Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"First published in 1986, Lila Abu-Lughod's Veiled Sentiments has become a classic ethnography in the field of anthropology. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Abu-Lughod lived with a community of Bedouins in the Western Desert of Egypt for nearly two years, studying gender relations, morality, and the oral lyric poetry through which women and young men express personal feelings. The poems are haunting, the evocation of emotional life vivid. But Abu-Lughod's analysis also reveals how deeply implicated poetry and sentiment are in the play of power and the maintenance of social hierarchy. What begins as a puzzle about a single poetic genre becomes a reflection on the politics of sentiment and the complexity of culture. This thirtieth anniversary edition includes a new afterword that reflects on developments both in anthropology and in the lives of this community of Awlad 'Ali Bedouins, who find themselves increasingly enmeshed in national political and social formations. The afterword ends with a personal meditation on the meaning-for all involved-of the radical experience of anthropological fieldwork and the responsibilities it entails for ethnographers.\"--Publisher's description.

This study examines the mechanisms that create a paradox of marginality among middle-class Arab-Bedouin professional women in Israel by applying an intersectional analysis of their everyday professional life. It shows that the paradox of their marginality – despite their possessing high educational capital in their society, comparable to that of highly educated professional Jewish (men and women) and Arab-Bedouin male colleagues – is reproduced through the differential validation of embodied cultural capital based on women’s cultural roles solely as a symbol of their professional inferiority. The study indicates that when their professional capital intersects with other power axes within the public sphere – for example, ethnicity/racism, gender, religious norms and tribalism – it is not accorded recognition or legitimacy by male Arab-Bedouin professionals or by Jewish professionals, colleagues and clients, thus giving rise to representational intersectionality.

The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism brings together new scholarship to challenge perceived paradigms, often dominated by Orientalist, modernist or developmentalist assumptions on the Naqab Bedouin. The past decade has witnessed a change in both the wider knowledge production on, and political profile of, the Naqab Bedouin. This book addresses this change by, firstly, endeavouring to overcome the historic isolation of Naqab Bedouin studies from the rest of Palestine studies by situating, studying and analysing their predicaments firmly within the contemporary context of Israeli settler-colonial policies. Secondly, it strives to decolonize research and advocacy on the Naqab Bedouin, by, for example, reclaiming ‘indigenous’ knowledge and terminology. Not only offering a nuanced description and analysis of Naqab Bedouin agency and activism, but also trying to draw broader conclusions as to the functioning of settler-colonial power structures as well as to the politics of research in such a context, this book is essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in Postcolonial Studies, Development Studies, Israel/Palestine Studies and the contemporary Middle East more broadly. The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism brings together new scholarship to challenge perceived paradigms, often dominated by orientalist, modernist or developmentalist assumptions on the Naqab Bedouin. The past decade has witnessed a change in both the wider knowledge production on, and political profile of, the Naqab Bedouin. This book addresses this change by firstly, endeavouring to overcome the historic isolation of Naqab Bedouin studies from the rest of Palestine studies by situating, studying and analyzing their predicaments firmly within the contemporary context of Israeli settler-colonial policies. Secondly, it strives to de-colonise research and advocacy on the Naqab Bedouin, by, for example, reclaiming ‘indigenous’ knowledge and terminology. Offering not only a nuanced description and analysis of Naqab Bedouin agency and activism, but also trying to draw broader conclusion as to the functioning of settler-colonial power structures as well as to the politics of research in such a context, this book is essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in Postcolonial Studies, Development Studies, Israel/Palestine Studies and the contemporary Middle East more broadly.

Rejecting an arranged marriage, Mariam Aborkeek became the first ever female Bedouin business owner selling a line of products internationally.

Objective To analyze an intervention that delivered tailored clinic staff training on postpartum depression (PPD) followed by awareness raising and social support aimed at lowering PPD among low-income Bedouin women in southern Israel. Methods We conducted a non-randomized controlled trial at two women’s health clinics. The study included 332 of the 384 eligible women recruited at baseline (intervention = 169, control = 163), who completed two face-to-face interviews, one at 26–38 weeks of pregnancy (Time 1) and one 2–4 months postpartum (Time 2). PPD was measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and dichotomized using a ≥ 10 score cutoff. We calculated EPDS change (rate difference of dichotomous EPDS from Time 1 to Time 2) (no change, positive change, or negative change), and compared EPDS changes in a control clinic vs. an intervention clinic. Results The intervention group showed a greater decrease in dichotomous EPDS ≥ 10 between times 1 and 2 (38.5% to 17.2%) than the control group (31.9% to 29.4%, PV = 0.008). Multinomial logistic regression showed that high PPD awareness significantly contributed to positive EPDS change in the intervention group (PV = 0.003) and high social support significantly protected against negative EPDS change in both groups, intervention (PV = 0.001) and control (PV = 0.003). Conclusions In low-income women, an intervention focusing on increasing PPD awareness and social support following staff training was associated with reduced EPDS and positive EPDS change following the intervention. Similar interventions should be implemented in women’s clinics during pregnancy. Clinical Trial Registry ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02862444.

