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Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity. By Cynthia J. Becker. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006. Pp. 225. $45.00.
Cynthia J. Becker's book is a pioneering work. It is the first scholarly endeavor to draw out the complex ties that link Berber women, art, and identity in Morocco. In doing so, the book deals with the main issues of Berber- its sociocultural status in present-day Morocco, its diverse traditions, its heterogeneous population, its distribution of power, and its general socioeconomic and sociopolitical aspects as well as the gaps between men and women. Through these diverse presentations, numerous cultural, artistic, and social topics as well as analytical concepts are discussed, defined, and illustrated. These include women's agency, rituals, gender perception and bipolarization, transmission, orality, and identity. For each of these topics, the book presents a fine analysis, ample documentation and visual illustration, new theoretical and empirical insights, ample and clear presentation of the data, and convincing epistemic argumentation. The book contains an introduction and seven chapters, and is well illustrated with photographs to support the author's arguments.
In the Introduction, Becker places her study in the challenging new tradition of ethnic identity studies and the implications of their underlying artistic and linguistic structures and forms. Using the southeastern tribe of Ait Khabbash as a prototype of Berber communities, and in the light of the close relationship that links art, gender, and ethnic identity, the author underlines the complex agency of Berber women in the construction of Berber identity.
To argue for this agency, the author uses an essential identity constructionist theory concerning the centrality of the textiles, jewelry, and other art forms created by women to the Berber social and ethnic essence and existence. Her strong argument, illustrated throughout the book, is "that Berber groups, who typically trace their heritage to a male ancestor, attempt to guard female sexuality and fertility to maintain the purity of their group's bloodline and by extension its ethnic purity" (p. 2).
In Chapter 1, Becker draws a meaningful picture of Ait Khabbash textiles that determine women's agency in the construction of their...