Entrepreneurs without Borders
Abstract
In this paper, I analyse the implications of ongoing Palestinian mobility and exchanges of people between the West Bank and Israel. This study is based on successive periods of fieldwork carried out between 1996 and 2006 in the region between the Northern Negev (Israel) and the Hebron Foothills (Southern West Bank). The ethnographic analysis of everyday adaptations of people to circumvent Israeli closure policies allows for a unique perspective on the economy of the border that has been developing in this area. This economy of border shows that waiting for the Wall, the Israeli closure policies have not stopped exchanges. Rather, they have fostered the development of new criminal activities around the border and more extreme relations of exploitation between border partners. Instead of reinforcing control, Israeli closure policies seem to have increased the level of instability in neighbouring Israeli and Palestinian areas.
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