Palestinians frequently present a harmonizing and homogenizing we-image of their own national we-group, as a way of counteracting Israeli attempts to sow divisions among them, whether through Israeli politics or through the dominant public discourse in Israel. However, a closer look reveals the fragility of this homogenizing we-image which masks a variety of internal tensions and conflicts. By applying methods and concepts from biographical research and figurational sociology, the articles in this volume offer an analysis of the Middle East conflict that goes beyond the polar opposition between “Israelis” and “Palestinians”. On the basis of case studies from five urban regions in Palestine and Israel (Bethlehem, Ramallah, East Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa), the authors explore the importance of belonging, collective self-images and different forms of social differentiation within Palestinian communities. For each region this is bound up with an analysis of the relevant social and socio-political contexts, and family and life histories. The analysis of (locally) different figurations means focusing on the perspective of Palestinians as members of different religious, socio-economic, political or generational groupings and local group constellations – for instance between Christians and Muslims or between long-time residents and refugees. The following scholars have contributed to this volume: Ahmed Albaba, Johannes Becker, Hendrik Hinrichsen, Gabriele Rosenthal, Nicole Witte, Arne Worm and Rixta Wundrak. Gabriele Rosenthal is a sociologist and professor of Qualitative Methodology at the Center of Methods in Social Sciences, University of Göttingen. Her major research focus is the intergenerational impact of collective and familial history on biographical structures and actional patterns of individuals and family systems. Her current research deals with ethnicity, ethno-political conflicts and the social construction of borders. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Holocaust in Three Generations (2009), Interpretative Sozialforschung (2011) and, together with Artur Bogner, Ethnicity, Belonging and Biography (2009).

This new edition of this classic text from one of the major figures of world sociology includes an introduction published in English for the first time. In Norbert Elias's hands, a local community study of tense relations between an established group and outsiders becomes a microcosm that illuminates a wide range of sociological configurations including racial, ethnic, class and gender relations. The Established and the Outsiders examines the mechanisms of stigmatization, taboo and gossip, monopolization of power, collective fantasy and `we' and `they' images which support and reinforce divisions in society. Developing aspects of Elias's thinking that relate his work to current sociological concerns, it presents the

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One of the most groundbreaking sociology texts of the mid-20th century, Howard S. Becker’s Outsiders is a thorough exploration of social deviance and how it can be addressed in an understanding and helpful manner. A compulsively readable and thoroughly researched exploration of social deviance and the application of what is known as "labeling theory" to the studies of deviance. With particular research into drug culture, Outsiders analyzes unconventional individuals and their place in normal society.

Communities across Borders examines the many ways in which national, ethnic or religious groups, professions, businesses and cultures are becoming increasingly tangled together. It show how this entanglement is the result of the vast flows of people, meanings, goods and money that now migrate between countries and world regions. Now the effectiveness and significance of electronic technologies for interpersonal communication (including cyber-communities and the interconnectedness of the global world economy) simultaneously empowers even the poorest people to forge effective cultures stretching national borders, and compels many to do so to escape injustice and deprivation.