P-55 Women’s Work and Knowledge in a Traditional Arab Village: Analyzing Ethnographic Data from the Village of Hisban in Jordan

Buller Hallway

What is the nature of the knowledge required by women in order to succeed at “women’s work” in a traditional Arab Village? This question will be examined through analysis of ethnographic notes collected between 1971 and 1976 by Dr. LaBianca and his students in the village of Hisban in Jordan. Over the past six months I have been using NVivo, a commercial software for entering and analyzing various qualitative data, to transcribe hundreds of hand-written note cards containing ethnographic data from the original Heshbon Expedition. As I worked on transcribing this data, I noticed that the most common observations recorded by the ethnographers had to do with women and their work. In particular, there are a lot of notes dealing with food preparation and the areas involved with it. Some of the notes also deal with the women’s attitudes and skills/knowledge. This poster will describe the progress thus far in my research on women’s work, particularly in the area of food preparation, and the attitude toward the women’s work. The research will be done to further expand our understanding of the role of women and their work in Jordan.