Control of Resources and Social Cohesion. The Role of the Bedouin Domestic Group

The recurrent use of anthropological concept and notions such as "domestic group" or "domestic mode of production" do not always seem appropriate, expecially in connection with the study of the Bedouin of the Arabian Peninsula. Such notions appear to be based on false conceptions of an ahistorical society suffering from underproductivity and make us to divert from a real comprehension of the current dynamics which characterize the bedouin household. Far from being an underproductive unit, the bedouin household represents the last stronghold of the bedouin identity in front of a rapidly changing economy, the decline of tribal institutions and their effects on the internal cohesion of the whole community.