Daughters of Tunis: Women, Family, and Networks in a Muslim City

by Paula Holmes-Eber

Daughters of Tunis is an innovative ethnography that carefully weaves the words and intimate, personal stories of four Tunisian women and their families with a statistical analysis of women’s survival strategies in a rapidly urbanizing, industrializing Muslim nation. Delineating three distinct network strategies, Holmes-Eber demonstrates the “public” role of neighborhoods as informal social security systems, and the impact of women’s education, class and migration on women’s resources and networks. An engaging, warm, and oftentimes humorous portrait of Muslim women’s responses to development, Daughters of Tunis is an exciting new approach to ethnography: merging the historically disparate methods of both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Genres: Anthropology

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 12, 2002

Reviews

[Elena]

I had to read this for a class. I think the underlying problem of poverty could be solved by not competing or showing off for neighbors and family. Instead of always bringing a gift everywhere they visit, and having to top the last gift given, just enjoy friends and families company.

[Leslie]

Fascinating insight on the Women of Tunisia where I've traveled a few times but never have been able to see the 'inside' world.