This thesis explores why shaʿbī (roughly, ‘ordinary’) Moroccans so often talk about their domesti... more This thesis explores why shaʿbī (roughly, ‘ordinary’) Moroccans so often talk about their domestic workers as daughters, what this means for workers and employers, and how this is changing as community gives way to market. It brings together ethnographic study of urban shaʿbī society, of unmarried rural women who work as domestics, and of the communities from which the latter migrate. Drawing on anthropological discussions of kinship and fosterage, the thesis examines the fading tradition of ‘bringing up’ in which, according to a moral economy, a ‘known’ rural girl could properly be placed in the homes of wealthier Moroccans until marriage. This is giving way to new arrangements in which ‘unknown’ workers are paid a wage and may not stay long, but in which the ethics of charity, religious reward and gratitude still inform expectations from both sides. Geared to play out among neighbours, or at least well-known clients, over a lifetime, these ethics are being disrupted by the easy-come-easy-go of strangers. The thesis contributes to some fundamental concerns of economic anthropology: the atomisation of market exchange, the growing importance of physical marketplaces, and the meanings encoded in a monetary wage versus payment in kind. By putting together perspectives from domestics’ leisure time and life back home, it also questions the relationship between the commodification of labour and individualism. Finally, the thesis discusses a draft law which, if enforced, would mean employing domestics no longer made sense for shaʿbī Moroccans, state intervention respresenting a move away from local forms of empowerment and community. At a broader level, the thesis is concerned with households as internally hierarchical units linked together through exchange to make up society and explores the gendered dimension of household economy in a wider world. This, of course, reaches beyond Morocco, and parallels are suggested with English domestic service.
This thesis, based on 14 months of fieldwork, examines middle-class Lahore, a milieu that is not ... more This thesis, based on 14 months of fieldwork, examines middle-class Lahore, a milieu that is not only anxious about the growing religious violence in the country but also feels disappointed by the state and its false promises of progress. The ethnography explores how such tensions shape ideas on personal and public piety which, in turn, influence conceptions of modernity and a ‘successful life’. I examine the growing presence of a form of religiosity that emphasises the personal study of the Quran and other Islamic texts. The rising popularity of Quran schools and study circles, talks by television-based Islamic scholars, and discussions in homes are indicative of a sensibility which encourages individuals to discover the ‘real’ and ‘rational’ Islam by understanding the Quran for themselves. Although this religiosity centres around the individual and the cultivation of personal ethics, it also has a significant public aspect. Many believe that acquired Islamic ethics will not only help attain success in this life and the hereafter but also solve societal problems such as corruption, nepotism and economic disorder. Although such ideas have developed alongside a belief that the state is incompetent, they nevertheless reproduce many state-produced discourses on religion, morality and modernity. At a broader level, my thesis is concerned with how middle-class Pakistan perceives itself and its position in the world. I argue that prevailing ideas on Islam have been shaped by increased communication with the South Asian diaspora abroad and have developed in response to two struggles. First, the emerging middle-class uses this religiosity to contest the moral and economic domination of the established old-money elite. Second, anxieties about the gaze of an abstracted outsider – usually the West on the Muslim world – shape middle-class representations of self.</p
Text A (AH 1177/AD 1763), photocopy: Agreement among the Fifths of Dhū Muḥammadقاعدة الملازم بين ... more Text A (AH 1177/AD 1763), photocopy: Agreement among the Fifths of Dhū Muḥammadقاعدة الملازم بين أخماس ذو محمد Qawaʼid al‑Malazim Text A (1177 hijrī) in Arabic بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ومِن أما بعد فالحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على سيّدنا محمد وآله سفن النجاة (1)حضروا ذو محمد وتواجبوا بينهم على عادة أب وجدّ وأنّهم مجدّدين صَحْبهم وضمناءهم وإنّ ما قد حصل فيها مِن الخرقات مِن هذا التاريخ وأول ما عاد بعد بينهم في وجيه الضمناء وإنّها قامت الصَحّة ثرا وثريَّا وكان ما ذُكَر لحدودهم وصَحْبهم (وكان تجدود..
Even in Islamic law the notion of “intent” or ʿamd is not that of English or American court-proce... more Even in Islamic law the notion of “intent” or ʿamd is not that of English or American court-proceedings. In sharīʿah it largely depends, as it can do in custom, not formally on premeditation, but on the nature of the weapon used. In custom it will often determine what amends are due, as for instance in text B section 2 (part six, below) where if oaths establish lack of intent then harm to a woman is paid two-fold, but otherwise is paid four-fold; in text B section 4 it seems to determine if a..
