IMC 2010: Sessions
Session 1118: Reflecting upon Foreigners: Appearance and Behaviour
Wednesday 14 July 2010, 11.15-12.45
Moderator/Chair: | Felicitas Schmieder, Historisches Institut, FernUniversität Hagen |
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Paper 1118-a | 'The Invisible Body': Physiological Factors in Defining Levels of Humanity in 16th-Century Europe Following the Encounter with the Natives of the New World (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Gender Studies, Mentalities, Sexuality |
Paper 1118-b | Other Bodies before Race: On and off the Silk Route (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Folk Studies, Geography and Settlement Studies |
Paper 1118-c | The Image of the Bedouin in the Literature of the Western Travellers Who Visited Palestine in the Ottoman Era (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Daily Life |
Abstract | Paper -a: Paper -b: Paper -c: Down its history Palestine was exposed to Bedouin penetration, which threatened to dominate the settled region. Success or failure depended on a strong or weak quality of the central government. In all those periods when the central government showed lassitude the result was Bedouin conquest of the country. To the country's bad luck these periods were more numerous and more prolonged than the periods of stability and effective government. In the period of Ottoman government in Palestine and especially from the end of the 16th century onwards the Bedouins conquered the country and the most fertile parts of the country became grazing areas for Bedouins. The Bedouins are already found in every corner within the country and thus when the European travellers came to Palestine to see the Holy Places of the Christians and to describe them they met with the Bedouins. They met with them in times of robbery and plunder which the Bedouins executed on the pilgrims, they met with them when they passed through their tribal territory and visited their tents, they met with them when they needed to hire them as guides and rent camels from them, or to employ several of them as guards. Those visitors and travellers who returned to Europe reported on their experience and there were such who published whole books on their voyages in the country. The proposed lecture came to describe the image of the Bedouin in Palestine as it was reflected in this literature. |