Presentation short abstract

This research examines water-based musha' -communal use-rights- in Palestine. Challenging the view of musha' as collective land ownership, we argue that water musha' was an institution for social reproduction and social organization, which was only partially enclosed by zionist settler colonialism.

Presentation long abstract

Conventional scholarship has framed the musha' system primarily as a form of collective landed property, its history ending with its legal parcellation under British rule. This research challenges this narrow and temporal framing by examining musha' as a dynamic practice of communal use-rights central to social reproduction, with a specific focus on water resources. Moving beyond the grain fields, it investigates water-based musha' - encompassing wells and watersheds - as a critical, yet understudied, form of commoning.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and historical analysis, the study centers on the village of Shyoukh in the southern West Bank highlands, where water musha' persisted well beyond the British Mandate. It argues that water-based musha' was not merely a property relation but a core institution that shaped the hydro-social territory of peasant society, organizing access, maintenance, and inter-community relations. The research traces how these communal use-rights were ultimately "enclosed" not through legal titling alone, but through violent, colonial forces, including direct military intervention post-1967.

By foregrounding water, this demonstrates that musha' was a resilient and adaptable idiom of cooperation, one that challenges high-modernist assumptions about sedentariness and property and offers critical insights into historical practices of sustainable resource management and communal resistance.