Being Bedouin Around Petra : Life at a World Heritage Site in the Twenty-First Century

Petra, Jordan became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985, and the semi-nomadic Bedouin inhabiting the area were resettled as a consequence. The Bedouin themselves paradoxically became UNESCO Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage in 2005 for the way in which their oral traditions and everyday lives relate to the landscape they no longer live in. __Being Bedouin Around Petra__ asks: How could this happen? And what does it mean to be Bedouin when tourism, heritage protection, national discourse, an Islamic Revival and even New Age spiritualism lay competing claims to the past in the present? Being Bedouin Around Petra explores the relationships between the UNESCO protection conferred on Petra, Jordan, and the traditions and lives of the semi-nomadic Bedouin who inhabit the surrounding area.