SOCIAL THOUGHT & COMMENTARY

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan
Laura Pearl Kaya Ko University

ona, a sophomore at Yarmouk University in Jordan, spends about 15 hours per week chatting online at the internet cafs that surround the university campus. 1 She has many male friends online. At the same time, she is known among her classmates as a religious Muslim; she wears modern Islamic dress, combining a fashionable, patterned headscarf with a matching modest smock, and never talks unnecessarily with her male classmates. One day, she logged in at a popular caf called Rishrush, and signed onto her favorite channel, Jordan. 2 Since she hadnt previously planned to visit the internet caf at this time, she hadnt arranged to meet anyone in the chatroom. There were over 100 people on the channel on that day; Mona scanned their screen names, looking for friends. Many of the names were in English. Some amusing ones, such as I_need_a_wife, caught her eye, but none of her friends were there. Mona didnt pick anyone to chat with right away, but soon several users

Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp. 251278, ISSN 0003-549. 2009 by the Institute for Ethnographic Research (IFER) a part of the George Washington University. All rights reserved.

251

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

were hailing her. On Jordan, as on all of the channels which are popular in Irbid, conversation doesnt take place in the main chatroom. Rather, users communicate with each other one-on-onethough they often carry on five or more private conversations simultaneously. Mona responded first to a user named Romeo, because she liked the sound of his nick. They wrote to each other in the standardized Romanization of colloquial Arabic that has grown up in chatrooms and through mobile text messaging. 3 As is conventional, he started by asking for her asl. This term, which sounds like the Arabic word for origin, was coined in English language chatrooms as shorthand for age, sex, location. In Jordan, chatters identify themselves instead by listing their age, sex, and national origin. Mona told Romeo that she was 19, female, and Palestinian; he responded that he was 23, male, and Jordanian. The conversation proceeded slowly. Romeo told Mona that she was romantic; she denied it. Romeo asked her to dance. Mona resisted. Finally, Romeo asked Mona which caf she was in. I cant tell you that! OK, I can guess. Youre in Rishrush. Youre really smart! How did you know? I didnt. I just said that because Im in Rishrush! So, which one are you? None of your business. Youre the one down at the end, to the left of the door. This was true, but Mona denied it. No, Im not! So, which one are you? Im not going to tell. Which one are you? Do you see the girl sitting next to you? Mona forgot that she had denied her identity. That cant be you. Shes a girl! Im the guy next to her. Mona turned very slightly to the left, trying to look as subtly as possible. She saw a Malaysian man. He cant be you. He isnt Arab! Whats wrong? You dont like my face? Its true, I look Malaysian. I like it, but I still think it isnt you. OK, I told you who I amso which one are you? Romeo insisted. Mona picked a boy. Im the one in the red shirt, across from you. Thats me! said Romeo, and proved it by making a small movement with his hand.
252

LAURA PEARL KAYA

Romeo and Mona continued to chat online for another hour, before he told her that he had to go. Each of them unsmilingly raised one hand in parting as he left. Since the late nineteenth century, Middle Eastern women have steadily increased their presence in public spaces, such as the street, the university, the market, the office, and the mosque (Macleod 1993, Arat 1997, Asfaruddin 1999, Massad 2001, Thompson 2000, Newcomb 2006). While modernization projects throughout the region have relied upon them to do just that, concerns of honor and respectability have nevertheless haunted their efforts. Specifically, many local observers have feared that women in public space would form sexual or love relationships outside of the bounds of conventional courtship and marriage. Most literature on this topic has explored how women have justified their entry into public space by conspicuously avoiding suspicious entanglements. For example, as Arlene Macleod (1993) argues, the new popularity of the veil in Egypt can be explained in part as a means for women to symbolically identify themselves with the private even as they physically inhabit public space; a similar argument could be applied to the Jordanian case. Esra Ozyurek (2006) describes a seemingly more tenuous balancing act in early republican Turkey. There, an informant proudly recalls the enlightened(2006:44) acts of displaying her body in gymnastics demonstrations and at the beach while emphasiz(ing) that she did not have any relations with men(2006:45). Although concerns of respectability are no less important in Jordan, the women whom I will discuss here have found a means of preserving their reputations while actively pursuing romance.4 Deborah Wheeler points out that, in Kuwait, internet chatting allows females to interact with males without fear of social consequences (2006:146). While, as Wheeler notes, such consequences are not always so easily avoided, in this paper I will show why it makes sense for Jordanians to view the internet as both satisfyingly social and safe. The women that I will examine have been increasingly condemned in Jordan since I conducted the initial research for this paper in 2000. Nevertheless, their justifications for their actions are also accepted by many. Particularly, those women who use the internet to look for a husband and those who adamantly avoid romantic topics with their (almost exclusively male) chatting partners find support for their actions. I am aware of one marriage which was performed as a result of internet chat253

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

ting in Irbid and another which fell through after intensive negotiations involving the partners families. 5 In this paper, I will discuss how women navigate the terrain of respectability while violating one of its seemingly most basic rules. I will argue that internet chatting takes place in a sphere which is neither public nor private as these terms are usually conceived in the literature on the Middle East (see Bourdieu 1977, Dresch 1989, Macleod 1993, vom Bruck 1997, Wikan 2008). There, chatters present identities which are exclusive both of the more public identities which they put forward on the streets surrounding campus and of the private identities which they claim at home and among friends. I will show how spatial practices adopted from other realms of Jordanian life are employed to manufacture this space.

