Read more
The Naqab Bedouin and Colonialism brings together new scholarship to challenge perceived paradigms, often dominated by orientalist, modernist or developmentalist assumptions on the Naqab Bedouin.
The past decade has witnessed a change in both the wider knowledge production on, and political profile of, the Naqab Bedouin. This book addresses this change by firstly, endeavouring to overcome the historic isolation of Naqab Bedouin studies from the rest of Palestine studies by situating, studying and analyzing their predicaments firmly within the contemporary context of Israeli settler-colonial policies. Secondly, it strives to de-colonise research and advocacy on the Naqab Bedouin, by, for example, reclaiming 'indigenous' knowledge and terminology.
Offering not only a nuanced description and analysis of Naqab Bedouin agency and activism, but also trying to draw broader conclusion as to the functioning of settler-colonial power structures as well as to the politics of research in such a context, this book is essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in Postcolonial Studies, Development Studies, Israel/Palestine Studies and the contemporary Middle East more broadly.
List of contents
Part I: Changing Paradigms 1 Introduction: Rethinking the Paradigms – Richard Ratcliffe, Mansour Nasra, Sarab Abu Rabia Qweider, Sophie Richter-Devroe 2 Bedouin Tribes in the Middle East and the Naqab: Changing Dynamics and the New State - Mansour Nsasra 3 The Forgotten Victims of the Palestine Ethnic Cleansing – Ilan Pappe 4 Past and Present in the Discourse of Negev Bedouin Geography and Space: A Critical Review – Yuval Karplus & Avinoam Meir 5 Land, Identity, and History: New Discourse on the Nakba of Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab - Safa Abu Rabia Part II: Naqab Bedouin Activism and Agency 6 The Politics of Non-cooperation and Lobbying: the Naqab Bedouin and Israeli Military Rule (1948-1967) – Mansour Nsara 7 Bedouin Women's Organizations in the Naqab: Social Activism for Women's Empowerment?– Elisabeth Marteu 8 Colonialism, Cause Advocacy, and the Naqab Case– Ahmad Amara Part III: Politics of Research on/for/with Naqab Bedouin 9 Shifting Discourses: Unlocking Representations of Educated Bedouin Women's Identities– Sarab Abu Rabia- Queder10 Decolonizing Research on Palestinians: Towards Critical Epistemologies and Research Practices – Anaheed Al-Hardan
About the author
Mansour Nsasra is a scholar of Middle East Politics and International Relations. For the past three years, he taught Middle East Politics, International Relations, and Conflict Resolution in the Middle East at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter. He is currently a research fellow in the Council of British Research in the Levant (Kenyon Institute, Jerusalem).
Richard Ratcliffe is an anthropologist whose DPhil thesis at St. Antony's College, Oxford is on the politics of NGOs among the Naqab Bedouin. His recent articles include: D. Mills & R. Ratcliffe (2012) "After Method? Ethnography in the Knowledge Economy", Qualitative Research 12 (2); pp.147-164 and R. Ratcliffe (2009) "The Battle for Recognition: Civil Society, Citizenship and the Political Rise of the Negev Bedouin" In: Marteu, Elisabeth, Ed. Civil Organizations and Protest Movements in Israel: Mobilization around the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
Sarab Abu Rabia-Queder is senior lecturer at the Bona Terra Department of Man in the Desert at the Jacob Blaustein Institute of Desert Studies, Ben Gurion University, where she holds the Koshland Family Career Development Chair in Desert Studies. She is author of Excluded and Loved: Educated Bedouin Women's Life Stories (2008), co-author of Palestinian Women in Israel: Identity, Power Relations and Coping (2010) (both in Hebrew), and co-editor of a special issue of Hagar (2009) on "The Politics of Gendered Development".
Sophie Richter-Devroe is lecturer in Gender and Middle East Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University. Her book How Women Do Politics: Peacebuilding, Resistance and Survival in Palestine won the 2012 National Women’s Studies Association/Illinois Press First Book Prize (forthcoming, 2014).
Summary
This is a collection of cutting-edge research on the Naqab Bedouin in Israel. The present volume brings together this new scholarship to challenge perceived paradigms, often dominated by orientalist, modernist or developmentalist assumptions on the Naqab Bedouin.