When writing of law, whether customary or formally Islamic, one finds oneself moving from period ... more When writing of law, whether customary or formally Islamic, one finds oneself moving from period to period as if no great change occurred, and the same usually happens when discussing moral principles. Written histories, although the values they exhibit seem as changeless, are all but obsessed with dates and sequence. To resolve this tension in the modern style, by concentrating on how values and assumptions themselves might alter over time, if they do in the case at hand, is ruled out by lac...
Those of us intrigued by Yemen become obsessed with purely Yemeni sources, and reading even of No... more Those of us intrigued by Yemen become obsessed with purely Yemeni sources, and reading even of North Arabian badu seems a poor distraction. There is a great deal to be done on existing material from South Arabia (the documents examined here are merely provocation); there is much to do also with evidence from al-Ḥijāz. It may, however, be worth standing further back. Shared history is not the only prism through which to view customary law, and neither is generalized comparison of a simple kind..
Several texts on customary, non‑Islamic law have been collected by researchers working in Yemen. ... more Several texts on customary, non‑Islamic law have been collected by researchers working in Yemen. Few are accessible, and fewer still have been published. They represent a tradition, or set of traditions, associated particularly with tribal areas of Yemen, that is of some antiquity. It is important to make the material more widely available as a resource not only for those interested in the country’s history but for those concerned with the relation between learned and colloquial forms of law. The present article offers an annotated translation of one such text, collected by Ettore Rossi in the 1930s. The text itself, which was copied for Rossi, is dated 1059/1649, and purports to come from Khawlān al‑Ṭiyyāl.
Legalism, Anthropology, and History: A View from Part of Anthropology A Historian's Perspecti... more Legalism, Anthropology, and History: A View from Part of Anthropology A Historian's Perspective on the Present Volume 1. Ideas of Law in Hellenistic and Roman Legal Practice 2. Centres of Law: Duties, Rights, and Pluralism in Medieval India 3. The Evolution of Sanctuary in Medieval England 4. Aspects of Non-State Law: Early Yemen and Perpetual Peace 5. The English Medieval Common Law (to c. 1307) as a System of National Institutions and Legal Rules: Creation and Functioning 6. Rightful Measures: Irrigation, Land, and the Shari'ah in the Algerian Touat 7. Lord Kyaw Thu's Precedent: a Sixteenth-Century Burmese Law-Report 8. Custom, Combat, and the Study of Laws: Montesquieu Revisited 9. Legal Performances in Late Medieval France
JASO 23/1 (1992): 17-36 REVIEW ARTICLE ETHNOGRAPHY AND GENERAL THEORY OR PEOPLE VERSUS HUMANKIND ... more JASO 23/1 (1992): 17-36 REVIEW ARTICLE ETHNOGRAPHY AND GENERAL THEORY OR PEOPLE VERSUS HUMANKIND PAUL DRESCH Richard Fardon (ed.), Localizing Strategies: Regional Traditions of Ethnographic Writing, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic ...
How far should the practising historian accept the conclusion of the idealist analysis of history... more How far should the practising historian accept the conclusion of the idealist analysis of history carried out by Michael Oakeshott in Experience and Its Modes (1) [2], probably the most brilliant book on the philosophy of history written in the first half of the 20th century (even possibly including Collingwood's The Idea of History, published in 1946 (2) [3])? As a student of philosophy, perhaps, quite far, for Oakeshott's analysis is both coherent and convincing. But as a practising historian? Hardly at all (it seems to me), for it is doubtful if any practising historian could actually implement many of the conclusions drawn by Oakeshott in his analysis. Not that Oakeshott himself would have expected the practising historian to make such a choice, for as he remarks in Experience and its Modes, it was not his intention in that work to instruct the historian on how history had been written in the past, or how it should be written in the future, but merely to provide the reader with a view of history 'from the outside' (pp. 86-7), to determine its character, that is to say, from the standpoint of experience (p. 88). Oakeshott, it may be noted, lectured on history and politics at Cambridge in the 1920s and 1930s, before becoming, following service in the armed forces in the Second World War and a brief spell at Oxford, Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics (1951-68). During his life time (1901-90), he was known mainly as a political thinker, but he is now known almost as much as a philosopher of history.(3) [4] What Oakeshott argues, broadly speaking, in Experience and its Modes, is that the world of experience, normally understood as a totality, can also be understood, independently, by way of (at least) three modes of understanding, the practical, the scientific and the historical (in 1959, in The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, Oakeshott added a fourth mode, the poetic, that is to say experience viewed under