Public and Private Spheres

As numerous authors since Cynthia Nelsons seminal 1974 article have pointed out, the division of Middle Eastern social life into public and private spheres is simplistic at best. Women in all Middle Eastern societies investigated by anthropologists have social lives and social power outside the home; the external social world of women is distinct from the private domestic realm, and womens activities there have tangible implications for men (see Marcus 1992, Meneley 1996). Nevertheless, gender segregation is also a salient concern in all of these societies, and womens access to many areas which could meaningfully called public, such as marketplaces and mosques, has been limited. Meanwhile, women have been able to move more freely than men in relatively protected spaces such as residential neighborhoods and homes. It is perhaps more useful to replace the dichotomy between public and private with the heuristic of a series of diverse spaces, resembling Foucaults discourses. As Foucault writes, one discourse can be distinguished from others because things were said in a different way; it was different people who said them, from different points of view, and in order to obtain different results (Foucault 1978:27). Discourse functions by enabling certain types of communication, between certain types of people, and preventing others. Importantly, this effect is produced spatially and temporally. Thus, for example, a European secondary school produces knowledge about sex through the space for classes, the shape of the tables, the planning of the recreation lessons, the distribution of
254

LAURA PEARL KAYA

the dormitories (with or without partitions, with or without curtains), the rules for monitoring bedtime and sleep periods (1978:28). Similarly, in many Middle Eastern societies, different spatial practices, forms of bodily comportment, and conversational limits construct different types of spaces for different occupants. Such spaces are constructed according to several principles, including gender, age, and kinship, and among their primary functions are the protection of womens sexual privacy and the construction of respectful relationships between relatives. Both of these aims are considered important to proper personhood and to upholding the reputations of the individuals and families involved. The presence or absence of different types of people in a certain space changes its nature and thus the type of discourse produced by its occupants. Thus, for example, if a male cousin arrives to visit, women may put on their scarves; if their father enters the room, young people may sit up straight and uncross their legs. Anne Meneley notes that, in Yemen, The contrast between teenaged girls in the presence of older women and among their peers is striking: in the company of older women, they are quiet and still, whereas in the company of their peers they are often high spirited and giggly (1996:93). Conversational topics can change as well. Thus, Lila Abu-Lughod reports that among the Awlad Ali, it is considered untoward for young women to express interest in men or marriage in front of older women although (i)n same-sex groups of women who are close kin, age-mates, or familiar for other reasons, conversations are often bawdy(1986:156). Such discussions are only appropriate among peers. What has often been called public space, then, is one among many social spheres. Elizabeth Thompsons definition is useful: the public [in part] indicates a metaphysical kind of shared and anonymous spacenot necessarily defined in opposition to a private sphere (2000:173). The public can be understood as a space where behavior cannot be determined by the identity categories described above because its occupants are undefined; it can thus entail potential sexual danger for women. Among rural, traditional families of my acquaintance in Jordan, women did not have individual identities in such space. For example, these families considered it improper to expose a womans name in printed announcements, even those intended for her female friends and relatives. They did not print the brides name on wedding invitations, instead identifying her as a daughter of her father. Similarly, many informants saw it as immoral or shameful for women to work as public entertainers. In the
255

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

early twentieth century, even education was cast as problematic. Some Jordanians initially feared that the women who had entered the public space of schools may not in fact be desirable moral models for their own or others children (Massad 2001:89-90). Such scruples have been complicated by the modernizing projects of many nations, including Jordan (Arat 1997, Thompson 2000, Massad 2001, Sreberny 2001). As Joseph Massad (2001) has demonstrated, Jordanian womens entrance into the public sphere was negotiated not only under the pressure of international scrutiny, but in the context of explicit attempts to reproduce foreign models of development. To many Jordanian observers, womens presence in public space appeared to be a central element in Western economic and political success. At the same time, however, Jordanian national identity was premised on the existence of a newly essentialized private, traditional domain embodied by women. Even their role as arbiters of tradition, however, pushed women into the public realm; it necessitated state-sponsored education both for and by women. Education would enable women to run the private realm efficiently, to educate their children, and ultimately, to protect the national heritage (Massad 2001:82). In order for the nation to develop, women must enter public spaces, but in order for it to retain its moral character, they must be protected from sexual aspersions. By the time I began my research in 2000, womens education was generally accepted in Jordan and women comprised the majority of Yarmouk Universitys students (Yarmouk University 2003). The high level of womens enrollment in universities is indicative both of the widespread involvement of the Jordanian public in the effort of national development and of the importance attributed to education in fulfilling this aim. A number of informants discussed such objectives with me. Most of my informants were undergraduate students who were among the first in their extended families to attend college. Within living memory, their families had subsisted as rural farmers or herders. They were proud of what their educations could accomplish for themselves, their families, their local communities, and their nation. Nevertheless, in their daily lives, they were called upon to balance the traditional moral prescriptions with which they were raised, the requirements of modernization, and their own personal goals. Internet caf interactions of the type recounted above (and discussed in more detail below) provide one example of the delicate negotiations entailed by the twin strictures of
256

LAURA PEARL KAYA

respectability and modern space. As I will show, the internet has allowed the construction of a new semi-public discursive realm formed according to familiar social principles. While fully separate from the spheres of family and female friendship, it is also distinct from the more traditionally public space of the street.

