Alruzzi, Mohammed 2025 Résumé de la thèseThis thesis investigates the macro and micro dynamics of children’s work in the Gaza Strip, challenging prevalent discourses that reduce the phenomenon to a mere consequence of poverty or exploitation. Grounded in the New Sociology of Childhood and framing ‘generation’ as a structural category, the study conceptualises children’s work as a complex social practice through which intergenerational power relations and patriarchal structures are negotiated. Drawing on anthropological inquiry and ethnographic methods, the research analyses the shifting ideals of childhood across three distinct political eras: the First Intifada, the Oslo state-building period, and the Second Intifada. The findings demonstrate how political instability, aid dependency, and conflict have continuously reconfigured the nexus between work and education. While the First Intifada valorised political activism, the Oslo years sought to institutionalise education as a state-building tool—a project subsequently disrupted by the socio-economic upheavals of the Second Intifada. Crucially, the research elucidates that children are not passive victims but active social agents who leverage work to contest traditional adult authority and secure economic autonomy. Ultimately, this thesis critiques universalist abolitionist agendas, arguing that they fail to account for local survival strategies and the agency of young people in the Global South. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/333865 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/333865/files/phd_Alruzzim.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.51363/unifr.lth.2025.057 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/urn/urn:nbn:ch:rero-002-123479 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY The Gaza Strip Palestine Israel child labour children's work young people agency generation global South political violence international aid activism Intifada Enfants Travail Education des enfants Enfants -- Travail Marché du travail Militantisme Construction nationale Aide économique Ethnologie Changement social Anthropologie Histoire Gaza, Bande de (Palestine) Palestiniens, Territoires info:eu-repo/classification/udc/39 The Children’s Work and Education in the Context of Political Activism, State Building and Foreign Aid : The Case of Gaza Strip http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06