The Seam Line: Arab Workers And Jewish Managers In The Israeli Textile Industry,Used

Review 'Drori's book is a useful addition to the literature of a largely neglected, but important subject.' Journal of Palestine Studies'The book beautifully documents the interplay between the culture of the local Arab communities and the culture of the plants that employ women from those communities. . . . Drori does a masterful job of showing how the local Arab culture enters into the workplace to shape the nature of social relations, norms, expectations, and values. . . . The Seam Line is a wonderful ethnography situated in a rich setting.' Administrative Science Quarterly'A significant contribution to the literature in organizational ethnography.' Work and Occupations Product Description Many Arab communities in Israels Galilee region are home to exportoriented textile factories, owned by multinational corporations, whose Jewish managers employ local Arab and Druse women as seamstresses and lowlevel work supervisors. Based on five years of ethnographic research, this book explores how these managers and workers negotiate the terms and meanings of factory work, integrating work culture with the norms and values of the host towns in order for employment arrangements to succeed.The entrance of industrial corporations into developing areas of the world, particularly in those industries employing primarily women, has generated tension between traditional familial and social roles and the demands of industrial working life. In Israel these tensions are further complicated by the social and political dynamics of ArabJewish conflict, as well as the strictly demarcated roles of women and men in traditional Arab society. The resolution of these tensions on the shop floor shapes the social relations of production, the factories management systems, family life in the industrial towns, and individual status and autonomy. The negotiation involves unequal power relations, manifested in a dual patriarchal structure: the Arab cultural practice of male domination of women as well as the formal management system of the textile concern, which dictates the nature of relationships between Jewish managers and Arab women workers.To meet their business goals, the managers must cooperate with the community that provides their workforce, adapting its norms and appropriating its worldview. The managers are constrained by the strict social rules of Arab and Druse society, and respond by attempting to harness and manipulate local family values to foster personal commitment, furthering production goals through paternal control. The consequence of this paternalism is a workforce that relates to the organization as family, identifies with its goals, and internalizes feelings of loyalty. However, the workforce also uses the plant as the arena for developing selfawareness and enhancing personal independence and status within the family. The seamstresses emerge as active shapers of the organizational culture, forcing the managers to adapt to and comply with their personal needs and perceptions of work. From the Back Cover A significant contribution to the literature in organizational ethnography.Work and OccupationsDroris book is a useful addition to the literature of a largely neglected, but important subject.Journal of Palestine Studies About the Author Israel Drori is Lecturer in Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Arab Industrialization in Israel: Ethnic Entrepreneurship in the Periphery (with Y. Schnell and M. Sofer).