Description
Book SynopsisConcrete Boxes: Mizrahi Women on Israel's Periphery offers a rich depiction of contemporary life in one marginalized development town in the Israeli Negev. Placing the stories of five women at the center, author Pnina Motzafi-Haller depicts a range of creative strategies used by each woman to make a meaningful life within a reality of multiple exclusions. These limitations, Motzafi-Haller argues, create a 'concrete box,' which, unlike the 'glass ceiling' of the liberal feminist discourse, is multi-dimensional and harder to break free from.
As the stories unfold, the reader is introduced to the unique paths developed by each of five women in order to keep their families and commuity together in the face of the stigmatic and hegemonic narratives of Israelis who seldom set foot in their social and geographic periphery. Motzafi-Haller's ethnography includes the daily struggles of Nurit, a single mother with a drug-addicted partner, in her attempt to make ends meet
