What We See and What We Say

Using Images in Research, Therapy, Empowerment, and Social Change

Ephrat Huss

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136344879
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

Image-based research methods, such as arts-based research, can fill the absence of the voice of impoverished, under-privileged populations. In What We See and What We Say, Ephrat Huss argues that images are deep and universally psycho-neurological constructs through which people process their experiences. The theoretical model demonstrated in this book demonstrates that images can be used to enable three different levels of communication: with self, with others similar to oneself, and with others who differ in terms of culture and power. Dr. Huss centers her argument on a case study of impoverished Bedouin women's groups in Israel who used art as self-expression, and includes many additional examples such as unemployed women and teenage girls in slums, women who have underwent sexual abuse, and the experiences of illegal immigrants. Ultimately, the author points to how the inherent structural characteristics of images help to intensify the voices of marginalized groups in research, therapy, empowerment, and social action.

Section 1

Art as a Speech Act
from the Margins

A Case Study of Impoverished
Bedouin Women’s Images

This section will provide the social context of the case study, and the research strategy and setting as background to understanding the images that will be presented and analyzed, first by the women themselves.

The images that the marginalized Bedouin women created in the study’s workshops can be understood in terms of a social theoretical prism that will demonstrate the combined oppressive power of cultural transition, poverty, and gender discrimination for these women. The content of the images will be shown to express this social reality in a complex way, while the compositional elements will reveal how the women feel and cope with this reality. This includes pain, but also constant struggle against these oppressions. The discussion of the images will be shown to create a coherent group narrative and a way to indirectly influence and resist power holders.

1 Social Context

Background to the Bedouin Women’s Case Study

This chapter will provide the social and research context of the case study of marginalized Bedouin women in Israel, who are used to exemplify the theory of this book. This chapter will also outline the social context of the impoverished Bedouin women in Israel, as well as the research strategy used to develop and organize the art workshops with them. This context is specific, yet also characteristic of other indigenous and transitioning impoverished women in the world. The research design described in this section aims to touch upon the problems or the issues that arise when using images within a research or empowerment setting.

A premise of this study is that social context cannot only be learned from textbooks as a static anthropological entity. Social context involves a hybridization of various—and at times conflicting—norms or cultural processes within any given person and group at any given time (Abu-Lughod, 1993; Avruch, 1998; Bhabha, 1994; Spindler, 1997). In accordance with this assumption a static description of traditional Bedouin culture, as described in the literature, will first be outlined, and then the cultural transition that this group underwent with the setting up of the state of Israel will be described.

A. Traditional Bedouin Culture and Collectivist Values

Although the Bedouin are Muslim, they have integrated early pre-Islamic customs into Islam, specifically those related to survival in the desert. The term Bedouin refers to the Arab nomadic tribes that have lived in Israel for over two millennia (Meir, 1997). Within the Negev, there are three types of Bedouin: the “Sum Ran,” considered the original Bedouin tribes, the “El-Abed,” who are black Sudanese Bedouin, and the “Hum Ran,” who are Arab fallachim who joined the Bedouin tribes (Baily, 2002; Barakat, 1993; Meir, 1997).

The term Bedouin does not imply a unified racial, ethnic, or national group but rather refers to groups that reside in desert lands. These groups include a myriad of people with different degrees of sedantarization, agriculture, and nomadic lifestyles. Tribes are organized along political rather than racial lines (Meir, 1997; Relton, 2005).

In terms of social organization within traditional Bedouin culture, the concept of collectivism is a central component, as it is in most traditional rural cultures. Sue (1996) describes identity within collective societies as based on an outer locus of control, which means that identity is defined in terms of relationships within the family or tribe rather than in terms of personal achievement. According to Cole (1996), context is not the “surroundings” external to the individual, but rather the “connected whole that gives coherence to its parts” (Cole, 1996, p. 135).

Collectivist culture has been described as “the production of selves with fluid boundaries organized for gendered and aged domination” (Joseph, 1999, p. 12; Eidelman, 2002). Suad (1997) describes Arab patriarchal power as being central at familial, institutional, and public levels, with the extended family as the most central unit of Muslim society. Individual actions reflect upon the family as a whole and vice versa. The values of generosity, hospitality, reciprocity, pride, valor, and strength are manifested through societal codes of indirect communication, conflict avoidance, and the use of mediators (Cole, 1996; Joseph, 1999; Suad, 1997; Tal, 1980, 1995). Another way of defining these values is as “high context,” according to Barakat (1993), emphasizing the collective over the individual, a slow pace of societal change, and a sense of social stability as a value.