This thesis explores why shaʿbī (roughly, ‘ordinary’) Moroccans so often talk about their domesti... more This thesis explores why shaʿbī (roughly, ‘ordinary’) Moroccans so often talk about their domestic workers as daughters, what this means for workers and employers, and how this is changing as community gives way to market. It brings together ethnographic study of urban shaʿbī society, of unmarried rural women who work as domestics, and of the communities from which the latter migrate. Drawing on anthropological discussions of kinship and fosterage, the thesis examines the fading tradition of ‘bringing up’ in which, according to a moral economy, a ‘known’ rural girl could properly be placed in the homes of wealthier Moroccans until marriage. This is giving way to new arrangements in which ‘unknown’ workers are paid a wage and may not stay long, but in which the ethics of charity, religious reward and gratitude still inform expectations from both sides. Geared to play out among neighbours, or at least well-known clients, over a lifetime, these ethics are being disrupted by the easy-come-easy-go of strangers. The thesis contributes to some fundamental concerns of economic anthropology: the atomisation of market exchange, the growing importance of physical marketplaces, and the meanings encoded in a monetary wage versus payment in kind. By putting together perspectives from domestics’ leisure time and life back home, it also questions the relationship between the commodification of labour and individualism. Finally, the thesis discusses a draft law which, if enforced, would mean employing domestics no longer made sense for shaʿbī Moroccans, state intervention respresenting a move away from local forms of empowerment and community. At a broader level, the thesis is concerned with households as internally hierarchical units linked together through exchange to make up society and explores the gendered dimension of household economy in a wider world. This, of course, reaches beyond Morocco, and parallels are suggested with English domestic service.
This thesis, based on 14 months of fieldwork, examines middle-class Lahore, a milieu that is not ... more This thesis, based on 14 months of fieldwork, examines middle-class Lahore, a milieu that is not only anxious about the growing religious violence in the country but also feels disappointed by the state and its false promises of progress. The ethnography explores how such tensions shape ideas on personal and public piety which, in turn, influence conceptions of modernity and a ‘successful life’. I examine the growing presence of a form of religiosity that emphasises the personal study of the Quran and other Islamic texts. The rising popularity of Quran schools and study circles, talks by television-based Islamic scholars, and discussions in homes are indicative of a sensibility which encourages individuals to discover the ‘real’ and ‘rational’ Islam by understanding the Quran for themselves. Although this religiosity centres around the individual and the cultivation of personal ethics, it also has a significant public aspect. Many believe that acquired Islamic ethics will not only help attain success in this life and the hereafter but also solve societal problems such as corruption, nepotism and economic disorder. Although such ideas have developed alongside a belief that the state is incompetent, they nevertheless reproduce many state-produced discourses on religion, morality and modernity. At a broader level, my thesis is concerned with how middle-class Pakistan perceives itself and its position in the world. I argue that prevailing ideas on Islam have been shaped by increased communication with the South Asian diaspora abroad and have developed in response to two struggles. First, the emerging middle-class uses this religiosity to contest the moral and economic domination of the established old-money elite. Second, anxieties about the gaze of an abstracted outsider – usually the West on the Muslim world – shape middle-class representations of self.</p
Text A (AH 1177/AD 1763), photocopy: Agreement among the Fifths of Dhū Muḥammadقاعدة الملازم بين ... more Text A (AH 1177/AD 1763), photocopy: Agreement among the Fifths of Dhū Muḥammadقاعدة الملازم بين أخماس ذو محمد Qawaʼid al‑Malazim Text A (1177 hijrī) in Arabic بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ومِن أما بعد فالحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على سيّدنا محمد وآله سفن النجاة (1)حضروا ذو محمد وتواجبوا بينهم على عادة أب وجدّ وأنّهم مجدّدين صَحْبهم وضمناءهم وإنّ ما قد حصل فيها مِن الخرقات مِن هذا التاريخ وأول ما عاد بعد بينهم في وجيه الضمناء وإنّها قامت الصَحّة ثرا وثريَّا وكان ما ذُكَر لحدودهم وصَحْبهم (وكان تجدود..
Even in Islamic law the notion of “intent” or ʿamd is not that of English or American court-proce... more Even in Islamic law the notion of “intent” or ʿamd is not that of English or American court-proceedings. In sharīʿah it largely depends, as it can do in custom, not formally on premeditation, but on the nature of the weapon used. In custom it will often determine what amends are due, as for instance in text B section 2 (part six, below) where if oaths establish lack of intent then harm to a woman is paid two-fold, but otherwise is paid four-fold; in text B section 4 it seems to determine if a..
