Lila Abu Lughod

Veiled Sentiments is the result of fieldwork undertaken by Abu-Lughod in the Western deserts of Egypt between 1978-1980 in which she lived amongst the Awlad Ali Bedouin tribes. The ethnography demonstrates the complexity of Bedouin culture through an exploration of the ideals of honour and the politics of sentiment. Abu-Lughod argues there is 'at least two ideologies in Bedouin culture' that people use to express experiences; the honour code and poetry (1986: 258). These seemingly contradictory strands of social life are established as interwoven and vital for maintaining the social order. The book is divided into two parts, the first focusing on ideologies structuring Bedouin society including ancestry, honour, and autonomy, while the second discusses the importance of poetry in everyday life which is used to express emotion and resistance to traditional values. Abu-Lughod exceeds existing work on Bedouin tribes that centre on the world of men and politics by focusing on the domestic social arena of women (1986: 29-30). Despite the wide literature on Arabic poetry, few scholars have attempted to situate the genre into everyday, social experience (Abu-Lughod, 1986: 28). Abu-Lughod strives to investigate the full breadth of social life to theorise on cultural ideologies that structure the Bedouin outlook.

What is the relationship between Mizrahi feminism and Israeli ultranationalism? What is the relevance of gender justice activism to the 2014 Gaza War and Israel’s foreign policy?

Wrapped in the Flag of Israel Second Edition examines neoliberal bureaucracy in the Global South using feminist critical race theories. It interrogates the relationship between the State of Israel and its Mizrahi single mothers who are at the forefront of Mizrahi feminism. It also presents a model of bureaucracy as divine cosmology that preempts the agency of disenfranchised Mizrahim who are Israel’s demographic majority. Mizrahi protests fall flat when the Israel-Palestine conflict dominates the headlines. While most studies of neoliberal bureaucracy employ a Foucauldian or Marxian lens, this book illustrates how Israeli bureaucracy draws on a theological essence that fuses religion, gender, and race into the foundations of citizenship. It sets out to understand why Mizrahi mothers remain loyal to a state that injures them though its bureaucratic system.

The extensive Afterword to the Second Edition connects intra-Jewish racial and gendered dynamics to the 2014 Gaza War. It tracks sequences that began with social protest and ended with elections that bolstered Israel’s political right. In between came bloodletting between the IDF, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel’s neighboring Arab states. The 2014 Gaza War was a watershed, but not only in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Under the smokescreen of war, Israel accelerated neoliberal economic reform. The first victims of this restructuring were Mizrahi single mothers. Palestinians, however, would pay the highest price for Israel’s Mizrahi-Ashkenazi rift.

El matrimonio del feminismo y el islamismo en Egipto: el repudio selectivo como dinámica de la política cultural postcolonial* LILA ABU-LUGHOD En el contexto de su análisis de la dialéctica Oriente/Occidente que ha afirmado el velo como marcador simbólico de la identidad cultural y la posición de las mujeres en el mundo musulmán contemporáneo, Leila Ahmed ha sostenido que «el uso por parte del colonialismo del feminismo para fomentar la cultura de los colonizadores y socavar la nativa ha conferido des-* Por su apoyo en 1989-1990 y 1993 para la investigación en Egipto en la que se basa este artículo, estoy agradecida al American Research Center de Egipto, el Near and Middle East Committee of the Social Science Research Council y la Universidad de Nueva York (beca presidencial). He acumulado muchas deudas de ayuda en la investigación y la conceptuación de los temas desde que lo escribí en 1994. En particular deseo dar las gracias a

In this column I argue that one of the most important meeting points between theoretical positions is that between postcolonial studies and feminism. I explore the productive overlap that exists between the two disciplines, as well as scabrous disagreements that have occasionally taken place between their practitioners. Yet, I suggest that it is in the interstices between critical positions that some of the most interesting work appears. The importance of crossing and challenging artificial borderlines between the two apparently separate theoretical groups is emphasized, using Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality. The column ends by introducing readers to recent currents in postcolonial feminism, not least its turn towards postsecularism and in particular debates surrounding Muslim women and saviour discourse. Threaded throughout is discussion of four seminal essays from the field since the 1970s, by Julia Kristeva, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Lila Abu-Lughod.

Bei der vorliegenden Arbeit handelt es sich um die aktualisierte und erweiterte Version meiner Magisterarbeit, die ich unter dem Titel Einheimische Ethnologie. Über Machtthematisierungen zu einer emanzipativen Disziplin im Fach Ethnologie an der Universität Hamburg eingereicht habe. Im Sommer 1999 habe ich die Arbeit aufgenommen und sie, nach Unterbrechungen, Ende Juni 2000 beendet. Betreut wurde sie am Hamburger Institut für Ethnologie von Jürgen Jensen und Dorle Dracklé. Für die Publikation habe ich das Manuskript vier Monate lang überarbeitet; konkret habe ich neuere Quellen verarbeitet und einfließen lassen, einige Ausführungen gekürzt, ergänzt oder hinzugefügt, um dem aktuellen Stand der Diskussion gerecht zu werden.

