Introduction

This chapter introduces the Naqab Desert, travelling from Beersheba to the close-knit Bedouin villages. It describes how Bedouin maintain relationships with lineages in Jordan and Egypt, their Jewish and Muslim neighbours, and visiting foreigners. During encounters with these groups, members emphasise different aspects of their local histories and draw on an assortment of written testimonies, maps, and photographs to validate them. Amid the documentary materials available to Bedouin, members treat photographs as authenticating records of their past. This chapter lays out the argument for documenting the occasions wherein Bedouin use photographs when discussing their past with others in order to better explain their divergent historical narratives and the representational politics behind them.