Tuesday, October 22 · 9 - 10:30am EDT - Online
Topsoil and Torfa: Sand-dunes and Swamplands in Mandate Palestine
NEHN October: Alex Worsfold, 'Topsoil and Torfa – Sand-dunes and Swamplands in the Kabara swamps and Caesarea dunes of the Palestine Mandate
By Northern Environmental History Network
This talk examines the matrix of colonial and indigenous discourses that existed around the Kabara and Caesarea lands on the west coast of Palestine during the British period (1917-1948). The effective utilisation of the limited water resources in Palestine was a crucial aspect of British plans to develop Palestine during the mandate. The Kabara swamps were an extensive area of wetlands around the river Zarqa, right next to the extensive area of sand dunes outside Caesarea. These different environments – both wastelands, in British eyes – were subjected to different reclamation methods as part of a combined concession to a Zionist organisation during the 1920’s. Colonial reclamation methods clashed with indigenous land use methods and made assumptions about the historical and ideal state of the land, attributing the poor state of the land to mismanagement by Ottoman and Islamic stewardship.
This research talk will examine how these assumptions came about, drawing on a history of European interest in the historical geography of the region, and contrast these with Zionist assumptions – which were similar, but not identical. By utilising British archival records and ethnographic surveys during the mandate, it is possible to gain insight into indigenous flora in the wetlands and on the dunes and how it was utilised before the mandate and before Zionist settlement. Here, an environmental approach to history allows us to reinsert indigenous and semi-nomadic Arab groups from this region into the historical record, where they have otherwise disappeared due to dispossession and marginalisation. The flow of water in Palestine; from east to west, as the mantra goes, dictated the patterns of settlement, development and change in these different yet neighbouring areas.
Alex Worsfold is a second-year PhD student at the University of Leeds researching the environmental history of water in Palestine during the British period (1917-1948). He completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Kent before beginning his PhD at Leeds. As well as his PhD research, he is currently working on a Wohl Clean Growth Alliance funded project that aims to demonstrate how useful historical research is in modern environmental projects. He has also recently been awarded SPRING funding from water@leeds to help access archives in conflict zones.