POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC-CONFLICT WITHIN EXTENDED KIN GROUPS AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE HOUSEHOLD IN A NORTH JORDANIAN VILLAGE

This article deals with socio-cultural change in a rural, tribal villa ge. Tt also clarifies the status of the village's highest official and explains how it was transformed from the role of a traditional villag e strongman into that of a mayor who governs by virtue of state author ity. Current political conflicts motivated by the struggle to control the mayor's office form one aspect of this study; the other concerns c onflict over land. Fights broke out among the villagers over landholdi ngs in the urbanized center of the village which had been held collect ively by families but which were divided into individual parcels in 19 89. These landholdings fell into three categories; nearby threshing fi elds where crops were collected during summers; fields on the outskirt s of the village; and undeveloped lands used only for grazing livestoc k. Some of the study's conclusions are: that the domestic groups of th is village do not resemble each other. Nor do they resemble the romant ic and traditional groups of other Arab villages as they are described in the anthropological and sociological accounts written by Arab rese archers. During my fieldwork I observed that each individual had his o wn peculiarities and his own social relations. Thus the solidarity of the kinship group is weakening or is in the process of disappearing.