The space of a nature: Ethnoecology of the oasis of Siwa (Egypt) [temporary title]

– Editorial Project: The space of a nature: Ethnoecology of Siwa oasis (Egypt)
Forecasted to be published at first in French: L’espace d’une nature, Ethnoécologie de l’oasis de Siwa (Égypte).

The title is temporary, the publishing house still unknown, the year of publication as much, but it is in the course of writing.

This volume will be the book completing my work of ethnographic investigation in Siwa, an Egyptian Berber speaking oasis near the Libyan borders.
Between 2002 and 2006, I carried out many fieldworks in this oasis as researcher in social anthropology (I had then a position in the CEDEJ in Cairo) and, to be more precise, mainly with an ethnoecology perspective. I am interested mainly in relationships that Isiwann (of Siwa) social groups maintain with their built-up environment, their oasian nature(s). That requires a study of means and social relations of production, the local knowledge (including a local ethnobotany), relations with space (built or cultivated), landscape…
Since 2006, I have returned for more than 10 years to work in this field for one or two months a year to continue my research.

I would like to take this opportunity for perhaps endeavouring, modestly, new forms of ethnological writing. I also wish to include in this work a rich iconography (what often alarms publishing houses), not as simple illustrations, but as a real medium of a scientific discourse.

The book will probably also want to provide a description of the bibliography concerning this oasis of the Libyan Desert, which often caused the curiosity, but whose literature is generally dispersed (also in the kinds - novels, reports, accounts of voyage) and of uneasy consultation (grey literature).

Nettoyage d’un jardin dans la palmeraie, al-Qota, oasis de Siwa (Égypte), le 20 novembre 2013, 12h54, Vincent Battesti

Attelage de sa charrette et son âne le soir pour quitter son jardin avec ses récolte pour la maison, Aghurmi, oasis de Siwa (Égypte), le 23 octobre 2014, 15h37, Vincent Battesti

Lever du soleil sur la vieille ville de Shalī, oasis de Siwa (Égypte), le 17 novembre 2014, 06h52, Vincent Battesti

Do not hesitate to leave me your comments, advises, requests on this project (forum below).