Modernity, the Crowd, and the City Street

The streets surrounding Yarmouk University can be read as a showcase of modernity and Westernization. In addition to internet cafs, they are lined with fast food restaurants, record and curio shops, pool halls, shoe stores, and other businesses of service to the student body of a large, Western-style university. These businesses have big, colorful signs, often in English. The width and straightness of the streets create a sense of open space reminiscent of the nineteenth century European colonial cities in the Middle East described by Michael Gilsenan: Open, linear, public, revealing, centered, rational, and insisting on its hierarchiesthe space of power and status (Gilsenan 1983:201; see also Newcomb 2006). This openness violates the principles according to which the prototypical Arabo-Islamic city (Abu-Lughod 1987) was and is built; it contrasts similarly with many other neighborhoods of Irbid. As Janet Abu-Lughod writes, because of the importance of gender-based segregation, many Islamic cities are constructed not only to prevent physical contact but to protect visual privacy (Abu-Lughod 1987:167). Particularly in residential neighborhoods, where many women spend the majority of their time, narrow, winding streets and buildings with high windows work together both to discourage strangers from entering, and to constrain vision. (AbuLughod 1987:167-169; Gilsenan 1983:171-172) The markedly different built environment of University Street thus asserts its allegiance to Western ideas through its spatial form, its colors and textures, and the recreational activities which it provides. The street is, therefore, the appropriate environment for Yarmouk University, an institution which was founded, in large part, to promote the integration of modern and Western practices and ideas into Jordanian society. At the university, women as well as men gain the knowledge and skills necessary to modernize Jordanian society. The universitys Western orientation is evident in many administrative features such as course schedules, majors, a lending library, and co-ed classes. This model
257

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

is also visually salient to students and faculty as they walk on the streets to and from class. Despite its assertions of modern identity, however, and despite the appropriation of Western goods and practices, the space produced (Lefebvre 1991) on University Street (Shar Jam ), and its cross streets, is comfortably Jordanian. Thus, despite surface similarities, a useful contrast can be made between the space of University Street as a typical Western street. 6 The abstract space of Western streets, described by Henri Lefebvre (1991), reproduces the atomized individual. On a Western street, pedestrians are channeled in a straight line along flat pavement. Their walking is interrupted only at pre-set intervals, apportioned evenly in space and time through a complex disciplinary technology. Perpendicular streets cut walkers paths at predictable points; timed lights determine whether pedestrians must stop at these spots, or whether they may enter the street. Pedestrians walk on sidewalks and enter the street only when directed to do so by lights. These technologies insure that unacquainted walkers can share space without conducting individual negotiations on every occasion. As such negotiations are unnecessary, it is normally impolite to communicate with other pedestrians through touch, eye contact, or speech. Peoples identities are not usually significant on the street; everyone maintains a standard distance from everyone else. Trajectories are commodified and theoretically ought to be identical whether there are other people or cars using the street or not. It is thus illegal to cross the street against the light even if there are no cars in sight. Lefebvre writes, Each space is already in place before the appearance of its actors(Lefebvre 1991:56) On Western streets, then, walkers do not share the same space in a meaningful way. The discomfort of being surrounded by strangers is thereby minimized. Friedrich Engels explains, however, that, at least during the early years of industrialization, this discomfort was only partially elided: There is something distasteful about the very bustle of the streets, something that is abhorrent to human nature itself. Hundreds of thousands of people of all classes and ranks of society jostle past one another; are they not all human beings with the same characteristics and potentialities, equally interested in the pursuit of happiness?And yet they rush past one another as if they had nothing in common or were in no way associated with one another. Their only agreement is a tacit one: that everyone should keep to the right
258

LAURA PEARL KAYA

of the pavement, so as not to impede the stream of people moving in the opposite direction. (cited in Benjamin 1968:166-7) For Engels, it was disturbing to be surrounded by crowds of people whom he would never know. The spatial practices of individuation arose in order to assist walkers in negotiating this unease. In Irbid, the tensions entailed by crowded streets have been resolved within the context of different spatial practices, representational spaces, and representations of space (Lefebvre 1991). As I have argued above, space in Irbid, as in much of the Arab world, is constructed through, and for, human relationships. The identities of most Irbid residents are dependent on the behavior and identities of their kin; this interdependence is reproduced and given its emotional resonance through domestic micro-spatial practices. Similar understandings of the potential meanings of spatial practice inform Irbidians behavior in a wide variety of other contexts. Thus, while both Western and Irbidi pedestrians are constrained by social norms, Irbidi pedestrians must behave within a specific set of gendered rules or risk destroying their reputations within their community. Most Irbidians are not insensible of the identities of other pedestrians. Instead, the perceptible nearness of others creates particular relationships which they must actively control and negotiate. Through such negotiations, spaces such as the street are continuously formed; their meaning is not always already present, though the material qualities and intended uses of spaces do direct and constrain their production. An Irbid space such as University Street thus cannot be traversed without communicating with others. Individuals are always mindful of the position they claim through their gender, age, and dress, and of corresponding claims made by others. Similarly, traffic lights are not used; instead, streets must be crossed through interaction and cooperation with the drivers of cars. The walkers distance from other pedestrians must constantly be assessed, and her behavior adjusted according to their identities. This task is particularly salient for women. Though women physically walk in the street of Irbid, their voice and gestures keep them figuratively inside a womans realm that winds around and slips through but doesnt penetrate the polluting, public street. Two women passing on the sidewalk, or waiting near each other in a shop, often gently push by each other, their fingers glancing across one anothers elbows, their shoulders nudging one anothers backs. Their friendliness or annoyance
259

