Building Farmsteads in the Desert: Capitalism, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Rural Landscapes in Late Ottoman Period Transjordan

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire initiated economic and political reforms to address its faltering economy, civil unrest, and military losses. In its rural provinces, the state initiated a series of reforms that encouraged both capital investment and an attempt at Ottoman colonialism based on European models. In the Balqa’ region of Transjordan, this resulted in the transformation of the rural countryside, the creation of large rural farmsteads, and an increase in agricultural production. This also resulted in the settlement of Bedu, as many pastoralists were turned into agricultural workers. A postcolonial archaeology of this transformation provides a voice to people who lived under the Ottoman state and challenged the imposition of capitalism and colonial models. At Qasr Hisban, Bedu used both the hidden spaces of local caves, and the architecture of the expanding farmstead, to create their own challenges to the structures of state, capitalism and Ottoman colonialism.KeywordsTribal GroupLand Tenure SystemDomestic SpaceTribal LeaderHide SpaceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.