When writing of law, whether customary or formally Islamic, one finds oneself moving from period ... more When writing of law, whether customary or formally Islamic, one finds oneself moving from period to period as if no great change occurred, and the same usually happens when discussing moral principles. Written histories, although the values they exhibit seem as changeless, are all but obsessed with dates and sequence. To resolve this tension in the modern style, by concentrating on how values and assumptions themselves might alter over time, if they do in the case at hand, is ruled out by lac...
Those of us intrigued by Yemen become obsessed with purely Yemeni sources, and reading even of No... more Those of us intrigued by Yemen become obsessed with purely Yemeni sources, and reading even of North Arabian badu seems a poor distraction. There is a great deal to be done on existing material from South Arabia (the documents examined here are merely provocation); there is much to do also with evidence from al-Ḥijāz. It may, however, be worth standing further back. Shared history is not the only prism through which to view customary law, and neither is generalized comparison of a simple kind..
Several texts on customary, non‑Islamic law have been collected by researchers working in Yemen. ... more Several texts on customary, non‑Islamic law have been collected by researchers working in Yemen. Few are accessible, and fewer still have been published. They represent a tradition, or set of traditions, associated particularly with tribal areas of Yemen, that is of some antiquity. It is important to make the material more widely available as a resource not only for those interested in the country’s history but for those concerned with the relation between learned and colloquial forms of law. The present article offers an annotated translation of one such text, collected by Ettore Rossi in the 1930s. The text itself, which was copied for Rossi, is dated 1059/1649, and purports to come from Khawlān al‑Ṭiyyāl.
Legalism, Anthropology, and History: A View from Part of Anthropology A Historian's Perspecti... more Legalism, Anthropology, and History: A View from Part of Anthropology A Historian's Perspective on the Present Volume 1. Ideas of Law in Hellenistic and Roman Legal Practice 2. Centres of Law: Duties, Rights, and Pluralism in Medieval India 3. The Evolution of Sanctuary in Medieval England 4. Aspects of Non-State Law: Early Yemen and Perpetual Peace 5. The English Medieval Common Law (to c. 1307) as a System of National Institutions and Legal Rules: Creation and Functioning 6. Rightful Measures: Irrigation, Land, and the Shari'ah in the Algerian Touat 7. Lord Kyaw Thu's Precedent: a Sixteenth-Century Burmese Law-Report 8. Custom, Combat, and the Study of Laws: Montesquieu Revisited 9. Legal Performances in Late Medieval France
JASO 23/1 (1992): 17-36 REVIEW ARTICLE ETHNOGRAPHY AND GENERAL THEORY OR PEOPLE VERSUS HUMANKIND ... more JASO 23/1 (1992): 17-36 REVIEW ARTICLE ETHNOGRAPHY AND GENERAL THEORY OR PEOPLE VERSUS HUMANKIND PAUL DRESCH Richard Fardon (ed.), Localizing Strategies: Regional Traditions of Ethnographic Writing, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic ...
How far should the practising historian accept the conclusion of the idealist analysis of history... more How far should the practising historian accept the conclusion of the idealist analysis of history carried out by Michael Oakeshott in Experience and Its Modes (1) [2], probably the most brilliant book on the philosophy of history written in the first half of the 20th century (even possibly including Collingwood's The Idea of History, published in 1946 (2) [3])? As a student of philosophy, perhaps, quite far, for Oakeshott's analysis is both coherent and convincing. But as a practising historian? Hardly at all (it seems to me), for it is doubtful if any practising historian could actually implement many of the conclusions drawn by Oakeshott in his analysis. Not that Oakeshott himself would have expected the practising historian to make such a choice, for as he remarks in Experience and its Modes, it was not his intention in that work to instruct the historian on how history had been written in the past, or how it should be written in the future, but merely to provide the reader with a view of history 'from the outside' (pp. 86-7), to determine its character, that is to say, from the standpoint of experience (p. 88). Oakeshott, it may be noted, lectured on history and politics at Cambridge in the 1920s and 1930s, before becoming, following service in the armed forces in the Second World War and a brief spell at Oxford, Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics (1951-68). During his life time (1901-90), he was known mainly as a political thinker, but he is now known almost as much as a philosopher of history.(3) [4] What Oakeshott argues, broadly speaking, in Experience and its Modes, is that the world of experience, normally understood as a totality, can also be understood, independently, by way of (at least) three modes of understanding, the practical, the scientific and the historical (in 1959, in The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, Oakeshott added a fourth mode, the poetic, that is to say experience viewed under
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