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

affirms their mutual inhabitation of womans space. Each, for her own part, keeps a careful distance from nearby men. Maintaining proper distances is primarily the responsibility of women, whose reputations would be damaged by improper contact. The hovering contagion of these men is a constant presence, and without a glance a woman knows when she must step into the street to avoid walking too close to one of them on an uncomfortably narrow sidewalk. When a woman follows a man through the doorway of a store, a man may even protect her privacy by shutting the door carefully between them rather than holding it for her. If a man and woman have a reason to speak, a business transaction to enact, they are convivial or even flirtatious. If no such connection is required at the moment, they glide by each other, enclosed within the two separate realities coexisting on one street. The visual presence of the other, however, which is available to the gaze, ensures that such separateness will always be partial. While a womans modesty dictates that men should not glance at her, she cannot expect this level of respect from strangers who have no obligations to her. On the street, men often stare at passing women or call out rudely to them, My life! My gazelle! Thus, older women advise the younger, Let him look at youjust dont you look at him. For the glances of men and women to meet (for him to see her seeing him see her), would be, if only momentarily, a boundary crossing that should not occur; a crossing that once it has occurred, must be denied. The intensity which always accompanies such momentary flickers reveals that both parties are fully aware of the significance of the interchange. Nevertheless, the street is not, for Yarmouk co-eds, primarily a site of risk which must be traversed in going from place to place; strolling down University Street is an activity in itself, cherished and planned for. Parading, fully covered, past men at whom one can only furtively glance, is a form of flirtation, however subtle, and, like any form of flirtation, it can be raised to the level of art. Islamic dress, which includes headcoverings and loose, body-masking cloaks, is a common means for girls of limiting their visual availability. The act of putting on Islamic dress experientially marks for women their entry into public space; similarly, a womans voice and gestures, relaxed and expressive inside the house, conform to strict standards of propriety, marked by restraint and understatedness, when she is outside. Through these changes of behavior and attire, women reduce both for themselves and for male pedestrians the discomforts of mingling with strangers on the city streets. They thus simultaneously construct the space of the street as
260

LAURA PEARL KAYA

public and protect themselves from attaining full presence in it (cf. Macleod 1993). Islamic dress, however, not only protects a woman from full presence in her surroundings at Yarmouk; it simultaneously asserts that she belongs there. With its modesty and seriousness, with its crisp lines and the clear, unfaded colors made possible by modern synthetic fabrics, with its pointed adherence to modern understandings of the holy text, Islamic dress is a proper outfit for a young University student.

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society

The delicate negotiations which Yarmouk students perform on the street can be understood as an index of a risk which is inherent in the Universitys project. Yarmouk is a self-consciously Western environment designed to prepare some of Jordans brightest young people for a globalized world; it is also a community of moral individuals for whom the West is a place where, because of the breakdown of the family, every decadent, hedonistic, sinful desire is indulged to unimaginable surfeit. For many Yarmouk students, then, the trick is to avail oneself of the licit benefits of the West without betraying ones homespun Islamic values. In the eyes of these students, Yarmouks modern setting, comprised of open streets, co-ed classrooms, and dormitories where women live separately from their families, places students in situations which could be morally dubious if they are not properly framed and enacted. The signifiers of Western modernity provide the necessary explanatory context for such situations; for many, modernity provides the only conceivable justification for attending a co-ed University or for living in a dormitory. Modernity, however, provides only the excuse for these risks, not protection from them. The signifiers of modernity could easily slip into signs of degradation. As my argument thus far has implied, many of these issues become particularly salient in interactions with members of the opposite sex. Conversing with a boy in a context that could be construed as romantic is not a venture that any girl I met would undertake lightly. My friends differ greatly among themselves in their assessments of what kinds of interactions with the opposite sex are personally permissible, though all of them take such determinations seriously. Couples do meet socially. Many girls, however, would not agree to meet a boy unless they think that they may love him. Love is a serious, though involuntary, commitment for an Irbidi girl. Several girls speculated to me that women can fall in love just once in their
261

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

lives. Marrying a stranger for love (instead of a relative or family friend chosen by ones parents) is a much discussed and valorized modern act (cf. Ahearn 2001, Adrian 2003, Hirsch and Wardlow 2006). Often, it is framed as the choice suggested by science; marrying a relative is believed to carry genetic risks. It is only the importance attributed to love itself when combined with the prestige of love marriage which enables many girls to justify undertaking meetings which could damage their reputations and those of their families. Such encounters are often accompanied by excruciating guilt for the girl. One friend, for example, had arranged to meet men in person on two or three occasions. She explained this acquiescence by saying after all, I am a modern girl. However, she undertook each meeting with great trepidation. After keeping one date with a certain boy, she stood him up for the second. The guilt and fear of discovery were simply too great. The spaces where such meetings take place are carefully chosen. They can be neither fully public nor fully private. A private meeting is an unthinkable risk; if it were discovered, the sexual implications would be impossible to disprove. Meeting in public, however, could allow the semilicit act to be observed by others and reported in gossip, a form of social control of which Irbidis remain constantly aware. Hence, the Yarmouk area reveals, to the attentive eye, a whole litany of half-and-half spaces for sweethearts to meet in addition to (and predating) the internet caf. They meet behind university buildings, in back parking lots, under trees, sitting close but not ever touching. If the relationship progresses, they may go to the amusement park. The most intimate space available to couples exists in places like the high-rise Here is Irbid caf. There, hidden behind the heavy curtain of the section for families, surveying all of Irbid through sixth-floor windows, while invisible to the street below, lovers sit in semi-darkness with their fully clothed bodies intertwined. For men, such a meeting provides the opportunity for bragging, while women might hesitate to tell their closest friends. Nevertheless, college-aged members of both genders in Irbid, if not everywhere, appear fascinated with the other. This may explain the extreme popularity of the internet caf, which provides a new means of negotiating these concerns.

