Veiled Sentiments Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin

Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society Chapter 3, 5, and 6 Lila Abu-Lughod ANTH 3021 W/5021 W 12/1/2020

Values of autonomy & egalitarianism Social hierarchies Question : How do they reconcile the value of equality with hierarchy? Morality as the basis of greater social status, control over resources and people The contradiction between the ideals of equality and the realities of hierarchy: not contradictory but complementary Independence with responsibility Dependency with the dignity of choice

Family as the prototype of hierarchical relations with different degrees of autonomy, according to age, gender, husband & wife within family : Hides inequalities by imposing notions of unity and identity and linking people through obligations and responsibilities Inter-communal relations: Patron-Client relations Father/Son Elder/ Younger Brother Moral quality of reciprocal obligations and affections based on inequality by masking arbitrary control over resources

Honor as the Moral Basis of Hierarchy Authority comes from moral worthiness Argument: Authority must be earned; it can be lost! Bedouin Code of Honor așl: ancestry/ origin/ nobility Age, wealth, ancestry, etc. is not enough to maintain authority; honor/ moral worthiness becomes the source of hierarchy

Bedouin Code of Honor Modesty, sincerity, loyalty Values associated with independence, linked to self mastery, mastery over passions Argument: Honor-linked values create a set of ideals and honor code for achieving and legitimizing a higher place in the social hierarchy. One has to have ‘ agl ≈ reason, social sense ≈ being wise, an aspect of maturity “elementary forms of domination: ” those who dominate should have the virtues of power because these virtues are the only basis of their power (p. 97)

Question: How do those at the bottom of hierarchy resolve the contradiction between their acceptance of the social ideals and their own limited position? Voluntary Deference as an honorable mode of dependency Hasham: Honor of the Weak ● Feelings of shame in the company of more powerful ● The acts of deference that arises from these feelings Hasham and ’agl shape the notions of ideal woman Women share same ideals of same image with men, but how they display these ideals are limited.

Relative weakness or vulnerability in the idiom of exposure. The ideal form of non-exposure if avoidance: voluntary deference In the case of confrontation/ exposure, hasham becomes the mask/cloak with which the weak protects himself. Ex: Evil eye Victim’s exposure to more powerful forces Manifested through illness and misfortune Like hasham, evil eye becomes the mask/cover against a more powerful force Hasham indexes hierarchical relationships, social distance, and segregation, especially with respect to gender. Argument: Hasham is about the fear that an encounter with someone powerful will show that one can be controlled, which goes against the ideals of autonomy and equality Not a sign of compliance but of independence of the weak from the more powerful!

What about poetry? Ghinnāwa: traditional form of poetry with a specialized vocabulary consisting of the words that are rarely used in ordinary speech Poems gain meaning by evoking sentiments within the context of Awlad’Ali community and become reflections and statements about profound human experiences. Discourse of poetry: self exposure, defiance

• What do people say about their experiences through their poems? • What are their goals in reciting them? • To whom do they address the poems? What is the significance of having two culturally constituted and sanctioned discourses available o individuals to express their interpersonal experiences?

The discourse used in poetry and the discourse used in everyday lives differ from each other; each as a mode of expression as distinct discourses on personal life. Discourse: verbal and non-verbal statements, bound by rules and characterized by regularities, both of which construct and are constructed by social and personal realities. The discrepancy between The discourse of ordinary life poetry ● Loss, poor treatment, neglect ● ● Takes the shape of denial, anger, or indifference Shaped by the ideology of honor & modesty vs. The discourse of Vulnerability, sadness, self pity Dual response to honor code’s ideals, which highlights that poetic revelations are judged by different criteria than non-poetic expressions.

Example: Rashid’s story Vs. anger, blame…

Example: Rashid’s senior wife, Mabrūka Vs. anger, blame…

The dual pattern—discrepancy between two discourses—fosters the honor code by revealing how hard people work to live up to the moral ideals of their community.

Example: Dual response towards death: ordinary discourse (anger, blame) vs. poetic discourse (crying)

Awlad’Ali community expresses a range of sentiments in a culturally specific & regulated way. In ordinary discourse: resistance takes the shape of anger, blame, lack of concern In poetic discourse: people display their sadness, vulnerability and weakness. Argument: Poetry as a form of discourse provides a modest way of communicating immodest sentiments (vulnerability and weakness) of attachment and dependency. Poetry as a discourse of defiance: a symbol of the individual’s freedom to defy culture’s power to define and limit experience.

Poetry is glorified because it is seen as ● A link to the glorious past without the Egyptian government’s interference ● A discourse of defiance, a sign of freedom and independency ● A discourse that expresses conflicts, inequalities in hierarchical relations that are occluded by the familial metaphors through the values of modesty, respect, dignity.

Veiled Sentiments The social logic in the system of morality How it shapes social hierarchies that organize the daily life How power and resistance work in complicated ways In other words How the discrepancy between vulnerability and love is expressed through poetry and the wat they conduct their everyday life to enhance honor by revealing how much people struggle to live up to the moral ideals of their community

Responsibility of the Researcher (p. 294) ● What ethical & political responsibilities flow from out becoming of “natives” of more than one place? ● What are the ethics of disclosing what we have learned? ”Ethnographic Reserve” Ethnographer’s refusal to disclose more ”Ethnographic Refusal” Informants’ refusal to participate & be a part of the ethnographic corpus of knowledge If ethnography aims to gather information, knowledge, and data about the others, how is it different than ”enhanced interrogation? ” “Is there a hidden epistemological convergence between torture and ethnography? ” (Whitehead, Ethnography, Knowledge, Torture, and Silence, p. 36)