ABSTRCTIn recent years, there has been a sharp decline in the birth rate among Arab Bedouin women in Israel, despite the traditional prevailing patriarchal norms that advocate for large families. What has been behind this reduced birth rate? To answer this question, we build on the reflexive theory of Beck et al. who referred to the occurrence of increased reflexivity during increases in feelings of uncertainty and instability as a result of social transformation. This paper examines through in-depth interviews the reflexive discourse that Arab Bedouin women engage in regarding social conventions that harm their security, stability, and status and lead to a decrease in the number of children in the family. Theoritically, this paper articulates a new conceptual framework proposing that reflexivity processes on critical social subjects that pose uncertainties and threats to women have the power to lead to desired social changes. Accordingly, the high birth rate is a critical reflexive subject for women, since it poses social, psychological, and economic threats to women. Thus, through reflexivity on the birthrate subject, women apply new social strategies to change their existing social reality, free themselves from the patriarchal social structures and seek mastery over their lives. Due to the women’s reflexivity process, they were able to lead a significant social shift in decreasing their birth rates, one of the dominant patriarchal conventions, achieving better social status and improving their economic and social security, certainty, and stability.

This article examines how three generations of Bedouin women in southern Israel express what home means to them through the names they give it: bayt, maskan, and dar. Home has always been significant in the lives of Bedouin women, but Bedouin society is undergoing major changes—culturally, socially, and in the form of settlement. The external form of the Bedouin home has changed, too, from a tent to a stone house, from an open structure to a closed one, from being part of the open space of the desert to being a limited space in a neighborhood. To understand the changing meaning of home for Bedouin women during this transition, I conducted a narrative study with 30 women, of three generations that correspond to three periods of settlement, paying particular attention to the names with which they referred to their home. In the nomadic period, the tent, called bayt, allowed life to flow between the home and the tribe, providing a sense of security and control over the social environment. In the \"sayag\" (restriction) period, home was called maskan, a place that generates an atmosphere of tranquility and partial control but also distances the women from an external environment that has become unfamiliar and dangerous for them. In the third period, the home, called dar, is permanent and more private, but belongs to the husband only. Paradoxically, it provides physical protection but not a sense of security, and it cuts off the women from the external environment.

Abstract This article examines the contemporary qaṣīda poetry of South Sinai Muzīna Bedouin women from an anthropological perspective, drawing primarily upon a history of emotions framework, as well as Bedouin ethnographic studies and Arabic literary criticism. The article argues that the composition and vocalisation of qaṣīda poetry in South Sinai is more than a performative art; it is a means of ‘navigating’ one's emotions as a woman in a patriarchal society where emotional expression for both men and women is deemed inappropriate. In the poetry of Nādiyyah and Umm ‘Īd, we gain insight into the subjective lived experience of Bedouin women in South Sinai, as they attempt to poetically express their desire, elation, grief and passion, while simultaneously demonstrating their ability to ‘control’ their emotional states.

This article focuses on the Egyptian writer Miral al-Tahawy’s 1996 novel ( ). This ethnographically informed novel sheds light on liminal, emotional, and imaginative aspects of social and personal life—those aspects that tend to be particularly challenging for the ethnographer to transmit in his or her writing about culture. I argue that we can read as ethnographically informed primarily because of the complex way in which al-Tahawy incorporates authentic poetry into the text and that this usage allows her to represent poetry as a culturally significant element of Bedouin women’s lives. I approach the novelist’s manner of writing about emotion and imaginativeness by attending to aesthetic processes themselves, which are often ignored by anthropologists looking at fiction.

This study challenges and evaluates modern-liberal-humanistic discourse on education as enlightenment through analysis of the life stories of the first Bedouin women to acquire higher education (hereafter: First Women). The liberal discourse is examined in terms of its ethnic and genderial contexts and the special status these women gained as trailblazers. I explore the meaning of enlightenment among Bedouin women and the question of when and whether (higher) education facilitates or impedes their progress.