Abstract
The present study is an extensive 22-months field research in Wadi Rum Desert, Jordan. The case of Bedouin Zalabieh adds another voice to this diverse anthropological research. Fieldwork is a complicated and challenging process where the anthropologist experiences a rite of passage through interaction with his/her informants. He/she is transformed from a subject who conducts fieldwork to an object of his/her own self striving for redefinition. Incorporating the habitus of the Others, he/she becomes an Other. At the end of the fieldwork, he/she is confronted with multiple Others. With reference to Bedouin Customary Law, through a “thick description” I try to focus on the habitus of my informants as something that cannot be completely understood by the anthropologist, just because it belongs to a preconscious state. A dialog between cultures, rites, concepts, and behaviors is essential for the redefinition of the self during the research as well as thereafter. Through the distinctive habitus of people, we coexist and share our lives while unconsciously constructing new selves. While we study others, we become objects to be studied; this entails an interactive study on each other. In addition, focusing on the conflict between spouses, I emphasize the new forms of practices and actions created by the interaction and coexistence of the anthropologist and his/her informants. The silent conflict between spouses undermines men’s supposed power over women. Exploiting my presence, the spouses challenged the existing cultural assumption as well as my femininity. Since everything is always a mutual definition and redefinition from a deontological point of view, instead of the term “study” (a community) I prefer the term “mediate” that can vacillate between the science of anthropology and the informants. Keywords: Fieldwork, Bedouins, Self, habitus, gender, women, femininity
Highlights
Fieldwork based on participant observation is a complicated, painful, and challenging process
As Tedlock (1991:78) states, the fieldwork process shifted from participant observation to observation of the participants, that is, a trip out of the ―collective self‖ and again a return ―within it‖ (Fernandez, 1980), Initially, I focus on Bourdieu’s habitus, the socialized norms or tendencies that guide behavior and thinking, the in which way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel, and act in determinant ways, which guide these persons (Wacquant 2005: 316, cited in Navarro 2006: 16)
To what extent is it feasible to obtain a complete understanding of the data gathered by the anthropologist, in order to produce a textual interpretation for the Other, since his/her habitus is preconscious? In addition, to what extent can informants in the field interpret their own habitus without making the ―trip out of the collective self and again return within it‖?
Summary
The present study is an extensive 22-months field research in Wadi Rum Desert, Jordan. Fieldwork is a complicated and challenging process where the anthropologist experiences a rite of passage through interaction with his/her informants. He/she is transformed from a subject who conducts fieldwork to an object of his/her own self striving for redefinition. With reference to Bedouin Customary Law, through a ―thick description‖ I try to focus on the habitus of my informants as something that cannot be completely understood by the anthropologist, just because it belongs to a preconscious state. A dialog between cultures, rites, concepts, and behaviors is essential for the redefinition of the self during the research as well as thereafter. Focusing on the conflict between spouses, I emphasize the new forms of practices and actions created by the interaction and coexistence of the anthropologist and his/her informants.
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