Summary
In Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, the measure by which the Segev Shalom resettlement is evaluated: the implied impact of state-provided urban services is an improved quality of life for those who relocate, defined perceptually rather than by service indices alone (PDF p.96).
Details
- Following Cutter (1985:7, 16, as cited), Dinero states the improvement is not easily measured nor its definition fully agreed upon; its essence is psychological well being, satisfaction with one’s lot and how fully aspirations are being met, posed as the basic question, “Is life better in town than in the pezurah?” (PDF p.96).
- He uses a combination of spatial, functional and social indicators, and distinguishes communal from individual quality of life, since a change perceived as an improvement for the individual lifestyle may be perceived as harmful to the community as a whole (Cutter 1985:66; Ben-David 1993:113, as cited) (PDF p.96).
- Chapters 3-5 draw on four household surveys (1993, 1996, 2000, 2007) measuring quality of life, combined with interviews, focus groups and participant/observation (PDF p.18).
- Dinero’s stated finding is that residents who resettled in Segev Shalom are in many ways better off socially and economically than their family and friends in the neighbouring pezurah, yet less satisfied with their conditions than one might anticipate (PDF p.63).
- Chapter 3’s 2007 results are mixed: those who said they had moved for an improved quality of life were distinguished from those moved by government force chiefly by refrigerator ownership (p=.03) — a good that presupposes the town’s continuous electricity against the pezurah’s four to five hours of generator power a day — and by higher use of the town’s welfare services and higher ratings of its medical services (PDF p.107-108).
- Dinero warns that “rating” is a malleable, somewhat novel concept for the respondents, whose first answer is usually “kweis” or “b’seder” (Arabic and Hebrew for “OK”), with fuller views emerging only in the open-ended answers; on the direct question, 74 percent in 2007 said life was better than 10-15 years earlier, while those saying worse had risen from 4 percent in 2000 to 25 percent (PDF p.110).
- His Chapter 3 conclusion holds the two registers side by side: the indices show slow but steady improvement in employment, material wealth, utility connections and satisfaction with services, yet residents do not necessarily believe they are better off, and a sense of loss, bordering on anger, permeates their accounts — most strongly among the more affluent and educated (PDF p.117-118).
Related pages
Settling for Less — The Planned Resettlement of Israel’s Negev Bedouin, Segev Shalom, Pezurah, Sedentarization