Lila Awlad Ali Bedouin Women Summary

Lila Abu-Lughod immersed herself into her field study developing relationships with the Awlad ‘Ali Bedouin women in Egypt. These relationships allowed her to challenge her beliefs and open up to a spectrum of different possibilities. This quote underlines the significant role these women came to play in building up her own personal experience. Participating in their everyday lives allowed her to acquire knowledge that soon became practical to apply to herself. Thus when she was uncertain about something she pulled knowledge from both “the field” and her “home” because both beliefs and practices became meaningful and practical to her.
Being out in the field allowed her to develope a double life as an anthropologist. When trying to become pregnant she looked at both places for help. In her “home” life she relied on technological advancement (In Vitro Fertilization) to secure a pregnancy (Lughod 340). Nevertheless, Lila also took in account the practices performed by the Bedouin women to ensure fertility. These women guided Lila through practices that would lead her to a path of conception and birth. This included bathing in stagnant water, being frightened, wrapping green cloths around her breasts, and etc. Although she was skeptic she wanted to believe because of the fertility she saw upon these women. She kept …show more content…
Robbins and Rachel Dowty, we pick up on the vital importance of anthropologists immersing themselves among their subjects to develop a personal experience that will allow for a deeper understanding of things. In this text anthropologist Michael Kearney confronted witchcraft in Mexico. Being an outsider he was skeptic, but once he immersed himself into the subject’s lives and experienced it, did then he understand where the beliefs of witchcraft arose. In that same manner, Lila’s total emersion allowed her to start believing in some of the things they did because she understood and experience