1st Edition
Feeding Desire Fatness, Beauty and Sexuality Among a Saharan People
By Rebecca Popenoe
Copyright 2004
256 Pages
by
Routledge
256 Pages
by
Routledge
256 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
While the Western world adheres to a beauty ideal that says women can never be too thin, the semi-nomadic Moors of the Sahara desert have for centuries cherished a feminine ideal of extreme fatness. Voluptuous immobility is thought to beautify girls' bodies, hasten the onset of puberty, heighten their sexuality and ripen them for marriage. From the time of the loss of their first milk teeth,... Read more
Part 1: Entering the Field Chapter 1 Coming into the Azawagh Chapter 2 Getting Fat Part 2 Self-Representations Chapter 3 In the Name of Allah, Most Benevolent, Ever Merciful Chapter 4 Ties of Blood, Ties of Milk, Ties of Marriage Chapter 5 "The Men Bring Us What We Will Eat" Part 3 Veiled Logics Chapter 6 The Interior Spaces of Social Life: Bodies of Men, Bodies of Women Chapter 7 The Exterior Spaces of Social Life: Desert, Village, Tent Part 4 Negotiating Life's Challenges Chapter 8 Well-being and Illness Chapter 9 Beauty, Sex and Desire
Biography
Rebecca Popenoe is Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Uppsala University in Sweden. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has taught at the University of Virginia and Middlebury College in the U.S. as well as at Stockholm and Linköping Universities in Sweden.
'Popenoe illuminates her theoretical arguments with compelling examples. She has a gift for vivid descriptions, not only of people, but also of the material landscapes in which the Azawagh are socially placed ... It is the kind of book that we need to teach right now.' - The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
