Grounded in ethnographic research over five years in Palestinian villages near Bethlehem, Olive Growing in Palestine follows the lives of four families and fifty other individuals involved with olive growing as a form of resistance. Providing a counterpoint to Eurocentric studies of daily lives and labor, Simaan shares perspectives from Global South scholarship, which offers alternate analysis of why people do what they do and how they respond to adversity. The book focuses on two questions. First, how has Israeli settler colonialism affected olive farmers' daily lives? And second, how do olive farmers respond to the restrictions on their daily activities imposed by structures and policies that aim to divorce them from their land and trees?
Olive Growing in Palestine explores a collection of values and action that shape, and are shaped by, the daily lives of these farmers: Sutra (doing for being), 'Awna (doing for belonging), and Sumud (doing for belonging and becoming). These values recalibrate and expand our understanding of Global South knowledge and practice. That recalibration gives communities, activists, and scholars new tools to counter global forces of ethnic-based discrimination, imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, and the human-made climate crisis.