'Modernization' Discourse in the Israeli Druze Context, 1975-2021: From Egon Mayer to Abbas & Court

William Miles

doi:10.17161/druze.3.24780

المؤلفون

William Miles Northeastern University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5557-9222

المصالح المتضاربة

لا

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17161/druze.3.24780

الكلمات المفتاحية:

modernization theory، traditionalism and modernity، Israeli Druze society، post-modernity

الملخص

This review and theoretical analysis aim to situate scholarship on Israeli Druze society within the broader literature on modernization and postmodernity. Informed by eight months of ethnographic observations spanning seven years in Druze communities in the Upper Galilee, it examines the nearly half-century evolution of Druze studies from Egon Mayer’s 1975 groundbreaking article in the Middle East Journal to the 2021 co-authored volume by Randa Abbas and Deborah Court. While both studies start from a theoretical stance of polarity between traditionalism and modernity, the implicit linearity that binds these two phenomena has undergone a radical change. Although still adhering to particularistic religious beliefs and customs, Druze communities of the Upper Galilee have leapfrogged industrialization and embraced a broader Israeli identity, the Hebrew language, and social aspirations. They have also acquired consumerist lifestyles unimaginable when Mayer conducted fieldwork in the 1970s. Framing Druze studies within a discourse of tradition and modernity – a dialectic whose application to the Middle East was pioneered by Daniel Lerner - remains heuristically useful. On the one hand, it enables Druze scholars to appreciate the evolution of social science literature as it relates to their specific subject. On the other hand, it introduces theorists of modernization to a compelling ethnoreligious case that relatively few social scientists have focused on. Ultimately, it aims to reveal how the paradigm of modernity, as applied to the evaluation of Druze in Israel, has changed over time.

التنزيلات

تنزيل البيانات ليس متاحًا بعد.

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