Naqab/Negev Bedouins and the (internal) colonial paradigm

The concluding chapter to this volume charts the main approaches to the study of Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev) and argues for re-situating that study within an internal colonial scholarly paradigm. In such a paradigm, Bedouins can be defined as an indigenous community subject to a process that began as colonialism imposed from the outside and has continued as “internal colonialism” since the end of military government in the late 1960s. This chapter highlights three promising perspectives within this paradigm—settler society, indigeneity, and “gray space”—that form an initial step in redefining the field. The ideas proposed here undoubtedly...