PALESTINIAN SOCIETY - Fafo

Chapter 3
Housing
Marianne Heiberg
The author wishes to thank Rema Hammami fo r her many
useful comments on this chapter, particularly those which
relate to kinship structure, consumption pattems and house
investments.
The Cultural Setting of
and Domestic and Public
Spheres inside the Housing Unit
The house - al dar - comprises the fundamental framework which
surrounds family life and separates the private domestic realm from
the public domain. The house is a physical representation of the family
which resides within it and the importance of the house reflects the
prominence of the family within Palestinian society. It is an indicator
of its status and the permanence or transiency of its anchoring to the
local community. It also signals some of the central values and
priorities within the society. The size and subdivision of rooms and the
investment made in their furnishing tend to reflect the internal
hierarchy within the domestic sphere, the relationship and ranking
between the domain of men and the domain of wamen. It also reflects
conceptions of privacy both between family members and between
the family and the outside world. The structure of the house of ten
reveals not only critical features of the family within, but just as
importantly that family' s anticipations. In a sen se, building a house is
also a statement concerning future expectations. Looking toward the
development of the family over time, families aften build houses that
are larger than they can live in and more than they can furnish or even
fm ish.
Traditionally Palestinian villages contained a number of
residentially based patrilineal descent groups - hamuleh - each pf
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