B. Women within Traditional Culture

Traditional cultures are gender segregated: Women often do not have access to legal assistance, cannot choose their husbands, and have no control over the family’s finances, including their own dowries (Hijab, 1988). Within this traditional context, women establish power relative to other Bedouin women, not in the male public arena. Traditionally, women’s social life and power are found in the home, rather than within public spaces, where their power is limited. The home, run by women, is lively and bustling, and it is an arena for working out different familial issues. Conversely, the men interact among themselves in public areas. Lewando-Hundt (1976, 1978) describes how the traditional Bedouin tent has designated women’s areas, in which women’s tasks such as childcare and cooking take place, and designated men’s areas, where people from the outside are hosted and where decisions are made overtly. Traditionally, in situations of conflict negotiation, Bedouin women avoid direct assault (Al-Krenawi, 2000). Women have indirect ways of affecting these decisions by influencing their husbands or using their children to convey a message. In this context, female ways of resolving conflicts and influencing a husband’s behavior can be characterized by the somatization of frustration; for example, by expressing jealousy in somatized forms or through indirect assaults, such as poisoning another wife’s chickens. Another method of influence can be maintaining the status quo. For example, if the woman has young children and does not want to risk her husband divorcing her and taking away the children, she can avoid sexual contact with the husband or initiate more extreme avoidance, such as returning to her mother’s house. More dramatically, she can stage an expression of her pain, such as a suicide attempt. Women can indirectly influence familial decisions through their children (Abu-Lughod, 1993; Holms, 2003). Outsiders assume that Arab women have no power because they lack legal rights. However, as shown above, Arab women are often strong and self-confident, especially in the rural communities where they work alongside their husbands and are economically productive. Thus, Bedouin women can influence decision making indirectly through their networks of kinship and friendship that have consequences for the men in their community (Tal, 1995; Yamini, 1996). Men may serve as heads of the family and are the speakers in the public sphere, but they consult privately with their wives before making decisions. The participation of women in the decision-making process is thus subtle and indirect, and so is their exercise of power (Afkhami, 1995; Cohen, 1999; Hijab, 1988; Yamini, 1996).

C. Use of Images within Traditional Bedouin Culture

Visual art elements mostly consist of embroidery, weaving, and clay, elements that are used to decorate the women’s area of the tent as well as people’s clothes and camels’ trappings (Fugel, 2002; Tal, 1995). A dominant art form of Islamic culture in general, including Bedouin culture, and indeed most nomadic cultures, is the male-dominated tradition of oral poetry and storytelling, which is used to convey collective history, values, and events that have taken place between the different nomadic tribes (Abu-Lughod, 1993; Al-Hammed, 2004; Bar Tzvi, 1986, 1999); calligraphy is also a male-dominated craft.

If we understand images and symbols to be a reflection of social and cultural values (Huss, 2010b; Mahon, 2000), then we can see these collective values expressed in traditional art forms. In the poetic calligraphy and fabric and clay crafts of the Bedouin, the aesthetic of abstract design stresses the importance of static balance, measure, and spacing. These designs challenge the eye with puzzles, and the repetitive patterns create a mystical sense of infinity (Irving, 1997; Kroup, 1995). Patterns are repeated, rotated, and varied in the context of harmony and order, all of the parts fitting into the whole. This reflects the values of traditional Bedouin culture, which views the individual as part of a complex, harmonious, and regulated whole (P. Allen, 1993; T. Allen, 1988; Fugel, 2002; Irving, 1997; Naasr, 2002). This aesthetic is in contrast to the role of art in Westernized culture, which, according to Western social values, embodies individuality, originality, and different or “authentic” experiences, often as a critique of the existing societal order. Indeed, even today, Kroup (1995) has found more decorative elements in Bedouin children’s drawings than in more Westernized Jewish children’s drawings in Israel.

Within traditional and gender-segregated cultures the masculine art forms of poetry and calligraphy use words to express the male experience. However, feminine art, often in craft forms, uses images to express cultural values and domestic power. For example, the traditional Bedouin embroidered dress represents an indirect expression of power. Embroidery has distinct patterns that signify information about marital status, number of children, and life transitions such as mourning. The dress also serves as a protective amulet; the bright colors embroidered over the breast area are used to protect milk production for children as well as to focus the male gaze. The bright colors can also be seen from afar in the desert, and thereby provide a protective element. Another type of fabric created by the women is the traditional Bedouin carpet, the hadg, which they weave. It is at the center of the tent, and all domestic interactions occur around it, symbolizing women’s power in the domestic sphere. Traditional female crafts, such as embroidery, create an arena of social networks of help and competition as to the quality of the product (Fugel, 1992; Tal, 1980). This type of activity also serves as a source of surreptitious leisure in group gatherings, especially because many Muslim religious authorities view embroidering as an unnecessary source of pleasure. Additionally, specific embroidery patterns provide a collective identity that identifies a group from other groups. For example, Bedouin embroidery has different designs from those found in Palestinian embroidery (Tal, 1980).