The Internet Caf as a Space of Modernity

The internet arrived in Jordan in 1995 (Arabia Online 2001), barely 30 years after the introduction of the Western-style University. By 2001,
262

LAURA PEARL KAYA

Yarmouks University Street was home to what was commonly asserted to be the Guinness Book of World Records record-holding number of 104 internet cafs. In fact, the book contains no such entry; nevertheless, this desire for recognition in an English-language, globally-oriented publication points to the association of the internet cafs with the positively valued side of Western modernity. A glance around a popular internet caf reinforces this impression. Spare, clean lines, bright light, and shiny surfaces reminiscent of Western fast food restaurants abound. Computers are set in neat rows on individual desks. Colors are neutral, with the floors covered in a clinical white tile; patterns, ubiquitous in home decorating, are absent. Arabic rock videos play on a screen at one end of the room. Walls are decorated with signs in English and pictures of Western and Arabic stars. The air is pleasantly cool, due to air conditioning, and Pepsi and cocktails (non-alcoholic, in accordance with religious regulations) are served. One internet caf even offers an elaborately Western toilet; it is equipped with a seat and offers toilet paper, an amenity generally considered disgusting in Irbid and rarely found outside of tourist hotels. Most surprisingly of all, perhaps, in internet cafs, unacquainted men and women voluntarily sit in close proximity to one another, sometimes for hours on end. Irbids internet cafs are thus among the only public spaces in Jordan7 to cater to male and female clientele without offering them the option to segregate themselves. 8 On buses, men often stand rather than sit next to strange women; in restaurants, women are provided a family section which men cannot enter unaccompanied. The mixing of men and women in internet cafs, then, is a sign of extreme compliance to Western mores. In fact, for many Jordanian women, it is also a reason to avoid internet cafs altogether. Using the internet is a controversial practice for female Yarmouk students. While many women students do enjoy the cafs, they are commonly condemned as un-Islamica serious charge for most Jordanian Muslims. In 2000, however, such objections were almost never framed with reference to any particular evil found or inherent in cyberspace. 9 Though online chatting with men is the most common activity in which girls engage in the cafs, objections to the internet were always explained in terms of phenomenologically present time and space. Internet cafs were not decent or safe spaces for young women to occupy; correspondingly, time spent there was wasted.
263

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

The actual practice of chatting on the internet, on the other hand, is usually understood to be less morally problematic for unmarried women than even the briefest, most public meeting with an unrelated man. This is the case because my informants view the Islamic injunction to segregate the sexes as primarily a prohibition against seeing (chiefly for males), being seen by (for females), hearing (for males), being heard by (for females), or touching a member of the opposite sex. Written communication, of which internet chatting is an example, is considered by many to be a very minor offence. 10 This is not to say that the boundaries of propriety are never skirted, or even crossed, in internet cafs; these infractions, however, occur in the establishments real, three-dimensional space. At first glance, the Western-ness of the cafs physical plant appears seamless. There is, however, one spatial element universally present, in my experience, in Irbid internet cafs, which is almost never found in similar computer facilities in the US, where computers are usually backed by a wall or partition; in Irbid cafs, on the other hand, patrons chairs are positioned against the rooms outer walls, facing each other, with each individual imperfectly shielded by her computer. Casual observation does not render this characteristic particularly salient; computer users in Irbid, like their Western counterparts, appear to politely ignore their neighbors. In fact, however, the relational construction of space in the internet caf mirrors that of social space in the home. As I argued above, space in Jordan is constructed through reference to its occupants. People comport themselves differently according to the identities of the people present. This behavior is enabled by the structure of the room itself. In rooms designated for socializing, as in the internet caf, Jordanians usually place the furniture against the walls, thus allowing all interlocutors a direct, unobstructed view of one another. The importance of the gaze in creating and affirming relationships is thereby utilized to manufacture warm, inclusive social space. Correspondingly, none of the inhabitants of social space thus arranged are required to turn their backs on their companions, which would be considered rude. People sharing social space, including internet caf patrons, thus orient their bodies in relation to one another. This effect is reinforced by a further injunction against showing another person the soles of ones feet; following the rules of etiquette requires a complexly embodied attention to the locations of all of the people who share the space of a room. The internet cafs layout enables the performance of such proper manners, casting the caf as a
264

LAURA PEARL KAYA

social space. Like the Irbid street, this space is not homogenous, but is produced instead by the presence, and interactions, of its occupants. Because it is a social space, the internet caf creates obligations among its patrons; this characteristic distinguishes it from the street outside. University Street, which is a fully public space, imposes no ties on its occupants. Thus, it is both possible and unsurprising for men to stare openly at female pedestrians and even call out romantic messages to them. It falls to women to maintain proper distance by averting their eyes and their paths from those of men. In internet cafs, however, male patrons enact their social responsibilities to women by studiously ignoring them. The marked spatial assertions of sociality in the caf thus reflect, and reinforce, the fact that most people go to internet cafs in order to socialize with one another; they go there to chat online, primarily with other patrons of Irbid internet cafs, and often with patrons of the same caf. 11 The caf can also be contrasted to Yarmouk Universitys student computer facilities, most of which were installed a year or more after internet cafs became popular. There, students do not stare at one another, but neither do they orient their bodies in relation to each another. Instead, they either sit in rows facing the front of the room, as in a classroom, or, alternatively, they face the walls of the computer lab. These laboratories appear to be designed as non-social spaces; it seems likely that the University hopes to discourage chatting in favor of more academic pursuits. The social space of the internet caf employs technology to create an improved version of the private-public space used by couples. Caf patrons communicate with members of the opposite sex, with the privacy of being nearly unobservable by others. Patrons usually cant see each others screens and ostensibly dont know what their companions are doing on their computers. Users chat one-on-one rather than in open chatrooms, ensuring that their conversations are as private as possible. At the same time, they do not place themselves in any situation which, if observed, could be construed as an opportunity for sexual relations. The caf frames such encounters in terms of the modernity which is necessary to justify them, while enabling users to obey Islamic regulations (even if they may not always avail themselves of this opportunity.) The decision to chat online with other Yarmouk students can be understood as a modern, technological means of satisfying desires which, if not specifically modern, have been heightened by modernity; the astronomical growth internet caf industry in Irbid testifies both to the ubiquity of such desires and to the efficacy of this solution.
265

