A place of many names: how three generations of Bedouin women express the meaning of home

Abstract

This article examines how three generations of Bedouin women in southern Israel express what home means to them through the names they give it: bayt, maskan, and dar. Home has always been significant in the lives of Bedouin women, but Bedouin society is undergoing major changes—culturally, socially, and in the form of settlement. The external form of the Bedouin home has changed, too, from a tent to a stone house, from an open structure to a closed one, from being part of the open space of the desert to being a limited space in a neighborhood. To understand the changing meaning of home for Bedouin women during this transition, I conducted a narrative study with 30 women, of three generations that correspond to three periods of settlement, paying particular attention to the names with which they referred to their home. In the nomadic period, the tent, called bayt, allowed life to flow between the home and the tribe, providing a sense of security and control over the social environment. In the “sayag” (restriction) period, home was called maskan, a place that generates an atmosphere of tranquility and partial control but also distances the women from an external environment that has become unfamiliar and dangerous for them. In the third period, the home, called dar, is permanent and more private, but belongs to the husband only. Paradoxically, it provides physical protection but not a sense of security, and it cuts off the women from the external environment.