Kuri Journal - Helps for Readers

Vol 1 No 6 Spring/Summer 2002

KURI Journal Helps for Readers:

Annotated Bibliography for

Iraq & Syria

Readers who are new to Dom studies will find here a brief guide to some of the English language literature that has been published. Material is drawn from scholarly journals, popular magazines, and newspapers. The descriptions are content oriented as opposed to critical reviews. The articles that are available on this web site can be accessed by clicking on the title of the article.

Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. “Gypsies” in Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. New York: Anchor/Doubleday Book, 1965.

The complete text of this brief chapter can be read in the DRC Reprint Series. The chapter describes a brief meeting between the writer, her companions and a group of traveling Gypsies in Iraq. Fernea gives a realistic description of the lifestyle of this particular band of Gypsies, as well as her own response to their physical condition.

Meyer, Frank. "Dom und Turkman in Stadt und Land Damaskus" in Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten. Erlangen, 1994.

This ethnographic piece was written in German but includes a five page English summary. Meyer focused on the features of marginality, adaptation and assimilation of the Dom and Turkman into the Syrian culture. Meyer's use of the term "Nawar" is a helpful contribution in the on-going discussion of how this term is to be understood; i.e., as an ethnic designation or to describe a lifestyle. He seems to use it as a marker indicating a low social status for any group of people to whom it might be applied.

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Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. “Gypsies” in Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. New York: Anchor/Doubleday Book, 1965.
	The complete text of this brief chapter can be read in the DRC Reprint Series. The chapter describes a brief meeting between the writer, her companions and a group of traveling Gypsies in Iraq. Fernea gives a realistic description of the lifestyle of this particular band of Gypsies, as well as her own response to their physical condition.
Meyer, Frank. "Dom und Turkman in Stadt und Land Damaskus" in Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten. Erlangen, 1994.
	This ethnographic piece was written in German but includes a five page English summary. Meyer focused on the features of marginality, adaptation and assimilation of the Dom and Turkman into the Syrian culture. Meyer's use of the term "Nawar" is a helpful contribution in the on-going discussion of how this term is to be understood; i.e., as an ethnic designation or to describe a lifestyle. He seems to use it as a marker indicating a low social status for any group of people to whom it might be applied.