can also result in further perpetration of settler colonial violence, such as through imprisonment and humiliation. Since 1967, around 10,000 Palestinian women have been imprisoned by the Israeli occupation for their involvement in resistance activities and political prisoners present with complex mental health problems. Nevertheless, Palestinian women prisoners have been resisting acts of protest such as hunger strikes.

There is research on the role political resistance can play in protecting the mental health of Palestinian women and the mental health implications of perpetrating further settler colonial violence against those who resist. However, academic discourse and mental health policy and practice in Palestine remains focused on determining and verifying the effects of conflict on mental health by focusing on trauma-related mental health problems as opposed to integrating resistance in mental health policy and practice. Research exploring the intersection between mental health and political imprisonment tends to be quantitative and focus on male experiences, and there is no limited evidence exploring the interconnectedness of of women's resistance, settler colonial violence, and mental health in Palestine.

In exploring the intersections between resistance, settler colonial violence, and mental health, this project aims to answer the following questions:
1. What are the motivations for and practices of resistance for Palestinian women?
2. What are the social consequences of engaging in resistance for Palestinian women?
3. How do Palestinian women perceive resistance to affect their mental health?

In exploring these intersections, I will challenge current western, biomedical notions of mental health, and centre resistance and Indigenous sovereignty in Palestinian mental health. This project will thus further our understanding of how mental health policy and practice can incorporate the political, social, and cultural realities of what it means to exist and resist as a Palestinian woman living under occupation.

This project makes an original and timely contribution to knowledge and practice across multiple disciplines. Academically, it contributes to literature in the fields of Palestine studies, Indigenous studies, mental health, and gender studies. Empirically, it creates a new dataset on the intersections of women's resistance, settler colonial violence, and mental health. Theoretically, it advances critical thinking on mental health by incorporating settler colonialism and sovereignty into current understandings. More specifically, my research adopts an Indigenous health humanities framework which moves beyond decolonising mental health in Palestine to Indigenising it. My research also brings together Indigenous health humanities and decolonial intersectional feminist theory in an innovative way that does not currently exist in any academic literature. Methodologically, the grounded ethnographic framing that I am adopting will enable me to develop research methods iteratively building on the strength of the partner organisations. In policy terms, my research is intended to inform mental health policy and practice for Palestinian women specifically but will also benefit mental health interventions that adopt resistance as a lens for mental health service delivery generally.