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

Internet Chatting in Real-World Space

When I first began to ask my friends what they did in the internet cafs, they told me that, through online chatting, they could meet people from all over the world. Mesa, for example, mentioned online friends in such far off places as France, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The possibility of making such ties certainly works towards constructing the cafs as of the transnational realm, and internet chatting as a proper, progressive usage of Western technology. However, as I later learned, Mesa, like most internet caf patrons in Irbid, spent a negligible amount of time talking to people outside the borders of Jordan. Most of her chatting partners, in fact, attended Yarmouk University and frequented the same cafs that she did. In fact, as Monas story above implies, many users chat with others who are present in the same caf. Chatting technology is tailored to this practice. Though Mona feigned innocence during her chatting session, and even during her initial account of this story to me, she actually knew well how Romeo had guessed her identity. Unless caf owners adjust their computers to block this feature, as few do,12 a savvy user can employ his own computer to access the nicknames of every chatting patron in the establishment. Many male users select their chatting partners in this way on a regular basis, hailing women whom they find attractive. Mona, herself, also knows how to do this though she never does. She prefers to get to know a boy online before she meets him in an internet caf where they can sneak glances at one another while they type. While the fact that Romeo had chosen her from within the caf didnt seem to bother her, admitting that she had encouraged him to do so would have been unseemly. Though Mona was reluctant to discuss her full role in this encounter, she had nevertheless acted with a freedom that is possible only in the internet caf. Outside the caf, relationships between male and female Yarmouk students entail risk and imply commitment. Sometimes, the words I love you are among the first that a boy speaks to a girl; only such strong feelings could justify his initiating a relationship with her. In the internet caf, on the other hand, individuals can inhabit a social space with members of the opposite sex without creating ties or obligations. As several friends told me, caf patrons are free to flirt without declaring love. They have not committed themselves to serious relationships. Their reputations remain (mostly) unharmed. Nevertheless, relationships in the internet caf do have the potential to become serious. Often, as the first step towards intensifying an online rela266

LAURA PEARL KAYA

tionship, men and women agree to chat with each other from the same caf. I negotiated one such meeting myself. One day, I was chatting with a man who told me that he was from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Informants told me that men chatting on the Jordan or Amman channels often claim to be from Jeddah, since many Jordanians consider that city to be the ideal home town. (Saudis are known to be rich, though excessively conservative; Jeddah is reputed to be the least conservative city in Saudi Arabia.) After chatting for awhile, Amer revealed to me that, despite being from Jeddah, he was actually in Irbid and would like to come over to my caf. After I assented, he asked me what he should say to me when he came. Please, I typed back, dont say anything! Amer yielded immediately, promising that he wouldnt even look at me. We exchanged cursory physical descriptions, and signed off. A short time later, a man who fit his self-portrait walked through the door. Appearing to ignore me completely, he passed by and headed up the stairs to the cafs second floor. Amer signed on again, and we continued chatting until I had to leave. While Amers behavior was appropriate for a first encounter, as an online relationship progresses, partners may use several means to escalate their level of involvement. Men may send women scanned photographs or romantic e-cards by e-mail; few women reciprocate, though some do. If partners know each other well, they may sit directly across from one another at a caf. Even in this case, however, they do not stare at one another. They dont want the other people in the caf to notice their relationship. The ultimate goal of chatting for many men is to convince female chatters to meet them in person. Of course, such a meeting carries all of the dangers already described. Nevertheless, if a girl likes a boys personality online, she may give in to his requests for a date. Layla agreed to meet a boy with whom she had been chatting online for six months under the trees in a shady, half-hidden parking lot on campus. He had told her that he was leaving Jordan to study abroad, and that he wanted to see her before he left. She agreed to the meeting because, she told me, talking with someone in person is the only way to know if you love him. In Irbid, family members often organize similar short meetings between potential marriage partners as a prelude to arranged marriages. Layla talked with her friend for half an hour; from this conversation, she was able to determine that she did not, in fact, love him. The next day, he sent her an e-mail asking for her permission to speak to her father about marriage. She declined.
267

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

The internet caf thus provides a space for the construction of a new kind of relationship between men and women. Girls agree to meet boys to chat in the internet caf, or in person, not because they have been introduced to them through family connections, or because they are uncontrollably in love with them, but because the couple has formed a personal rapport. An internet relationship does not entail the same kinds of obligations that are required by more traditional attachments. Partners can extricate themselves from it at any time, without consequences for their reputations. This freedom is possible because internet friendships are not integrated into larger social networks. The identities presented by chatters on the internet are not interdependent with those of their relatives.

