Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Download

Author: Dawn Chatty
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047417755
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1104

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Book Description
A scholarly volume devoted to an understanding of contemporary nomadic and pastoral societies in the Middle East and North Africa. This volume recognizes the variable mobile quality of the ways of life of these societies which persist in accommodating the ‘nation-state’ of the 20th and 21st century but remain firmly transnational and highly adaptive. Composed of four sections around the theme of contestation it includes examinations of contested authority and power, space and social transformation, development and economic transformation, and cultures and engendered spaces.

Author: Konstantina Isidoros
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786723646
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Fabled for more than three thousand years as fierce warrior-nomads and cameleers dominating the western Trans-Saharan caravan trade, today the Sahrawi are admired as soldier-statesmen and refugee-diplomats. This is a proud nomadic people uniquely championing human rights and international law for self-determination of their ancient heartlands: the western Sahara Desert in North Africa. Konstantina Isidoros provides a rich ethnographic portrait of this unique desert society's life in one of Earth's most extreme ecosystems. Her extensive anthropological research, conducted over nine years, illuminates an Arab-Berber Muslim society in which men wear full face veils and are matrifocused toward women, who are the property-holders of tent households forming powerful matrilocal coalitions. Isidoros offers new analytical insights on gender relations, strategic tribe-to-state symbiosis and the tactical formation of 'tent-cities'. The book sheds light on the indigenous principles of social organisation - the centrality of women, male veiling and milk-kinship - bringing positive feminist perspectives on how the Sahrawi have innovatively reconfigured their tribal nomadic pastoral society into globalising citizen-nomads constructing their nascent nation-state. This is essential reading for those interested in anthropology, politics, war and nationalism, gender relations, postcolonialism, international development, humanitarian regimes, refugee studies and the experience of nomadic communities.

Author: Sigrid van Roode
Publisher: Kit Pub
ISBN: 9789460220470
Category : Folk art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Some of the oldest civilizations in the world originated along the fertile banks of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the countries of the Middle East and North Africa have been cultural melting pots ever since. The trade routes adopted by the regione(tm)s nomads linked colorful cultures and time-long traditions like so many beads on a string. And indeed it is in the regione(tm)s jewelery that its many-layered history of tribes and empires, nomads and villagers is perhaps best seen. From an archaeological point of view, decorative details and motifs can be traced back centuries, sometimes even millennia. This book, Desert Silver, explores the social, economic and religious background of this jewelery. The traditional silver jewelery of the region combines a variety of aspects of desert life. As the unalienable property of a woman, it has practical, economic value; it serves as a social indicator and reveals where the wearer comes from, how rich she is and her status as a wife and mother. Perhaps more importantly it is frequently worn as a powerful amulet. Jewelery plays a subtle role in everyday society as communicator, messenger and bank account, and all of these aspects are discussed in the book and illustrated with rich examples, from Palestinian wedding necklaces made from fragrant cloves to the brightly enamelled bracelets of the Maghreb. The different functions fulfilled by jewelery are rooted deep within society, so changes within that society inevitably impact its jewellery. Now that traditional societies are changing fast, what does the future hold for the traditional silver jewellery of the Middle East and North Africa, jewelery that has remained unchanged for centuries?

Author: Paul S Rowe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317233786
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 890

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East gathers a diverse team of international scholars, each of whom provides unique expertise into the status and prospects of minority populations in the region. The dramatic events of the past decade, from the Arab Spring protests to the rise of the Islamic state, have brought the status of these populations onto centre stage. The overturn of various long-term autocratic governments in states such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and the ongoing threat to government stability in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon have all contributed to a new assertion of majoritarian politics amid demands for democratization and regime change. In the midst of the dramatic changes and latent armed conflict, minority populations have been targeted, marginalized, and victimized. Calls for social and political change have led many to contemplate the ways in which citizenship and governance may be changed to accommodate minorities – or indeed if such change is possible. At a time when the survival of minority populations and the utility of the label minority has been challenged, this handbook answers the following set of research questions.What are the unique challenges of minority populations in the Middle East? How do minority populations integrate into their host societies, both as a function of their own internal choices, and as a response to majoritarian consensus on their status? Finally, given their inherent challenges, and the vast, sweeping changes that have taken place in the region over the past decade, what is the future of these minority populations? What impact have minority populations had on their societies, and to what extent will they remain prominent actors in their respective settings? This handbook presents leading-edge research on a wide variety of religious, ethnic, and other minority populations. By reclaiming the notion of minorities in Middle Eastern settings, we seek to highlight the agency of minority communities in defining their past, present, and future.

