This book shows how colloquial Bedouin poetry remains a vibrant art that has manifold modern functions: commenting on world affairs (such as the Arab-Israeli wars, the Gulf War, the American invasion of Iraq); criticizing the domestic policies of Arab states; and highlighting poverty, discrimination, the corrupt practices of officialdom, and a compliant local media. Each of the 41 poems presented is transliterated and translated into English verse, with historical and contextual annotation. The tone is sometimes bitter, sometimes satirical, sometimes scurrilous, and often amusing. The poems are prefaced by an essay on the practice of modern Bedouin poetry. Poetry and Politics in Contemporary Bedouin Society is completed by appendices containing the Arabic script versions of the poems, extensive language notes, and a glossary of the vocabulary.

This book shows how colloquial Bedouin poetry remains a vibrant art that has manifold modern functions: commenting on world affairs (such as the Arab-Israeli wars, the Gulf War, the American invasion of Iraq); criticizing the domestic policies of Arab states; and highlighting poverty, discrimination, the corrupt practices of officialdom, and a compliant local media. Each of the 41 poems presented is transliterated and translated into English verse, with historical and contextual annotation. The tone is sometimes bitter, sometimes satirical, sometimes scurrilous, and often amusing. The poems are prefaced by an essay on the practice of modern Bedouin poetry. Poetry and Politics in Contemporary Bedouin Society is completed by appendices containing the Arabic script versions of the poems, extensive language notes, and a glossary of the vocabulary.

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.

The book explores the political poetry recited by the Negev Bedouin from the late Ottoman period to the late twentieth century. By closely reading fifty poems Kobi Peled sheds light on the poets’ sentiments, states of mind and worldviews.

In Poet of Jordan, William Tamplin presents two decades’ worth of the political poetry of Muhammad Fanatil al-Hajaya, a Bedouin poet from Jordan, whose voice channels a popular strain of popular Arab political thought.

Extrait de la couverture : " In 1978 Lila Abu-Lughod climbed out of a dusty van to meet members of a small Awlad 'Ali Bedouin community. Living in this Egyptian Bedouin settlement for extended periods during the following decade, Abu-Lughod took part in family life, with its moments of humor, affection, and anger. As the new teller of these tales Abu-Lughod draws on anthropological and feminist insights to construct a critical ethnography. She explores how the telling of these stories challenges the power of anthropological theory to render adequately the lives of others and the way feminist theory appropriates Third World women. Writing Women's Worlds is thus at once a vivid set of stories and a study in the politics of representation."

Conventional wisdom positions the Bedouins in southern Palestine and under Israeli military rule as victims or passive recipients. In The Naqab Bedouins, Mansour Nasasra rewrites this narrative, presenting them as active agents who, in defending their community and culture, have defied attempts at subjugation and control. The book challenges the notion of Bedouin docility under Israeli military rule and today, showing how they have contributed to shaping their own destiny. The Naqab Bedouins represents the first attempt to chronicle Bedouin history and politics across the last century, including the Ottoman era, the British Mandate, Israeli military rule, and the contemporary schema, and document its broader relevance to understanding state-minority relations in the region and beyond. Nasasra recounts the Naqab Bedouin history of political struggle and resistance to central authority. Nonviolent action and the strength of kin-based tribal organization helped the Bedouins assert land claims and call for the right of return to their historical villages. Through primary sources and oral history, including detailed interviews with local indigenous Bedouins and with Israeli and British officials, Nasasra shows how this Bedouin community survived strict state policies and military control and positioned itself as a political actor in the region.