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University of California Press

About the Book

Lila Abu-Lughod draws on anthropological and feminist insights to construct a critical ethnography of a small Awlad 'Ali Bedouin community in Egypt. She explores how the telling of stories of everyday life challenges the power of anthropological theory to render adequately the lives of others and the way feminist theory appropriates Third World women.

About the Author

Lila Abu-Lughod is Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University. She is the author of Veiled Sentiments (UC Press) and Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. She is the editor of Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East and the coeditor, most recently, of Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface to the Fifteenth Anniversary Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgments
Keeping the Names Straight
Introduction

ONE Patrilineality
TWO Polygyny
THREE Reproduction
FOUR Patrilateral Parallel-Cousin Marriage
FIVE Honor and Shame

Transcriptions of Arabic Poems and Songs
Bibliography