Author: Patricia J. F. Rosof
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780917724459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
The Middle East and North Africa evidences the West's fascination with the Middle East as "different"and "exotic." It explores the scholarly tradition of Orientalism, an understanding of which will help readers understand the still-lingering fascination with and misunderstanding of the Middle East and its people, particularly those of Islamic faith.

Author: Haim Yacobi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131723118X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
Presenting the current debate about cities in the Middle East from Sana’a, Beirut and Jerusalem to Cairo, Marrakesh and Gaza, the book explores urban planning and policy, migration, gender and identity as well as politics and economics of urban settings in the region. This handbook moves beyond essentialist and reductive analyses of identity, urban politics, planning, and development in cities in the Middle East, and instead offers critical engagement with both historical and contemporary urban processes in the region. Approaching "Cities" as multi-dimensional sites, products of political processes, knowledge production and exchange, and local and global visions as well as spatial artefacts. Importantly, in the different case studies and theoretical approaches, there is no attempt to idealise urban politics, planning, and everyday life in the Middle East –– which (as with many other cities elsewhere) are also situations of contestation and violence –– but rather to highlight how cities in the region, and especially those which are understudied, revolve around issues of housing, infrastructure, participation and identity, amongst other concerns. Analysing a variety of cities in the Middle East, the book is a significant contribution to Middle East Studies. It is an essential resource for students and academics interested in Geography, Regional and Urban Studies of the Middle East.

Author: Robert S. G. Fletcher
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191045551
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question ' reconstructs the history of Britain's presence in the deserts of the interwar Middle East, making the case for its significance to scholars of imperialism and of the region's past. It tells the story of what happened when the British Empire and Bedouin communities met on the desert frontiers between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. It traces the workings of the resulting practices of 'desert administration' from their origins in the wake of one World War to their eclipse after the next, as British officials, Bedouin shaykhs, and nationalist politicians jostled to influence desert affairs. Drawn to the commanding heights of political society in the region's towns and cities, historians have tended to afford frontier 'margins' merely marginal treatment. Instead, this volume combines the study of imperialism, nomads, and the desert itself to reveal the centrality of 'desert administration' to the working of Britain's empire, repositioning neglected frontier areas as nerve centres of imperial activity. British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question ' leads the shift in historians' attentions from the familiar, urban seats of power to the desert 'hinterlands' that have long been obscured.

Author: CAITLIN. FINLAYSON
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Paul Sillitoe
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782383727
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 573

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Book Description
With growing evidence of unsustainable use of the world’s resources, such as hydrocarbon reserves, and related environmental pollution, as in alarming climate change predictions, sustainable development is arguably the prominent issue of the 21st century. This volume gives a wide ranging introduction focusing on the arid Gulf region, where the challenges of sustainable development are starkly evident. The Gulf relies on non-renewable oil and gas exports to supply the world’s insatiable CO2 emitting energy demands, and has built unsustainable conurbations with water supplies dependent on energy hungry desalination plants and deep aquifers pumped beyond natural replenishment rates. Sustainable Development has an interdisciplinary focus, bringing together university faculty and government personnel from the Gulf, Europe, and North America -- including social and natural scientists, environmentalists and economists, architects and planners -- to discuss topics such as sustainable natural resource use and urbanization, industrial and technological development, economy and politics, history and geography.

Author: Dallen Timothy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131722924X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook on Tourism in the Middle East and North Africa examines the importance of tourism as a historical, economic, social, environmental, religious and political force in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It highlights the ecological and resource challenges related to water, desert environments, climate change and oil. It provides an in-depth analysis of the geopolitical conditions that have long determined the patterns of tourism demand and supply throughout the region and how these play out in the everyday lives of residents and destinations as they attempt to grow tourism or ignore it entirely. While cultural heritage remains the primary tourism asset for the region as a whole, many new types of tourisms are emerging, especially in the Arabian Gulf region, where hyper-development is closely associated with the increasingly prominent role of luxury real estate and shopping, retail, medical tourism, cruises and transit tourism. The growing phenomenon of an expatriate workforce, and how its segregation from the citizenry creates a dual socio-economic system in several countries, is unmatched by other regions of the world. Many indigenous people of MENA keep themselves apart from other dominant groups in the region, although these social boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as tourism, being one socio-economic force for change, has inspired many nomadic peoples to settle into towns and villages and rely more on tourists for their livelihoods. All of these issues and more shape the foundations of this book. This Handbook is the first of its kind to examine tourism from a broad regional and inclusive perspective, surveying a broad range of social, cultural, heritage, ecological and political matters in a single volume. With a wide range of contributors, many of whom are natives of the Middle East and North Africa, this Handbook is a vital resource for students and scholars interested in Tourism, Middle East Studies and Geography.