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Articles

Silencing and silence in Negev Bedouin students’ narrative discourse

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ABSTRACT

This article explores explicit and implicit dimensions of identity that Negev Bedouin students position in their life stories. The literature review probes the participants’ historical, cultural and social contexts and presents the critical discourse-oriented perspective adopted in the study to explore identity construction in narrative discourse. Fourteen men and 16 women attending a college of education in southern Israel were asked to write meaningful stories related to various chapters in their lives. Interpretation of explicit themes and silences show that women and men positioned themselves as two separate groups vis-à-vis the male-dominated Bedouin tradition, and the Israeli government.

Acknowledgement

The research reported here was conducted as part of a post-doctoral fellowship and financially supported by MOFET Institute, Research, Curriculum and Program Development for Teacher Educators.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Abu-Ras, “Specialization in Teaching.”

2. Adalah, “The Inequality Report.”

3. Abu-Radia-Queder, “Building Inequality.”

4. Abu-Saad, “Access to Higher Education for the Arab Minority.”

5. Abu-Saad, “Access to Higher Education and Its Socio-Economic Impact”; and Al-Krenawi, “Higher Education among Minorities.”

6. Charmaz, “Constructivist Grounded Theory”; and Denzin, “Critical Qualitative Inquiry.”

7. Yiftahel, “The ‘Unrecognized’ Bedouin Space.”

8. Abu-Saad, “Access to Higher Education and Its Socio-Economic Impact.”

9. Ben-Israel and Meir, Renaming Space, 65.

10. Swirski, Konor-Attias and Rapoport, Social Status 2015.

11. Ben-Israel, “Hybrid-Glocal Sense of Place.”

12. Yiftahel, “Colonial Deadlock.”

13. See note 11 above.

14. See note 10 above.

15. Allassad-Alhuzail, When the Shadow Is Big.

16. Ben-Asher and Maree, “Conciliation and Comfort.”

17. Ben-David, The Link between the Bedouin Woman’s Status.

18. Ben-Asher and Bokek-Cohen, “Clashing Identities.”

19. Abu-Saad, “Access to Higher Education for the Arab Minority in Israel.”

20. Schildkraut and Fakhereldeen, “Spaces of Identity.”

21. Johnstone, Discourse Analysis, 2.

22. Schiffrin, Approaches to Discourse.

23. Freeman, “Life ‘on Holiday’?”.

24. Davies and Harré, “Positioning”; Bamberg, “Positioning between Structure and Performance”; and Kupferberg, Touching the Sky.

25. Georgakopoulou, Small Stories.

26. Korobov and Bamberg, “Strip Poker!”.

27. Langenhove and Harré, “Introducing Positioning Theory.”

28. See note 26 above.

29. Johnstone, Discourse Analysis, 28.

30. See note 6 above.

31. Mazzei, “An Impossibly Full Voice”; and Silverman, “How Was It for You?”.

32. Mazzei, “An Impossibly Full Voice.”

33. The terms silence and voice are metaphors that have been extensively described in qualitative research according to Blommaert, Discourse: Key Topics, Jackson and Mazzei, Voice in Qualitative Inquiry, and Schwandt, The Sage Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry. The limited scope of the article does not permit us to elaborate on the complex connections between these terms.

34. Jaworski, “Introduction: An Overview.”

35. Efrat, When Silence Speaks.

36. Zerubavel, The Elephant in the Room.

37. See note 35 above.

38. Kupferberg, Shimoni and Attias, “Exploring the Experience.”

39. See note 36 above.

40. Ibid.

41. See note 38 above.

42. Kupferberg, Text and Discourse Analysis.

43. McAdams, Personal Myths.

44. Ibid.

45. Charmaz, “Constructivist Grounded Theory.”

46. Braun and Clark, “Using Thematic Analysis.”

47. Schwandt, The Sage Dictionary.

48. See note 1 above.

49. Allassad-Alhuzail, When the Shadow Is Big; and Sadiqi, Women, Gender, and Language.

50. See note 4 above.

51. See note 20 above.

52. E.g., Abu-Rabia-Queder, “Higher Education as a Platform”; and Alhuzail, The Meaning of the Change Processes.

53. See note 35 above.

54. Abu-Rabia-Queder, “Higher Education as a Platform.”

55. See note 8 above.

56. Abu-Rabia-Queder and Karplus, “Regendering Space.”

57. Abu-Lughod, “Honor and the Sentiment of Loss.”

58. See note 8 above.

59. Al-Krenawi and Graham, “Social Work and Blood Vengeance.”

60. See note 15 above.

61. Abu-Bader and Gottlieb, Poverty, Education, and Employment.

62. Rodenitsky and Abu-Ras, The Bedouin Community.

63. Al-Haj, Education, Empowerment, and Control; and Sa’ar, “A GSS Agent.”

64. See note 36 above.

65. Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adnan Gribiea

Adnan Gribiea is a lecturer and a pedagogical instructor in the Department of Mathematics and in the elementary-school teacher education program for the Bedouin sector at Kaye Academic College of Education.

Smadar Ben-Asher

Smadar Ben-Asher is a professor at Kaye Academic College of Education, a faculty member at the Mandel Leadership Institute in the Negev and an adjunct lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Irit Kupferberg

Irit Kupferberg is a professor (emerita) of linguistics at Levinsky College of Education and the editor of Israel Studies in Language and Society. Her research interests, books and articles focus on the study of spoken, and computer-mediated communication in institutional settings, qualitative research methodology, figurative language and narrative analysis.

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