We share walls : language, land, and gender in Berber Morocco / Katherine E. Hoffman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoffman, Katherine E.

Series:

Blackwell studies in discourse and culture ; 2.

Blackwell studies in discourse and culture ; 2

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Berbers--Morocco--Social life and customs.

Berbers.

Berbers--Morocco--Social conditions.

Women--Morocco.

Women.

Acculturation--Morocco.

Acculturation.

Social conditions.

Manners and customs.

Morocco--Ethnic relations.

Morocco.

Ethnic relations.

Physical Description:

xviii, 261 pages : illustrations, map, music ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2008.

Summary:

We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco explores how political economic shifts over the last century have reshaped the language practices and ideologies of people in the plains and mountains of rural southwestern Morocco. Through an entrenched moral code that favors male emigration, women have come to personify the rugged homeland and embody its native language - Tashelhit. They create frameworks in which knowledge of rural land, people, and expressive culture is positively valued. In contrast, national narratives centered on Arab identity marginalize Berbers yet immortalize Berber women as remnants of an idealized past.

Through close analysis of verbal and song-texted forms, We Share Walls is a richly textured ethnography of anxiety and temerity among an overlooked Muslim group. Hoffman documents language choices and consequences in public and private contexts, providing insight into the everyday strategies Moroccan Berbers use to accommodate themselves to an Arabic-speaking society while retaining their own distinctive identity. With its fascinating semiotic and gender issues simmering beneath the surface, this engaging book will be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, performance studies, sociolinguistics, and gender studies.

Contents:

Prelude

Introduction : staying put

On fieldwork methods and movements : "song is good speech"

Dissonance : gender

The gender of authenticity

Consonance : homeland

Building the homeland : labor, roads, emigration

Voicing the homeland : objectification, order, displacement

Antiphony : periphery

Transformation in the Sous Valley

Ishelhin into Arabs? ethnolinguistic differentiating practices in the periphery

Resonance

Mediating the countryside : purists and pundits on Tashelhit radio

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [245]-256) and index.

ISBN:

9781405154208

1405154209

9781405154215

1405154217

OCLC:

124164855

Online:

Publisher description

Contributor biographical information