Everything has its price.

236 Pages·2011·3.73 MB·English

‘Everything has its price.’
Conservation, development and Bedu
in St Katherine Protectorate, South Sinai

A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Faculty of Humanities

2010

Hilary C Gilbert
School of Environment & Development
Institute for Development, Policy & Management
CONTENTS
Abstract 6
Declaration & Copyright 7
Dedication 8
Acknowledgements 9
The Author 10
Chapter 1 Introduction and conceptual framework 12
1.1 Introduction 12
1.2 Conceptual framework: political ecology 19
Conclusion 26
Chapter 2 Literature review 27
2.1 Nomadic pastoralists, Bedu and states 27
2.1.1 Nomadic pastoralism 27
2.1.2 Bedu in the Middle East and North Africa: dynamic traditions 32
2.1.3 Bedu in the Middle East: state-imposed ‘development’ 38
2.2 South Sinai Bedu 41
2.2.1 Tribes, territories and law 41
2.2.2 Historic core livelihoods 47
Conclusion 52
Chapter 3 Background and methods 54
3.1 Reflexivity: my position in St Katherine 54
3.2 Research method 58
Conclusion 70
Life as Lived: daybreak prayer 71
Chapter 4 The development of South Sinai 75
4.1 Israeli Occupation 1967-82 75
4.2 Egyptian rule post - 1982 81
Conclusion 88
Life as Lived: midday prayer 89

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Chapter 5 St Katherine Protectorate: rhetoric and reality 93
5.1 Environmental policy-making in Egypt 94
5.2 The St Katherine Protectorate: rise and decline 99
Phase 1: European management 101
Phase 2: the Mahmiya and its discontents 109
Conclusion 116
Life as Lived: afternoon prayer 117
Chapter 6 Bedouin overgrazing in St Katherine: degradation or discourse? 121
Conclusion 136
Life as Lived: sunset prayer 137
Chapter 7 Development and conservation: impacts 141
7.1 Core livelihoods 142
7.2 Paid work and occupations 150
7.3 Household economics and consumption 159
Conclusion 168
Life as Lived: nightfall prayer 169
Chapter 8 Identity as resistance 173
8.1 Development as control 173
8.2 Inequality and its impacts 178
8.3 Response and resistance 184
Conclusion 195
Chapter 9 Conclusion 196
Endnote 205
References 206
Appendix 1 Tribal structure of the Jebeliya 220
Appendix 2 Questionnaires 222
Appendix 3 Drawing Nature 226
Appendix 4.1 Interview questions and variables deduced from them 227
Appendix 4.2 Principal Components Analysis of the questionnaire 232
Appendix 5 Weekly purchases by category and their cost, 1960s -2000s 236

Final word count, main text and footnotes: 80,345
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List of Maps
1 Sinai peninsula, showing St Katherine 13
2 Southern Sinai showing tribal lands and SKP boundary 43
3 Study areas: inside and outside St Katherine 64
4 St Katherine study areas, 1970s vs 2000s 65
5 Territorial provisions of the Camp David Accords 1979 82
6 Egypt’s Protected Areas 97

List of Tables
2.1 Enumeration of the bedouin tribes from 1968 Israeli census 41
2.2 Tribal subdivisions and terms common to South Sinai Bedu 44
3.1 Respondents by gender 67
5.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the Egyptian PA system as assessed by its staff 111
6.1 Contrasting views of ‘Bedouin overgrazing’ 125
7.1 Flock size comparisons, spatial and temporal 145
7.2 Economic value of Bedouin herd vs cost of living, pre & post 1967 147
7.3 Relative value of known monthly earnings over the last 40 years 150
7.4 South Sinai Bedouin occupations (my data) and estimated earnings 2009 156
7.5 Poverty, South Sinai & Rural Upper Egypt, income per person per day 157
7.6 Consumer items and services, South Sinai, Frontier Govts & Egypt 160
7.7 Comparison of non-staple consumption, inside & outside St Katherine 162

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List of Figures
3.1 Respondents by tribe 66
5.1 Impact of enclosures on quality of vegetation, Wadi Fara’a, Ras Safsafa 133
7.1 Flock ownership, inside and outside St Katherine 142
7.2 Number of livestock kept, inside and outside St Katherine 143
7.3 Grazing practice inside and outside St Katherine 143
7.4 Frequencies of fodder bought in never, seasonally or always (all data) 144
7.5 Mean flock sizes in a group of St Katherine families, 1960s - 2000s 144
7.6 Annual rainfall data for the years 1970-2010, as collated by SKPA 146
7.7 Garden ownership inside and outside St Katherine 148
7.8 Non-cultivation vs active cultivation of gardens inside & outside St Katherine 149
7.9 Employment status, inside and outside St Katherine 151
7.10 Nature and work ever done, inside and outside St Katherine 152
7.11 Estimated mean weekly earnings, working men inside & outside St Katherine 154
7.12 Comparison of weekly earnings, all men, inside & outside St Katherine 155
7.13 Distribution of earnings, South Sinai Bedu 158
7.14 Weekly per capita food expenditure by household, Katriin and outside 165
7.15 Relative poverty expressed in terms of weekly per capita food expenditure in
LE, South Sinai Bedu vs Egypt 165

