Bedouin: Evolving Meanings

Abstract

The term “Bedouin” is associated with seasonal nomadic behavior in arid deserts. Another definition includes terms for “the beginning” (al-Badia or Badia), alluding to the Bedouin being original or indigenous. Today, most of the Bedouin in the Negev live in sedentary dwellings; two-thirds live in towns (2014), and only a small percentage work in agriculture or grazing. The Bedouin are Arab and Muslim, yet differentiate themselves from the larger Arab minority, affiliating themselves specifically as Bedouin. The origin of this term, its meaning, the Bedouin context, and consequences are the focus of this chapter. The disparities between ethnicity and changing lifestyles highlight Bedouin affiliations as both sociocultural and kinship (belonging to tribal traditional structures), as well as territorial and landownership links, the latter being the focus of major disputes between the Negev Bedouin and the State of Israel. The variations and subgroups among the Negev Bedouin are surveyed including tribal stratifications, social class as originally defined by Bedouin (nomads), humran (farmers/peasants), and sumran (servants). These are still strong but dynamic, being connected to time, place, habits, size of group, and economic and political power; landownership and internal evictees/internal refugees; and status and condition of women. Today the Bedouin have a complex socioeconomic and municipal structure. As a group they are changing from a marginal minority within Israel as a whole and among the Arab minority to a group involved in both national and Arab minority politics. Thus, it is important to understand the dispute within the wider context of the Arab minority in Israel—the focus of the next chapter.