Table Of ContentTOURNAMENTS OF VALUE
Sociability and Hierarchy in a Yemeni Town
20th Anniversary Edition
A groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the diverse experi-
ence of Middle Eastern women, Tournaments of Value vividly portrays a
fascinating world of female socializing, and in so doing expands our knowl-
edge of women’s social centrality in the Islamic Middle East.
Anne Meneley’s research challenges assumptions about the cross-cultural
validity of a division between household and community, between domes-
tic and public domains. She demonstrates the fuidity of social life, and
the shifting nature of community organization, thus providing a welcome
counterpoint to more rigid formulations of Middle Eastern social structure
depicted in other ethnographies.
Tournaments of Value incorporates vignettes to illustrate more analytical
points and to allow the reader to enter fully into the rich world of Zabid.
This expanded 20th anniversary edition introduces this seminal work to a
new generation of readers.
(Anthropological Horizons)
anne meneley is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Trent
University.
ANTHROpOLOgIcAL HORIZONS
Editor: Michael Lambek, University of Toronto
This series, begun in 1991, focuses on theoretically informed ethnographic
works addressing issues of mind and body, knowledge and power, equality
and inequality, the individual and the collective. Interdisciplinary in its per-
spective, the series makes a unique contribution in several other academic
disciplines: women’s studies, history, philosophy, psychology, political sci-
ence, and sociology.
For a list of the books published in this series see p. 217
TOURNAMENTS OF VALUE
Sociability and Hierarchy
in a Yemeni Town
20th Anniversary Edition
ANNE MENELEY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO pRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto press 2016
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
printed in canada
First published in 1996 by University of Toronto press.
isbn 978-1-4875-0134-1 (cloth) isbn 978-1-4875-2132-5 (paper)
printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with
vegetable-based inks.
Anthropological Horizons
publication cataloguing information is available from Library and
Archives canada.
This book was published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and
Social Sciences Federation of canada, using funds provided by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research council of canada.
University of Toronto press acknowledges the fnancial assistance to its
publishing program of the canada council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
council, an agency of the government of Ontario.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
To my parents, Robert and Rose Meneley
This page intentionally left blank
contents
foreword to the 20th anniversary edition ix
preface to the 20th anniversary edition xiii
preface to the frst edition xxiii
Introduction 3
1 going Out in Zabid 21
2 Tournaments of Value 37
3 The Bayt: Family and Household 60
4 Achieving Virtue through Modesty 81
5 Distinction and Display in the Visiting Scene 99
6 Moments of consequence: Weddings and Mourning ceremonies 118
7 personhood, Emotion, and Hierarchy 141
8 Moral Worth and piety in Everyday Life 160
conclusion: The Rise and Fall of Families 180
glossary 195
bibliography 199
index 213
Meneley_5197_i_(Reprint).indd 7 29/06/2016 4:19:29 PM
This page intentionally left blank
Foreword to the
20th Anniversary Edition
Anne Meneley’s Tournaments of Value, here in its 20th anniversary edi-
tion, ranks among the classic ethnographies of the Muslim Middle East.
As Meneley notes in her new introduction, Zabid, Yemen, and indeed the
whole Middle East have moved on from the period she describes in trou-
bling and surprising ways. Like all ethnographies, Tournaments is historical,
capturing social dynamics at a specifc point in time. It nonetheless offers a
unique perspective on enduring regional themes: to this end it examines the
tensions between the Islamic principle that humans are equal before god
and the obvious inequalities of the social and material world, and how sex
segregation, apparent male dominance, and voluntary female deference en-
able the active collaboration of women and men in creating and maintaining
family honour and repute.
Anyone who picks up Tournaments will be struck by the freshness of
its narrative and lucidity of its prose. Meneley is particularly successful
at showing the value of long-term ethnographic research: of living in the
midst of people, listening closely and carefully observing, allowing her-
self to be led by her hosts to explore what they deem important in their
lives. By paying attention to the seemingly trivial and momentous alike,
she is able to explore how the subtleties of women’s visiting rituals and
lavish displays of hospitality produce, rather than simply refect, a family’s
place in Zabid’s social hierarchy. Women in her account are active politi-
cal contributors, and their gender-segregated yet public events have impor-
tant consequences for their families’ status and economic potential. With
their privileged knowledge of the integrity and piety of other women and
their families, women are key marriage negotiators and decision makers,
pivotal positions in a society where politics and economics are not disem-
bedded from kinship. As is the case elsewhere in the Middle East, person-
