A different landscape: toward a novel approach to sedentarization processes in arid and Semi-arid environments
Rent landscape: toward a novel approach to sedentarization processes in arid and Semi-arid environments
Between the end of the 19th century and the
mid-20th century the region of the Negev has gone thru long and consistent
change. The change was a combination of the utilizations of natural resources
and economical patterns, social structure, believes and culture. The cultural
landscape of the region characterized in patterns of nomads in process of
sedentarization.
Most of the scholars of nomadic societies in the
world, especially in the Negev dealt with sedentarization processes as a
forced/orchestrated, "Top-own" process made by the central regime.
Scholars who come from different perspectives focused on the orchestrated
aspects the process (Yiftahel 2008 Yahel 2019 Shmuely and Khamaisi 2011).
These researches mainly ignored the internal
changes within the nomadic society itself. In 1980 Salzman and Sadala has
identified different processes of sedentarisation among nomads. Part of this
processes are internal changes within the societies themselves and not just
forced or responses to the act of the central government.
In this presentation, based on fieldwork among
the Negev Bedouins in the past two decades, I want to present a novel approach
to the sedentarization process of the Negev Bedouins. I would like to present
the "bottom up" processes rely on the internal changes of the Bedouin
society itself.
My presentation will analyses the gradient of
aridity of the Negev in a cultural perspective, material culture, utilization
of natural resources, the characterization and evolution of buildings, and the
tension and corporation between pasturing and agriculture in the arid and
semi-arid areas of the Negev (Galilee 2019).