The Private/Public Sphere of Internet Chatting

Much literature on the internet has debated the question of whether it comprises a sphere separate from quotidian social life in which individuals are free from the constraints of their ordinary identities. While most earlier literature focused on the liberating potential of cyberspace, recent work has emphasized how offline constraints and goals are transferred online (Alexanian 2006, Johnson-Hanks 2007). Daniel Miller and Don Slater have rightly argued that, rather than assuming that internet technology inherently creates a separate social sphere, to the extent that some people may actually treat various Internet relations as a world apart from the rest of their lives is something that needs to be socially explained as a practical accomplishment(2000:5). For my informants, the internet did enable a different form of identity construction within a separate sphere; this phenomenon is only comprehensible, however, within the terms of Irbidi social life. In most Jordanian social situations, the identities of relatives are linked. Most social relationships are integrated into an individuals kinbased social network. When Jordanians meet one another for the first time, they usually inquire about each others family relationships, family name, and village of origin. They do this, in part, in order to determine whether or how they might be connected with one another, either by coming from the same village or region, or by sharing a distant genealogical relationship (cf. White 1994:95 on Turkey). The discovery of such a connection makes it more likely that the relationship will be further developed. Once people become friends, they are quick to build connec268

LAURA PEARL KAYA

tions with one anothers families. Thus, when college students first visit one anothers homes, they normally spend a large portion of their visit conversing with their friends parents and siblings. When people visit their friends, relatives living in the same household often feel obliged to come along and are always welcome. Close friendship is rarely a one-onone affair; entire families form social connections. Learning about a persons family is considered to be a vital part of getting to know her because a persons family is often seen as an essential part of herself. As Suad Joseph argued for Lebanon, kin in Jordan do not experience themselves as bounded, separate, or autonomous (Joseph 1999:12). Relatives believe themselves to be, and behave as if they are, internally connected. Such bonds are intensely emotional. They may try to read each others minds, answer for each other, anticipate each others needs, expect their needs to be anticipated by significant others, and often shape their likes and dislikes in accordance with the likes and dislikes of others(Joseph 1999:12). In the context of this similarity, it is logical for kin to share social relationships. The fact that relatives are generally believed to be alike and socially connected also explains, in part, why their reputations should depend upon one another. As Joseph writes, A womans behavior immediately reflect(s) on her brothers honor, dignity, and sense of self (Joseph 1999:123). Everything from an individuals neat appearance to her moral character can reflect on her family. For many Jordanians, womens modesty gains much of its importance from its role in upholding the honor of men. Action undertaken within a defined social realm depends on the intersubjective acceptance of a particular presentation of the self (see Goffman 1959). In many Jordanian contexts, the self which a man presents (and therefore, the success of his action) is dependent upon his honor; honor stems, in part, from a mans ability to properly protect the women for whom he is responsible. As Andrew Shryock writes, honor is the quality of male persons which enables tribespeople to develop social and political relationships which transpose the obligations of kinship or the integrity of a house into domains where kinship and house do not necessarily exist (Shryock 2001:343; Shryocks English). Through honor, then, the value of womens moral behavior can be transformed into mens symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1977). A womans conduct also has repercussions for the marriage prospects, friendships, and self-respect of her female relatives (cf. Wikan 2008). In
269

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

performing social calculations, a woman may even consider a relatives reputation more important than her own. For example, one informant told me that she would not walk on the street with her boyfriend because even if I dont care about my own reputation, I should think about my mothers. Such public propriety is imposed by the constant, very real fear that people will talk; a reputation can be easily damaged by the watchful eyes and loose tongues of neighbors and classmates. Much of the work that internet cafs do in order to enable romantic encounters, then, entails providing patrons with a sense of being separate from their families and free from social surveillance. The space of internet cafs provides patrons with an experientially distinct sense of individuality. Their exaggeratedly Western decor reinforces the illusion that caf space is set apart from customers quotidian lives and social ties, a separate sphere. The layout of the caf and the material nature of the computers also produce feelings of separation and individuality in users. The patrons of an internet caf sit in the same room, but they share a space of concentration only with those who attend to the same screen.13 As Jonathan Crary has pointed out, the management of attention through television and computer monitors is not primarily concerned with looking at images but rather with the construction of conditions that individuate, immobilize, and separate subjects(Crary 1999:74). The experience of focusing ones mind and vision on a small, glowing screen, rather than on the larger social environment, encourages people to think of themselves as individuals. Thus, as Crary argues, computers, like other devices which demand attention, participate in the production of modern experiences of social separation and of subjective autonomy (Crary 1999:2). Since caf patrons sit facing one another, most often with their backs to the wall, their computer screens are usually protected from others sight. No one can walk behind chatters and glance at their monitors. Screens are also shielded from neighboring users either by barriers positioned at the sides of individuals desks or by the spacing of desks several feet apart. The computer itself is thus private; no one has to know what a user does there. This privacy forms a marked contrast to the arrangement in university computer labs, where students face the walls or sit in rows, thus displaying their screens to the people behind them. In a society where it is widely considered undesirable ever to be alone, the privacy of internet cafs is experientially distinct and significant. It produces an unfamiliar sense of individuality. Importantly, however, caf barriers
270

LAURA PEARL KAYA

never block individuals forward line of sight; the social nature of the caf space is not violated. The confluence of these factors produces a very particular kind of space. Computer users are involved in social interactions while their privacy and hence their individuality is heightened. This subjective autonomy is also expressed online. Users chat individually rather than on open chatrooms, thus shielding their activities from other chatters who might talk about them. They can chat with multiple partners at one time, without revealing this promiscuity to any of them. Caf patrons can also look at internet sites which might be perceived as scandalous without fear of discovery. The information which chatters disclose to and conceal from one another evades gossip by rendering internet relationships discrete from participants real-world social networks. In contrast to most friendships in Jordan, those formed on the internet do not usually involve the revelation of facts which could connect individuals to their families or even their villages of origin. The only aspects of their backgrounds which most chatters share are their age, gender, and national origin. Rather than seeking out people with prior connections to themselves, women actively avoid chatting with any man who knows their family. Notably, unlike the majority of my friends in Jordan, those who told me about their chatting activities appeared reluctant to introduce me to their families. The internet is thus distinct both from womens offline social spheres, formed through connections, and from the traditional shared and anonymous (Thompson 2000:173) public sphere, inhabited by men. In the public sphere, mens genealogical relationships form the public face of their families, and their good reputations depend upon protecting the privacy of women. On the internet, it is specifically these public genealogical relationships which are not discussed, while womens private thoughts and feelings, usually shared with relatives and same-sex age-mates, comprise their online identities. Nevertheless, the internet has a public element, as any stranger on the street could potentially become an online friend. The internet sphere, then, is neither public nor private as these terms have previously been applied in the Middle East. Relationships are not part of a prior web. People on the internet are not socially categorized by relationship or age, so behavior cannot be adjusted accordingly. All the same, chatters openly share information which is normally excluded from the public sphere. The individuation produced by the materiality of the computer, the caf environment, and the self-presentation of chatters, by
271

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

masking connectivity, makes it much easier for Yarmouk students to speak openly and to undertake the risk of mixing with the opposite sex. In internet cafs, students can comfortably engage in casual romantic relationships which would be unthinkable in other contexts.

