Sowing the Seeds of Modernity on the Ottoman Frontier: Agricultural Investment and the Formation of Large Farms in Nineteenth-Century Transjordan

Abstract

________________________________________________________________In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire initiated a series of modernization reforms. In an effort to address the economic viability of the state, it turned its attentions to its frontiers, in an attempt to bring these regions back into the fold of the empire. In Transjordan, the state targeted Bedouin subjects; as part of the Ottoman project of modernity, efforts were made to settle nomadic pastoralists and transform pastureland into agricultural spaces. The rural countryside was opened to capitalist investment in agriculture. However, agricultural intensification, and the establishment of large farms created a crisis of modernity for many Bedouin. The intensification of agriculture brought increased taxation, diminished control over production, indebtedness, and ultimately the appropriation of land. But some Bedouin used the built environment and natural landscape to confront the Ottoman project of modernity as it unfolded on the frontier.

Building Farmsteads in the Desert: Capitalism, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Rural Landscapes in Late Ottoman Period Transjordan

“…Thus, the Ottoman state began the process of turning "unproductive" pastures into agricultural fields by implementing new land tenure system that encouraged private landholdings (e.g., Baram 2007Baram , 2009Carroll 2008). The labor for the new rural economy could effectively be achieved by transforming Bedu into a settled peasantry.…”

“…5.2), a farmhouse complex overlooks the valley walls of the Wadi Hisban. Qasr Hisban (also known as Beyt Nabulsi) consists of a two-story farmhouse and associated buildings that overlook agricultural fields, and a series of habitation caves and stone corrals scattered throughout the wadi (e.g., Ahmad et al 2001;Carroll 2008;Carroll et al 2006;Fenner and LaBianca 2004;LaBianca 1990;Russell 1989;Walker and LaBianca 2003). Qasr Hisban is just one example of the large farmsteads that appeared in the Balqa' during the late Ottoman period (see for other examples Abujaber 1989; LaBianca 1990).…”