The perceptions and practices of Bedouin women -and other disadvantaged groups -in relation to health provision often tend to be analysed within the nexus of modernity-backwardness. In particular, women's lack of compliance with the bio-medical model is interpreted as a manifestation of 'folk' and 'less-civilised' norms of rural or nomadic people. In the reproductive health literature, this modernist bias is noted, for example, in the promotion of family planning as a tool to combat the backwardness of high fertility and remedy the deficiency of problems arising from consanguine marriages (Kisch, 2009). This approach is problematic because it ignores the power relations that drive the health system and reduces patient-practitioner relationships to formal-technical encounters.This paper addresses these gaps by exploring the perceptions that Bedouin women have of reproductive health services in the Bekaa valley of Lebanon. This group has significantly increased their use of mainstream health provision as a result of gradual sedentarisation in the last 20 years, but their perceptions of the available health provision are still rarely sought by policy makers. The paper asks the following question: How do

No abstract

No abstract

Lebanon's eastern borders are a particularly understudied region of the country. This area is home to a number of refugee communities (Palestinian and Armenian) as well as recently settled and displaced Bedouin from the June 1967 war. This tribal community is both invisible in some regards and prominent in others. Barred from citizenship for many years, the Bedouin community is increasingly playing an active role in Lebanon's political scene while maintaining its cross-border connections transcending the nation-state. This paper examines the multi-layered Bedouin identities in the context of Lebanon's varied citizenship categories. It assesses the significance of cross-border attachments as well as recent developments in local, national and regional politics.

Drainage is the most important component of the soil moisture balance equation for the soils and geographical area for which this study is carried out. An accurate estimate of the rate of water removed from a soil profile by deep percolation and seepage to subsurface drains or water reservoirs forma an essential part of a soil water balance equation especially in temperate and humid regions where evaporation is not the most influential factor. Consequently, deep tillage techniques will accomplished a sensible soil character improvements. Soil science technology and agricultural engineering were applied many methods to improve soil surface layers and their structures. Normal and deep tillage or sub-soiling were usually beneficial in conserving moisture in the sequence soil layers.An empirical drainage equation was developed to predict declination of soil moisture movement after applying sub-soiling system before traditional tillage. Even this procedure improvement clay and heavy clay soils by improving their properties and porosity, increase wheat crop yield in both soils by 9-10%.For various soil types (Clay ration (Cr)=: 0.12 sandy, 0.28 sandy loam, 0.43 silty loam, 0.86 clay, 1.66 heavy clay soil), Elbanna (1993) drainage equation was simplified validated to predict water flux, mm/day, as exponential function of soil moisture content mm at previous day to profile with high explanation coefficient..