The Sanusi Bedouin of Libya, also known as Libyan Bedouin, Sanusiya, or the Senussi of Cyrenaica, are a semi-nomadic people living primarily within the desert regions of Western Libya and Eastern Egypt (Figure 1). Due to their relative isolation and strict social hierarchy, the Libyan Bedouin have maintained the traditions, practices, and language of their Arabian ancestors. However, they also place great emphasis on religious learning, in large part due to the actions of Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi, The Grand Sanusi.
The Bedouin have complex kinship patterns that act as the greatest means of social integration and stratification. Because the Bedouin are Sunni Muslims and thus believe that dancing, singing, and public displays of emotion are sins, poetry acts as the sole, socially acceptable, cathartic outlet for intense or otherwise inexpressible emotions. The ethnographic present for the sources range from 1949 to 1986, resulting in an ethnographic present for this paper of approximately 1967.
Subsistence Method
The Libyan Bedouin are a pastoral people, moving as needed through the Sahara desert with their sheep, goats, and camels. Their movements depend largely upon the seasons due to lack of vegetation and water in the lowlands during the dry season. They also cultivate small plots of cereal grains during the wet season on the desert plateaus and oases of Libya (Behnke, 1980).
Political Structure
The Bedouin are a tribal culture, as defined by Lewellen, with a few traits tending towards a chiefdom. Their patriarchal leaders are chosen from with the tribe and possess authority without power. Legal disputes are settled within the tribe, by local Sheiks (political leaders) or Imams (religious leaders) who typic...
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...ations who believe that poetry is an acceptable medium. Recent political and social upheaval in Libya and Egypt have prevented further participant observation anthropological research with the Bedouin people.
Works Cited
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Adler, R. B., Proctor II, R. F. (2013). Looking Out, Looking In. Cengage Learning. 430 pp. Kindle Edition.
Behnke, R. H. (1980). The Herders of Cyrenaica: ecology, economy and kinship among the Bedouin of Eastern Libya. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 197 pp. HRAF.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1949). The Sanusi of Cyrenaica. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 240 pp. HRAF.
Lewellen, T. C. (2003). Types of Preindustrial Political Systems. Political Anthropology an Introduction (3rd ed., ). Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
This book differs from most ethnographies in that it was not authored by an anthropologist. Fernea originally set out to accompany her husband as he completed research for his doctorate in social anthropology from the University Chicago. Henceforth, Fernea did not enter the field with any specific goals, hypotheses, or particular interests. In many ways, Guests of the Sheik reads as a personal narrative, describing Ferneas struggles integrating into a society that has vastly different expectations and guidelines for women. Fernea recalls the culture shock she first experienced as well as her eagerness to overcome it. Her goals were mainly of a human nature: she wanted to feel a sense of belonging, to have friends, and to establish a life in El Nahra. The first part of Guests of the Sheik largely mimics Fernea's own journey to feeling accepted as it introduces readers to the various groups of women who soon become Fernea's close friends and confidants, most importantly Laila, who will later introduce many aspects of Muslim culture to Fernea. Throughout the book, each chapter emphasizes a different aspect of life as Fernea discovers it, or details an important event. As such, readers experience Ramadan and Eid, two staples of the Muslim culture, Weddings and marriage arrangements, discussions of monogamy and polygamy, the Pilgrimage to Karbala, and many other customs
Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.
Writing Women's Worlds is some stories on the Bedouin Egyptian people. In this book, thwe writer Lia Adu-Lughod's stories differ from the conventional ones. While reading, we discover the customs and values of the Bedouin people.
There are many cultures throughout the world, which may be far apart and yet still have similarities. Two of those such cultures, the Basseri, that live in Iran, and the Nuer, whom live in Sudan, have their differences, but also have some similarities. Many of the differences and similarities come from their subsistence strategies and the social and political organization of their societies. With the regions of the world, both the Basseri and the Nuer live in, they’ve had to adapt to the environment they live in along with the limitations imposed by that environment.
Joyce, James. “Araby”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 427 - 431.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
Love and war, two concepts that are so contradictory it is hard to believe they could ever coexist simultaneously in one society. War is a state of conflict, hostility and chaos which reeks havoc on civilizations as opposing forces struggle to defend their cause not matter what the price. Throughout history the world has seen the devastation such conflict can bring; from the gory conquests of the ancient Romans, to the horrific Nazi Holocaust in World War II, to the bloody battles between government forces that raged in Afghanistan. It is in this world of mayhem and cruelty that Pashtun women must carry on their lives. They attempt in whatever possible to find and salvage any kind of love and beauty amidst the turmoil of their warring nation. These women must find ways to stay strong and resist the oppression forced upon them by their patriarchal society which coerces them into hard physical labor as well as demeans their humanity as their status is reduced to nothing more than property (Majrouh XIII, XIV). The song of the Pashtun woman is her escape, her release, and her joy as she unites with other women in her community and sings out against her oppression. Through these landays, or songs, one sees another dimension to the lives of Pashtun women as they transform the misery and grief of their everyday lives into a spirit of beauty as they lament against their oppressors and find ways to love even in a time of war.
Joyce, James." Araby". Theory into Practice. Ed. Ann B. Dobie. Toronto: Nelson Thomson, 2002.230-233. Print.
Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence US Army Training and Doctrine Command Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Arab Cultural Awareness: 58 Factsheets. (2006, December). Retrieved from www.fas.org/irp/agency/army/arabculture.pdf
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“Put it on record. I am an Arab and the number of my card is fifty thousand I have eight children and the ninth is due after summer. What’s there to be angry about?” (Darwish 1607). The short poem “Identity Card” begins with this statement from a Palestinian speaker who is speaking to an Israeli border guard. He continues to talk about his job and working in a quarry
The narrator in “Araby” is a young man who lives in an uninteresting area and dreary house in Dublin. The only seemingly exciting thing about the boy’s existence is the sister of his friend Mangum that he is hopelessly in love with; “…her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.” (Joyce 2279) In an attempt to impress her and bring some color into his own gray life, he impulsively lies to her that he is planning on attending a bazaar called Arab. He also promises the gi...
His origins were extremely important to him and he displays this throughout the poem. Mahmoud repeats the statement “I am an Arab” in almost every stanza of the poem (Darwish 80). He’s not ashamed of his heritage and will not forget it. Mahmoud wants to reveal how proud he is to be an Arab, and show that he is being punished for who he is. Darwish wants it to be remembered that he is being exiled and he wants his feelings recorded. The reader is continually told to “put it on record” (Darwish 81). The author is not afraid to express himself through his writing. He writes in a style that encourages people to communicate their views. Darwish wants people to be able to comfortably express themselves. The author is very upset about his unjust experience, but calmly documents his feelings. He ironically asks “What’s there to be angry about?” four times in the poem (Darwish 80). Darwish is staying calm but still showing that the situation is extremely unfair and bothersome. “Identity Card” shares one terrible exile experience with readers. Repetition is used many times in the poem, stressing important
Mahmoud Darwish has been able to utilize various models in his poetry in order to implicitly expose Palestinian oppression. Darwish was not only well-informed and aware of the oppression his people face, but was a victim of such abuse himself. He witnessed the struggle of his people as victims of colonization, a point that mirrored in his poetry as he articulates the tenacious Palestinian voice exposed to the danger of displacement. Darwish’s own experience as a victim of exile allow his poetry to touch on issues at the heart of the Palestinian people, and so his poetry becomes a genuine documentation of the situation the Palestinian face. Darwish’s poems make use of models to give an insight into the relationship between Israel and Palestine