Between Contentment and Curiosity: The Hybrid Femininities of Young Bedouin Women in South Sinai

Abstract: The drastic changes in infrastructure and arrival of luxury tourism to South Sinai has brought the global world at the doorstep of the region’s nomadic bedouins. The ever-expanding global influence has given birth to a generation of young bedouin women who absorb the surrounding new ideals, behaviors and understandings, blending them with their tribal culture. This has created identity hybridities, resulting in redefinition of gendered identities, or as referred to in this study, femininities. Using qualitative methods of ethnography and semi-structured interviews, this study explores how these women absorb the influence of changes and continuities, and global and local when constructing their understanding of femininities within their socio-cultural realities. By using conceptual framework tailored to discuss these aspects of influence, the concepts of performativity by Judith Butler, agency by Sabah Mahmood and cultural appropriations by Janice Boddy are utilised in order to further analyse these changes, continuities, and globality/locality in the subjects’ lives. This study suggest that each woman individually chooses to either adapt or reject these surrounding influences in their lives, resulting in myriad of different hybrid ideals of femininity. Performing these ideals in front of the community has resulted in a gradual change of commonly accepted appropriations of femininities among the bedouins of South Sinai.