ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Bedouin production of histories. It describes the types of histories that are popular in the Naqab, their themes and registers, and the range of people communicating them. Based on ethnographic data, it details local trends associated with the articulation of oral (conversations and presentations) and text-based (booklets, pamphlets, newsletters, and websites) histories by growing numbers of Bedouin spokespersons. This chapter argues that continual scholastic focus on oral and literary practices has led to the understudy of multimedia literacies in this society, particularly visual practices such as photography. As digital technologies become more available in the Naqab, Bedouin are not only diversifying their media skills and history projects but also expanding their established patterns of authority, the types of communities they engage with, and the number of sanctioned public arbiters of local knowledge in their society.
