Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
6
result(s) for
"Social structure Syria Damascus"
Sort by:
A new old Damascus : authenticity and distinction in urban Syria
[F]illed with rare encounters with Syria's oldest, most elite
families. Critics of anthropology's taste for exoticism and marginality will savor
this study of upper-class Damascus, a world that is urbane and cosmopolitan, yet in
many ways as remote as the settings in which the best ethnography has traditionally
been done... [Written] with a nuanced appreciation of the cultural forms in
question and how Damascenes themselves think, talk about, and create them. --
Andrew Shryock In contemporary urban Syria, debates about the
representation, preservation, and restoration of the Old City of Damascus have
become part of status competition and identity construction among the city's elite.
In theme restaurants and nightclubs that play on images of Syrian tradition, in
television programs, nostalgic literature, and visual art, and in the rhetoric of
historic preservation groups, the idea of the Old City has become a commodity for
the consumption of tourists and, most important, of new and old segments of the
Syrian upper class. In this lively ethnographic study, Christa Salamandra argues
that in deploying and debating such representations, Syrians dispute the past and
criticize the present. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies --
Mark Tessler, general editor
eBook
Agency, Resources, and Identity: Lower-Income Women's Experiences in Damascus
Drawing on theories of structure and agency, this article assesses how women in lower-income households in Damascus use existing gender schemas to avoid unattractive employment and improve their access to income and employment. It highlights the overlapping effects of economic policy and gender dependency schemas on both the need for additional income and women's employment opportunities. While providing greater access to resources, women's accommodation to gender dependency schemas also helps to maintain domesticity and dependence on men. Agency for these women draws on and reinforces a collectively gendered sense of self that is central to the process of both obtaining resources and doing gender.
Journal Article
\Modernity\, \Tradition\, and the Battleground of Gender in Early 20th-Century Damascus
In early 20 th -century Damascus, a group of religious scholars who called themselves mutadayyinūn (the \"very pious\") and who claimed to represent an Islamic \"orthodoxy\" launched a journal, al-Haqâ'iq, to expose the crimes of the mutafarnijūn (the \"overly Frankified\") and to agitate for a return to \"true Islam\". According to the mutadayyinūn, the mutafarnijūn were introducing into the Ottoman Empire practices borrowed from the West and were thus abetting a Western conspiracy against the empire and Islam. Among the practices the mutadayyinūn found particularly irksome were those that threatened \"traditional\" and \"scripturally-dictated\" customs relating to gender, such as veiling and the seclusion of women. What becomes clear through an analysis of the debate, the reasons for its prominence on the pages of al-Haqā'iq, and the method and style of argumentation adopted by the mutadayyinūn y however, is that despite their claim to be the upholders of tradition, the mutadayyinūn relied on the same epistemic assumptions as those they castigated. Thus, unbeknownst to them, they were engaged in the process of inventing a religio-political synthesis coherent with contemporary social and political structures and institutions. The traces of this religio-political synthesis, later adopted or reinvented by others, remains embedded within the structures and institutions of the contemporary Syrian state.
Journal Article
WOMEN IN DAMASCENE FAMILIES AROUND 1700
449 inventories of deceased Damascenes around 1700 help us to approach a subject which is related to gender studies, since it allows us to compare the economic, social and even cultural domains of feminine and masculine worlds. In this society, the social differences were still significant, and women received a patrimony which was clearly inferior to that of men. It consisted of certain items: some real estate, but primarily jewelry and domestic goods. There are few objects that indicate public activities by women and which match men's inventories of this period. Women ruled, with more or less variety and fantasy, the furniture of the house which was used not only for rest and sleep, but also as a venue for receiving guests. /// 449 inventaires après décès damascènes, vers 1700, aident à aborder un sujet qui s'inscrit dans les gender studies, en permettant la comparaison entre le monde féminin et le monde masculin, dans le domaine économique, social, voire culturel. Dans cette société, où les différences sociales restent déterminantes, les femmes possèdent un patrimoine nettement inférieur à celui des hommes et dont les éléments sont bien particuliers: quelques biens immobiliers, mais avant tout des bijoux et des biens domestiques. Peu d'objets qui ouvrent vers le monde et le temps: les femmes dominent, avec plus ou moins de variété et de fantaisie, l'intérieur textile de la maison destiné aux fonctions du repos, du sommeil, mais aussi de la réception.
Journal Article
The changing consumer culture in Syria: Assessing the effect of neighborhood modernity, age, and religiosity on consumer attitudes and participation
Syria is currently witnessing dramatic changes in consumption patterns and attitudes as a result of globalization, increased advertising, and national economic forces such as heavy immigration and trade sanctions. In this study I analyzed the results of 150 surveys conducted in Damascus, Syria in 2007. The main research questions addressed is whether age and one's exposure to Westernization through location of residence affect consumer ideologies and practices among Syrians. I compared youth with adults, as well as residents of modern areas of Damascus where advertisements and Western businesses are prevalent (\"New\" Damascus), with those who live in more traditional parts of the city or rural outskirts which have not been altered as much by Westernization (\"Old\" Damascus). I found that Youth express more consumerist ideologies than Adults, and that those who live in New Damascus were significantly more likely to have a high score in both consumer attitudes and consumer participation than those who live in Old Damascus. I also found that religiosity influenced participants' consumer ideologies but not their participation in consumer culture. Income and education also showed significant variation while the lack of gender variation in all measures was striking.
Dissertation