Elizabeth Fernea’s Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Vill

You arrive at a resolution, and in this calm environment, one starts to hear echo.-- Yannick Noah The writings of assorted ethnographers and anthropologists are intended to inform and educate the reader by transfer awareness and understanding of unexplored cultures. The value of such a lop is directly related to the authors familiarity with the culture. For instance, an individual intimately inform with a situation have polar insights, but also different biases than an outsider. Elizabeth Ferneas work Guests of the fashion plate is a combination of the two perspectives. It documents her engrossment into the society and culture of El Nahra, a village in Iraq, during the eldest two years of her marriage to Bob, an anthropologist. Her honest and frank narrative provides a fascinating glimpse at the lives of the men and women living in the village and the relationship Elizabeth, affectionately referred to by the people of the village as Beeja, has with them.Elizab eth begins her trip apprehensively, but not without excitement. She takes many of her western ideas with her to El Nahra, but readily discovers that in order to be accepted she must embrace the topical anesthetic customs. The practice of purdah, or the seclusion of women, is one with which she struggles immediately and often. Her preconceived notions regarding the netting and seclusion of women seem to show that she regarded the practice as removing women from society. Upon her arrival, she realizes that, as the that woman without an abayah, she is a curiosity, and reluctantly qualifyings her position on the garment, thinking Well, it seemed Id capitulated I was going to wear that servile garment after all. I discovered that my principles were not as str... ...e women form a of the essence(p) part of this society, and are integral to its maintenance. In spite of her early indisposition and her preconceived notions of the status of women within this society, Elizabeth learns that every member has a show up within the social hierarchy. While Elizabeth, or Beeja did not manage to change the society of El Nahra as she thought she might, she was given a order within it and granted respect from both the women and men of the society. Works CitedFernea, Elizabeth. Guests of the Sheik An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. New York Anchor Books, 1969. Joseph, Suad, Gender and Relationality among Arab Families in Lebanon, libber Studies 193 (1993) 465-486. Pierce, Leslie. The Imperial Harem Women and Sovereignty in the tuffet Empire. London Oxford University Press, 1993. The Holy Quran, Al-Ahzab 3353.