Guests of the Sheik

An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village

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In this absorbing account, Elizabeth Fernea examines the daily lives of women in a small rural village in southern Iraq. For two years, Fernea lived in El Nahra, Southern Iraq, where, in addition to cultural norms such as polygamy, no social communications between women and men are allowed. This ethnographic study provides insight into a part of Middle Eastern life seldom seen by the West: the sheltered lives of Haren women.
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and her husband, Robert Fernea, traveled to the Arab world for the first time in 1956. After writing Guests of the Sheik, her first book, she wrote The Arab World with Robert Fernea, as well as books about Egypt and Morocco. She also made five films about the lives of Arab women. She died in 2008. View titles by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

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In this absorbing account, Elizabeth Fernea examines the daily lives of women in a small rural village in southern Iraq. For two years, Fernea lived in El Nahra, Southern Iraq, where, in addition to cultural norms such as polygamy, no social communications between women and men are allowed. This ethnographic study provides insight into a part of Middle Eastern life seldom seen by the West: the sheltered lives of Haren women.

Author

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and her husband, Robert Fernea, traveled to the Arab world for the first time in 1956. After writing Guests of the Sheik, her first book, she wrote The Arab World with Robert Fernea, as well as books about Egypt and Morocco. She also made five films about the lives of Arab women. She died in 2008. View titles by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

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