1st Edition

Photography and Making Bedouin Histories in the Naqab, 1906-2013 An Anthropological Approach

By Emilie Le Febvre Copyright 2024
292 Pages 68 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

292 Pages 68 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

292 Pages 68 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Introducing a novel anthropological study of photography in the Middle East, Emilie Le Febvre takes us to the Naqab Desert where Bedouin use photographs to make, and respond to, their own histories. She argues Bedouin presentations of the past are selective but increasingly reliant on archival documents such as photographs which spokespersons treat as evidence of their local histories amid... Read more

Preface: Ethnonyms and Being Bedouin  Introduction: Contours of Place, People, and Ethnography  Part One – Histories  1. Naqab Bedouin Social History and Historiography  2. Making Histories in a Bedouin Society  Part Two – Photography  3. Anthropology of Bedouin Photography and Photographs  4. Photographic Presences and Entangled Visual Economies  Part Three – Photographs  5. Circulating Images: Tribal Histories of Lineages  6. Circulating Images: Community Histories  Conclusion: Historical Persuasion and Photographs in the Desert

Biography

Emilie Le Febvre received her DPhil and MSc from the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford.

Emilie Le Febvre’s book, Photography and Making Bedouin Histories in the Naqab, 19062013, is a truly original exploration of how the Bedouin of the Naqab have used the unique qualities of photographs to turn them into ‘objects of historical persuasion’ to evidence their longstanding presence in the region. Her book is the first of its kind to bridge the anthropology of Bedouin and visual culture, and offers a refreshing interpretation of how a cultural landscape and its objects (photographs) can be understood in the study of the Middle East. 

- Dawn Chatty, Professor Emerita of International Development Studies, University of Oxford