Specific Questions:
What does the higab mean to the people Abu-Lughod is writing about? (503) Which reasons might poor women give for wearing it? (506-7) Rich women? (506-510) Or "repentant artists"? (503-5) Who do you think would not wear it?
What does Abu-Lughod mean when she writes that "a discourse of morality serves … to mask the persistent divisions of class and lifestyle"? (511)
Connect the Dots (just think about these; you don’t have to write out answers):
What kinds of relationships do you think Abu-Lughod has with the people she is writing about? How might you compare her with Geertz, Evans-Pritchard, Reed?
How do you think Abu-Lughod views the self? Would she agree with Kondo, and hold that selves are crafted and contingent? Would she agree with Behar, and hold that selves are entities that are transportable across boundaries?
Abu-Lughod’s writing draws on observations of people doing things, conversations with people, books, magazines, television shows, movies… Most of the ethnographies we’ve read this semester have been based on conversations with people and observations of them. What makes it ethnographic to write about books, magazines, tv, movies and the like? How might this compare to the work that Roland Barthes and Emily Martin do? How might this connect with Geertz’s idea of treating culture "like a text"?