Product details
- ISBN 9781477334720
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 13 Oct 2026
- Publisher: University of Texas Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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An examination of the uses of social media in Jordan through the experiences of Bedouin tribespeople.
It has become something of a cliché to say that social media is making us tribal. But what do self-styled tribespeople themselves think about social media, and how might they help us better understand the role of the internet in our current political moment? Drawing on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork among Bedouin in Jordan, Social Media Tribes underscores the varied but broadly intelligible ways in which distinctive groups domesticate social media to suit their needs.
Organized around key concepts in Bedouin life (including tribalism, envy, and mercy), Social Media Tribes moves between Facebook-mediated tribal truces, upstart online media platforms, palatial urban villas where self-appointed sheikhs dispense justice, and street clashes organized over WhatsApp in rural communities ignored by state development projects. A meticulous researcher and insightful participant-observer, Geoffrey Hughes reframes social media as part of a global renegotiation of the state-society divide that both preceded the emergence of social media platforms and, in turn, feeds off of them. In this telling, the internet represents a new frontier that, like older frontiers, heralds both novel freedoms and novel forms of social control.
Geoffrey F. Hughes is a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Kinship, Islam, and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy.
