Nomads and Nation-Building in the Western Sahara: Gender, Politics and the Sahrawi (International Library of African Studies)

"Fabled for more than three thousand years as fierce warrior-nomads and cameleers dominating the western Trans-Saharan caravan trade, today the Sahrawi are admired as soldier-statesmen and refugee-diplomats. This is a proud nomadic people uniquely championing human rights and international law for self-determination of their ancient heartlands: the western Sahara Desert in North Africa. Konstantina Isidoros provides a rich ethnographic portrait of this unique desert society's life in one of Earth's most extreme ecosystems. Her extensive anthropological research, conducted over nine years, illuminates an Arab-Berber Muslim society in which men wear full face veils and are matrifocused toward women, who are the property-holders of tent households forming powerful matrilocal coalitions. Isidoros offers new analytical insights on gender relations, strategic tribe-to-state symbiosis and the tactical formation of 'tent-cities'. The book sheds light on the indigenous principles of social organisation - the centrality of women, male veiling and milk-kinship - bringing positive feminist perspectives on how the Sahrawi have innovatively reconfigured their tribal nomadic pastoral society into globalising citizen-nomads constructing their nascent nation-state. This is essential reading for those interested in anthropology, politics, war and nationalism, gender relations, postcolonialism, international development, humanitarian regimes, refugee studies and the experience of nomadic communities."--Bloomsbury Publishing Cover Title Copyright Contents Dedication List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction Overview Fieldwork, methods and bias Historical and literary précis Note on translation and transliteration Part I: A Shimmering Mirage 1. Situating Sahrawi refugees between identity, place and sovereignty Points of intersection: Sovereignty and solidarity Points of divergence: Insecurity and the construction of an unruly terrain Fragments 2. Overtures to scepticism Refugeehood Thesis to antithesis: The impossibility of a free gift and developmental humanitarianism Non-place as centre: Silent peripheries and strategic silences 3. The logic of nomadic movement and dwelling Between rhetoric and reality: Moving into the silent peripheries Points of ethnographic departure: Moving into protective densities The inner sanctum: moving into a private residential place Khayam clusters: Imperceptible relationships between tents Fleeting movement and protracted disinterest Part II: Harem: The Tent and the Breast 4. The other side of the mashrabiya Women’s tents and women as property holders Love and marriage 5. Circulating males: female economies of affection Warrior-nomads, soldier-statesmen The contemporary ghazi Women’s menfolk: The flow of males through women’s tents Divorce and male residence Milk brothers and unrestricted males The patriline: The naming of children, tents and herds 6. Veiled males and unrestricted females The male el-them Women and the el-them Signalling entry and female ululation: The regulation and assembly of circulating, veiled males The female makhzan and the guarded male Part III: The Naked City 7. Tented cities and the tent-state The naked city Nomadism: Tactical sedentarization Tribe: Strategic political symbiosis 8. Women as political architects Frig and qsar: Tents in battle and economic configuration Sahrawi tent cities and tent-state 9. Thresholds Patriarchy and the state Thresholds A tented state Notes Bibliography Glossary Index "Fabled for more than three thousand years as fierce warrior-nomads and cameleers dominating the western Trans-Saharan caravan trade, today the Sahrawi are admired as soldier-statesmen and refugee-diplomats. This is a proud nomadic people uniquely championing human rights and international law for self-determination of their ancient heartlands: the western Sahara Desert in North Africa. Konstantina Isidoros provides a rich ethnographic portrait of this unique desert society's life in one of Earth's most extreme ecosystems. Her extensive anthropological research, conducted over nine years, illuminates an Arab-Berber Muslim society in which men wear full face veils and are matrifocused toward women, who are the property-holders of tent households forming powerful matrilocal coalitions. Isidoros offers new analytical insights on gender relations, strategic tribe-to state symbiosis and the tactical formation of 'tent-cities'. The book sheds light on the indigenous principles of social organisation - the centrality of women, male veiling and milk kinship - bringing positive feminist perspectives on how the Sahrawi have innovatively reconfigured their tribal nomadic pastoral society into globalising citizen-nomads constructing their nascent nation-state. This is essential reading for those interested in anthropology, politics, war and nationalism, gender relations, postcolonialism, international development, humanitarian regimes, refugee studies and the experience of nomadic communities."--Bloomsbury Publishing "Fabled for more than 3,000 years as fierce warrior-nomads and cameleers dominating the western Trans-Saharan caravan trade, today the Sahrawi are admired as soldier-statesmen and refugee-diplomats. This is a proud nomadic people uniquely championing human rights and international law for self-determination of their ancient heartlands: the western Sahara Desert in North Africa. Konstantina Isidoros provides a rich ethnographic portrait of this unique desert society's life in one of Earth's most extreme ecosystems. Her extensive anthropological research, conducted over nine years, illuminates an Arab-Berber Muslim society in which men wear full face veils and are matrifocused toward women, who are the property-holders of tent households forming powerful matrilocal coalitions. Isidoros offers new analytical insights on gender relations, strategic tribe-to-state symbiosis and the tactical formation of "tent-cities. The book sheds light on the indigenous principles of social organisation - the centrality of women, male veiling and milk-kinship - bringing positive feminist perspectives on how the Sahrawi have innovatively reconfigured their tribal nomadic pastoral society into globalising citizen-nomads constructing their nascent nation-state." -- Publisher's description