Shifting discourses: unlocking representations of educated Bedouin women's identities

The shifting discourse is taking place in Bedouin studies and that seeks to create a 'counter-narrative', by challenging the hegemonic ways in which Bedouin women's identities have been represented. Academic discourse on Bedouin women, Orientalist and anti-Orientalist alike, still relates exclusively to women who cover their heads, have difficulty speaking Hebrew, and encounter problems in the Israeli academic world as a result of racial and not only cultural differences. The influence of feminist writing on Bedouin women and their self-expression was first described when Arab and Bedouin women began writing about Bedouin society alongside new foreign and Israeli writers. Researchers, like Levy and Abu-Ajaj and Ben-David, explain that separation between the sexes begins in early childhood and continues at school age. Behar generated an important debate on the meaning of being a researcher who studies her own culture. Reinharz has pointed to the act of rediscovery that female researchers experience when they write biographies about other women.