Bedouin Rights, Bedouin Representations: Dynamics of Representation in the Naqab Bedouin Advocacy Industry

Abstract

This article looks at the representations of Naqab Bedouin in Bedouin advocacy NGOs, and their relationship to changing dynamics of Palestinian and Israeli nationalism, and to wider dynamics of control and risk management. Much has been written on the folklorisation of Bedouin culture, and on representations of the Bedouin in development. The Bedouin have been important as a traditional Other for a modern Israel, and as the ‘Negev Bedouin’ a transitional society and object of development. These ideas have been refashioned by a new body of knowledge on the Naqab Bedouin created by NGO advocacy, highlighting different aspects of Bedouin marginalisation, placing them within different rights frameworks of variously framed ‘Palestinian’, ‘indigenous’, ‘minority’ or ‘civil’ rights. This article looks at the construction of the Bedouin as an object for advocacy by Bedouin NGOs for a wider audience, and particularly how these representations have presented challenges to the control regime around the Naqab Bedouin. The post-OIslo transformation has been resonant with evolving new forms of control and exploitation in contemporary capitalism that channel Bedouin claims within national and international norms and frameworks, and are guided by the modalities of risk management and considering the Bedouin as a risk. I argue that this evolving structure of risk-based governance is reformulating Israel/Palestine, and this is where the Naqab has relevance for the dynamics of the wider Middle East.