As noted above, the traditional use of words is to express male experience, as in oral poetry and calligraphy, and images are used by traditional women, which forms a basis for using images as a form of expression with the Bedouin women in this case study (Huss, 2010b).

D. Bedouin Culture in Transition

The Bedouin in Israel are undergoing an intense and rapid cultural transition in the context of extreme poverty and conflict with the dominant Israeli state. This cultural transition is also typical of other rural and indigenous groups throughout the world.

According to researchers Ben-David (1981) and Meir (1997), this transition is commonly divided into three stages:

1. The Nomadic Pastoral Stage (pre-1948).

2. The Sedentarization Stage (1949–1966): The Israeli state limited Bedouin movement, but members of the Bedouin community were not allowed to enter the Israeli work force.

3. The Modernization Stage (1960-present): The Bedouin are settled into townships and enter the workforce (Meir, 2005).

In 1950, 2 years after the State of Israel was founded, the Bedouin living in Israel were moved to sedentary areas in the Negev that were less agriculturally productive. This policy triggered the ongoing political friction regarding landownership and the right of the Bedouin to continue a nomadic lifestyle (Barakat, 1993). Under the influence of the dominant Israeli culture, Bedouin society is now undergoing a change from a collective to an individualistic culture and from a nomadic lifestyle to one fixed in permanent settlements. According to the Center for Research on the Bedouin at Ben-Gurion University, the 100,000 contemporary Bedouin living in the Negev, located in southern Israel, account for 18% of the region’s population. Roughly half of the Bedouin population living in this region resides within the seven recognized settlements, while the remaining half lives in tents and temporary dwellings within unrecognized settlements spread throughout the Negev region (Ben-David, 1981; Meir, 1997, 2005; Porat, 2009).

This process has resulted in a dramatic change in the social organization of the Bedouin community. Women and children, who previously played a central role in agriculture and husbandry, are no longer able to participate in the economic support system. Similarly, the transition from nomadism has devalued the traditional role of elders. Additionally, the surrender of social responsibilities to state authorities, who invest limited resources and often lack cultural relevance to the community, has resulted in the decline of the collective family support system (Kapri, Roznik, & Budekat, 2002; Lewando Hundt, 1978; Perez, 2001; Tal, 1995). Further, the move to a sedentary lifestyle eliminated the traditional pastoral source of livelihood for many Bedouin. Meanwhile, no new sources of livelihood, such as industry based on vocational training, have been created in the townships, thus increasing the poverty level. As a result, unemployment and child benefit support from the state have become the central sources of income for the impoverished Bedouin in the townships (Meir, 2005; Porat, 2009).

Like many similar indigenous peoples, the Bedouin are trapped in both an external struggle with the dominant society and an internal struggle with demographic and cultural changes caused by the transition from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle. This social transition and struggle include the context of extreme poverty and political conflict with the Jewish-Israeli state that is the result of oppression created by the severe neglect of this sector’s public needs. The political conflict is partially due to the political conflict over lands that mars the relationship between the Bedouin and the state (Meir, 2005).

In 1999, the Center for Research of Bedouin Society at Ben-Gurion University published the first statistical yearbook on the Bedouin. This publication finally terminated the “invisibility” that characterized Bedouin society within the dominant Jewish literature. Since this breakthrough publication in 1999, several conferences on the Bedouin have been held at Ben-Gurion University. The conferences discussed educational and political strategies for conceptualizing and bettering the situation of the Bedouin community. Aside from the gross neglect of the Bedouin community that was discussed, these conferences also raised awareness that the transition to a sedentary lifestyle had shifted the manner in which the Bedouin build their self-identity and, further, created attempts to guide the Bedouin in their move to gain political recognition and rights. Nevertheless, contemporary Bedouin define themselves as both an indigenous and a colonized people (Abu-Said & Champagne, 2005). By defining themselves as an indigenous people, Bedouins embrace both a worldview and a call for more culturally relevant education, increased welfare services, and better living conditions. For example, Abu-Kuidar (1994), in her work on young girls’ dropout rates from school, states that the educational system within the Bedouin community perpetuates discrimination by creating mixed schools that girls and young women cannot attend because there are boys there (rather than same-sex schools like those that exist in Jewish religious sectors in Israel). Likewise, Al-Krenawi (2000), in his extensive work on culturally incompatible psychiatric services in Israel, describes the large dropout rate of patients from culturally irrelevant psychiatric services.

At the same time, Israel itself is struggling for identity; the values within the Bedouin community are different from those of the state at large, but Israel is not entirely a Western culture in and of itself. Indeed, post-Zionist theory claims that Arab and Jewish cultures are actually much more similar than different. For example, Abu-Baker (2002) claims that both Arab and Jewish males prefer to f...