Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin SocietyFirst 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. |
Contents
O NE Guest and Daughter | 1 |
TWO Identity in Relationship | 39 |
THREE Honor and the Virtues of Autonomy | 78 |
FO UR Modesty Gender and Sexuality II 8 | 118 |
The Symbolism of Gender and Sexuality | 134 |
the Denial of Sexuality | 152 |
PART | 167 |
SIX Honor and Poetic Vulnerability | 186 |
S EVEN Modesty and the Poetry of Love | 208 |
EIGHT Ideology and the Politics of Sentiment | 233 |
Formulas and Themes | 303 |
the Ghinnaura | 315 |
| 339 | |
| 351 | |
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Common terms and phrases
agnates anthropology Arab argues asked associated autonomy Awlad Ali Awlad ɇAli Bedouin society bonds Bourdieu bride brother Cairo camp chapter circumcision classical Arabic clients close cousin daughter deference dependents described discourse divorce Egyptian elder ethnographic everyday experience express father feelings fieldwork genre ghinnäu'as ghinnauja ghinnäwas girls guests Haj’s hasham hierarchy honor and modesty honor code honor killings household husband identity ideology of honor individuals Kabyle kinship Libya Libyan folk poetry lineage lived marriage married Marsa Matruh meaning men's menstruation moral mother Mräbtin Muslim older ordinary parallel-cousin Pashtun paternal patrilineal poems poetic poetry political polygyny Rashid recited refer relations relationship respect response ritual romantic love Sa‘ādi sense sexuality shame share sheep sing songs stories tahashsham tent tion traditional tribal tribe values Veiled Sentiments wedding Western Desert wife wives women word young