7.16 Weekly aggregate purchasing and consumption patterns over time 167
7.17 Rising cost of ‘traditional’ produce over time 168

List of Boxes
5.1 St Katherine Protectorate Management goals 102
5.2 Status of key elements in SKP, 2007 109
5.3 Comments made by St Katherine Protectorate staff to amplify RAPPAM 113
assessment scores
5.4 Community relations: an example. Controlling feral donkeys in SKP 115

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University of Manchester 2010 Doctor of Philosophy
‘Everything has its price.’ Conservation, development and Bedu in
St Katherine Protectorate, South Sinai. Hilary C Gilbert
This study describes the development of South Sinai, Egypt, and the role
played in it by conservation. South Sinai has great ecological, cultural and
strategic significance. Its central highlands, sacred to three faiths, form the
St Katherine Protectorate, and its indigenous population consists of Bedu
from eight tribes or confederations. The 1967 Six Day War resulted in
intense transformation and intervention first by Israel and then by Egypt.
Before 1967 core bedouin livelihoods were agropastoral, but sedentarization
and economic change made them uneconomic, increasing bedouin
dependence on paid work. Since 1982 Egyptian policy has focussed on
‘Egyptianizing’ Sinai and exploiting it through its tourist industry. Both
processes exclude Bedu, who are now a marginalized minority. Conservation
policy is central to this outcome and the dysfunctions which result.
I argue that Egypt’s conservation agenda in Sinai permits the claim that
‘something is being done’ to combat environmental degradation caused by
settlement and tourism, while providing a mechanism for controlling a
problematic minority. First I examine the context, goals, logic and practice of
Egyptian environmental and conservation policies and then their application
to St Katherine, focussing on ‘overgrazing’ narratives that have led
conservation policy. These attribute vegetation loss to Bedu, ignoring
alternative evidence, and providing a rationale for their ‘re-education’.
Second I examine the impact of these interventions upon bedouin
livelihoods, demonstrating a 95% decline in flock size from the 1960s to the
present day, and the loss of viability of pastoralism. I illustrate growing
polarization within bedouin society, and demonstrate lower access by Bedu
to most goods and services compared to the general population. For half my
sample (122 individuals in 82 households) income falls at or below $1 per
person per day. 80% of Bedu are shown to experience food poverty
compared with 44% of Egyptians. Official data on Bedu are not collected,
and their poverty thus ignored by planners. I believe this is the first time
their poverty has been demonstrated.
Finally I examine how the Bedu have responded to marginalization and
inequality. I argue that bedouin identity is eroded by their structural
inequality as citizens, especially in town where it is most apparent. Attempts
to revalidate themselves as Bedu crystallize around dissatisfaction with the
Protectorate. As an act of resistance, Bedu have ‘reinvented’ an identity as
guardians of nature, just as their actual dependence on nature declines.
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Declaration & Copyright
Declaration
No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an
application for another degree or qualification of the University of Manchester or any other
institute of learning.

Copyright statement
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certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”), and she has given the University of
Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes.
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thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such
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http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/policies/intellectual-property.pdf), in any
relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, the University
Library’s regulations (see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in
the University’s policy on presentation of Theses.

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For Francis

Bel ami, si est de nus
Ne vus sanz mei, ne mei sanz vus

Thomas: ‘Tristan’