TO READ THE WHOLE BOOK -- PLEASE GO TO THE "CHAPTER" SECTION FOR POETICS WHERE EACH CHAPTER HAS ITS OWN PDF. It has been published in 1990 and is also available for free download from the University of California Press.

The romantic, nineteenth-century image of the Bedouin as fierce, independent nomads on camelback racing across an endless desert persists in the West. Yet since the era of Ottoman rule, the Mzeina Bedouin of the South Sinai desert have lived under foreign occupation. For the last forty years Bedouin land has been a political football, tossed back and forth between Israel and Egypt at least five times.

Do Muslim Women Need Saving? é a questão que dá nome à reflexão de Lila Abu-Lughod, antropóloga com um extenso trabalho etnográfico em comunidades no Egito, e que estabelece o mote para a extensa e fundamentada resposta da autora, formou-se na sequência da invasão do Afeganistão. Em 2001, uma das bandeiras que legitimou a intervenção militar norte-americana no país foi a defesa dos direitos das mulheres muçulmanas. O discurso mediático de Laura Bush, então Primeira-Dama dos EUA, alertou, no rescaldo da invasão, para: "[...] the brutality against women and children by the al-Qaida terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban. That regime is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan -especially women -are rejoicing.

Pubblicata per la prima volta nel 1986, Sentimenti velati di Lila Abu-Lughod è oggi considerata un’etnografia classica nell’ambito dell’antropologia. Tra la fine degli anni Settanta e l’inizio degli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso, Abu-Lughod visse per circa due anni in una comunità beduina del Deserto occidentale in Egitto studiando le relazioni di genere, la moralità e la poesia lirica orale attraverso cui le donne e i giovani uomini esprimono sentimenti personali. Le poesie evocano in modo intenso i tormenti della loro vita emozionale, ma l’analisi di Abu-Lughod rivela anche quanto profondamente la poesia e il sentimento siano coinvolti nelle dinamiche del potere e nel mantenimento della gerarchia sociale. Quel che all’inizio si presenta come un enigma riguardo a uno specifico genere poetico conduce a una riflessione sulla politica del sentimento e sulla complessità della cultura. Questa nuova edizione italiana conserva tutti i testi che componevano la precedente edizione, a cui aggiunge una nuova postfazione scritta dall’autrice per l’ultima edizione americana, pubblicata in occasione del trentennale del volume, in cui Abu-Lughod riflette sui mutamenti intervenuti tanto in campo antropologico quanto nella vita di questa comunità di beduini Awlad ‘Ali. La postfazione si conclude con una meditazione personale sul significato – per tutti i soggetti coinvolti – dell’esperienza profonda che è la ricerca sul terreno e sulle responsabilità che questa implica per gli etnografi e le etnografe.

تسعى هذه الورقة لاستكشاف استثمار الأنثروبولوجية ليلى أبو لغد لأدوات الأنثروبولوجيا والأدوات النقدية في تفكيكها للخطاب المهيمن المتعلق بالمرأة في الشرق الأوسط وفهم تحيزاته وعلاقته بالخطاب الاستشراقي والحداثة وخطابات التحديث والتحرير والإنقاذ. انطلاقًا من فهم المواقع التنظيرية لأنثروبولوجيا العالم العربي تمكن من نقد الخطاب الاستعلائي الغربي واستعمال التحقيق المنهجي للكشف عن استبدال الفحص الواقعي بالديباجات الأيديولوجية. ومن ثم السؤال عن واقع المرأة المسلمة وما تحتاجه حقًا بعيدًا عن فرض الوصاية باسم التحديث أو الإنقاذ.

S'il est passé aujourd'hui dans le langage courant, le concept de "culture" joue cependant encore un rôle stratégique qui dépasse le seul débat académique. Je voudrais l'examiner non seulement sous son aspect idéel mais aussi en tant qu'il représente un système de pratiques qui peut être imposé, et auquel on peut résister. A partir de l'exemple d'une entreprise multinationale cherchant à étendre son influence sur des entreprises issues de l'économie planifiée, je voudrais examiner la culture d'entreprise comme mode de domination et d'hégémonie. L'analyse des stratégies culturelles de la multinationale et des résistances développées contre ces stratégies me conduira également à réévaluer la notion d'acculturation.