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Acknowledgments
When I embarked on this enterprise I had little notion of its eventual scale. So many people
have helped me bring it to fruition that I barely know where to start thanking them. From
the beginning, Michael Reiss gave me valuable support and advice. Emma Loveridge
encouraged me. The staff of the University of Manchester, and John Rylands University
Library in particular - have been universally helpful (a blessing not equally distributed among
university librarians). Phil Woodhouse and Tim Jacoby’s insights kept me on my toes.
In Cairo, where my husband Francis and I were living from 2005 to late 2007, I was
nourished intellectually and gastronomically by John and Mary Lyn Villaume, Ron Hess and
Cheryl Groff. I learned much from encounters with Liz Taylor and Eman el Bastawisi, and
from talking with John Grainger. Access to the AUC library was much appreciated. My
greatest Cairo debt is to the patient skill of Eman Hamdy, who persisted in teaching me
Arabic despite my howls of outrage.
At some point in 2007 I emailed Avi Perevolotsky, who had published the core research on
which I based my study. By return Avi offered to share his original notes - provided I would
come to Israel to get them. This initiated a trip to Jerusalem in 2008 from which Francis and
I returned with a greatly enlarged outlook, and having been introduced to a panoply of
distinguished Israeli scholars. I am grateful to Avi for his hospitality, his intellectual
generosity, and for introducing me, directly or indirectly to both Smadar Lavie and Emanuel
Marx - the only time in living memory I was actually tongue-tied. All have inspired me with
their encouragement as well as their work. In the fraught and contested space of South
Sinai one has to tread with especial care, but I hope profoundly that we will be able to build
on the connections we have made. My deep thanks go to all of them.
I should like to record my love of Egypt and its people, who have done so much in countless
encounters to enrich my life and outlook. Those who helped and encouraged me are too
numerous to count. Not least among them were the staff of the Protectorate, who I fear will
find my thesis indigestible: Mohammed Qotb and his team were unfailingly helpful. I would
like to record my thanks for their help and my absolute conviction that everything they do is
done with the best intent. My critique is institutional, not personal.
I have greatly appreciated the consistent encouragement and support of our old friends
Samy Zalat and Somia al Akkad. Samy’s help saw my questionnaire through security, and
his advice from the outset helped me with matters both practical and intellectual. Their
commitment to the Bedu is undoubted, and I look forward to our continued friendship and
work together through the Foundation they co-founded with us. My thesis will not make
easy reading for Egyptian biologists whose hearts are in Sinai; I hope profoundly they will
see my findings as enlightening, not discouraging.
My gratitude to everyone I interviewed, for their trust and frankness, is I hope clear on
every page of this thesis. In St Katherine I owe a debt to the whole community, who
tolerated my unfathomable behaviour and learner’s Arabic: so many people made me
welcome, invited me, brought me herbs when I was ill (Dr Ahmed and Kelvin), gave me lifts,
carried my water, made me endless tea, didn’t object when I had to stick my feet out,
arranged prayers at the mosque when my mother was ill, and above all, talked to me. I
can’t begin to thank them all by name, but to Mohammed’s family goes my special gratitude
for feeding me (especially Hamida’s fish lunches), teaching me and treating me as part of
their family.
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Faraj ‘Fox’ built us the house in which I lived throughout my fieldwork and beyond. His deep
knowledge of his community and commitment to it have inspired me, both in my research
and in the Foundation he helped found with us. I cannot begin to thank him for his support
(and for killing the giant spider).
At times my research has felt like a family enterprise. St Katherine has been my husband’s
study site for 25 years; but James and Lucy, my children, have also long known and loved
it. Their academic interests - as a biologist and social anthropologist, respectively - have
made them perfectly fitted to comment on my work, and they have given freely of their time
and advice. I have benefitted greatly from both, especially from Lucy’s wise editing and
deeply-informed insights. I learn from them both all the time, and love and appreciate them
constantly.
Finally, there are three people without whom I could not have completed this work, and to
whom I owe particular and heartfelt thanks. The first is Dan Brockington, my supervisor. I
must have given him many anxious moments. He has never betrayed it: perpetually
encouraging, by emphasizing the positive, instructing judiciously and correcting with
exquisite tact Dan has succeeded in nurturing me to the end of this process. I cannot thank
him enough.
The second is Mohammed Khedr, my amanuensis in Katriin. Ours is hardly the likeliest of
partnerships, but a partnership it has become. I am indebted to Mohammed not just for
making my research so richly productive, but for making it so much fun. In 25 years I have
never got on better with anyone I have worked with, and I look forward to the continuation
of our friendship and our future work for his - our - community, through the Foundation.
And in the end, Francis, who has supported and helped me unfailingly with his patience,
love, generosity and brilliance, and whom I should I embarrass were I to thank him as I
should wish. My work is dedicated to him, in love and gratitude, always.

The author
Hilary Gilbert completed her first degree, in Modern and Mediaeval Languages, at Cambridge
in 1975.
Her professional career has been spent as a practitioner in the health and community
sectors, for the past fifteen years in the community foundation movement. Within these
fields her research experience has been mostly informal. Projects for which she was largely
responsible in design and execution include an unpublished Rapid Appraisal Community
Health Needs Assessment for Nottingham District Health Authority in 1990; a literature
review of patient involvement in healthcare decision-making (Farrell C & Gilbert H (1996)
Health Care Partnerships. London: King’s Fund); and community needs assessment
undertaken as Executive Director of the Derbyshire Community Foundation (Jones R, Gilbert
H, Subhra G & Lyford J (1998) A County of Contrasts: A study of disadvantage in
Derbyshire. University of Derby). In 1994-6 she took an Open University graduate module in
research method and evaluation.

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