Conclusion: Internet Sociality

In this paper, I have described a locally specific type of internet use. I will now turn to the implications of my findings for studies of the internet in other locations. Much recent literature on the internet has attempted to negotiate the tension between the insights that, while the use of the internet cannot be understood without attention to local forms of sociality, there are also similarities between the uses and meanings of the internet in different locations (see Miller and Slater 2000, Alexanian 2006, Johnson-Hanks 2007). Here, I would like to suggest one means of reconciling this contradiction: an attention to the significations which the sign of the internet has carried (iconically, indexically, or symbolically) as it has travelled from place to place. The interaction between these similar signs and their new cultural and linguistic contexts goes a long way towards explaining the differences and similarities between internet use in different locations. For example, the cultural meaning of freedom explains why (female) internet users in Irbid, in contrast to many others, have not claimed membership in online communities. Miller and Slater have pointed out that the internet has come to stand as a symbol of potential freedoms (2000:16) and that, moreover, this symbol carries different cultural valences in different places. In Trinidad, they have argued, due to the legacy of slavery, freedom is ontological, reflecting a basic sense of personhood (2000:16). In Jordan, by contrast, attitudes towards freedom are more ambivalent. While political freedom is highly valued, informants were quick to insist that social freedom must have limits. People are understood to have natural desires (such as the desire for romance) upon which they should not act; controls are thus necessary and helpful to save people from themselves (see Pearl 2006, Mahmood 2005, Boddy 1989). To the extent that the internet signifies social freedom in Jordan, then, it is dangerous and potentially disreputable. It is partly for this reason that most of the Jordanian women I know do not claim an identity as internet users. This is in marked contrast to other groups such as Trinidadian chatters (Miller and Slater 2000), geek pro272

LAURA PEARL KAYA

grammers in Bangalore (Kelty 2005), and internet users that trade and produce music in the form of mods (Lysloff 2003). For Jordanian women, if not men, chatting is controversial enough that most do not want to claim an identity as internet users in the community at large. Some non-users told me that they would think less of a girl if they saw her through the window of an internet caf; it is probably for this reason that most women do not use cafs where they could be easily observed. Cafs with large windows opening onto the University Street are patronized largely by men. Women usually chat in internet cafs which, like coffee shops that are used for romantic meetings, are inconspicuously located on the upper floors of shopping centers or multi-use buildings. The only woman of my acquaintance who claims an identity as an internet user called herself a modern sheikha and uses the internet primarily to proselytize Islam. The self-identification of individuals as internet users appears to be an essential component of the construction of online communities. Rene T. A. Lysloff defines (internet) community as a collective and ongoing performative practice of group representation (to itself and to others) (2003:256). While women who enjoyed the internet did socialize offline with same-sex friends who shared this interest, they did not imagine themselves as a distinct group, sharing a common project or identity with fellow chatters. 14 In Jordan, as I have argued, a community implies a web of individuals who share and uphold a common moral standard (see Pearl 2006). The freedom of the internet can be seen as a freedom from this kind of standard; as such, it is a poor basis for a community. Further, the practices of individuation described above allow people to act as individuals rather than members of a community. Internet relationships in Irbid, then, take place in a separate sphere, but not within a community. This finding is in contrast to the assumptions of much of the literature on the internet. For example, Samuel Wilson and Leighton Petersons 2002 review of the anthropological literature on the internet is entitled The Anthropology of Online Communities; similarly, broad-ranging collections use the word community in their titles, such as Community in the Digital Age (2004), Communities in Cyberspace (1999), and Cybersociety 2.O: Revisiting Computer Mediated Communication and Community (1998). Like freedom, community has locally specific meaning within which internet practice must be understood. Other meanings carried by the internet in different locations must also be understood culturally. The internet has generally been viewed as an
273

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

engine of globalization (Eickelman and Anderson 1999, Anderson 2003, Bernal 2005), or, as Miller and Slater put it, a technology which transcends dualisms such as local against global (2000:7). In the case under discussion, however, it is fair to say that the use of the internet is primarily local. While some of my informants did chat with people in other countries, the ability to do so was not the main factor motivating their continued interest in the internet. As I have argued above, however, the global is important as a signified. In Irbid, the glamour of the global, which is indexed by the internet, legitimates a local practice. Finally, much literature has shown that, for many, the mediated, textual nature of much internet communication indexically signifies alienation from the body, conventional identities, and the material world (Turkle 1995, Kollock and Smith 1999; see also Haraway 2001). For Americans, as Jodi OBrien has argued, the invisibility of internet chatters bodies has mainly led them to replicate conventional gender stereotypes of sexuality and desirability (OBrien 1999:87). In Jordan, while deception does occur, people usually do not misrepresent their physical appearances. It is not their distance from a gender ideal which stands in their way in forming romantic relationships, but rather the implications that physically enacted relationships would have for their reputations. The signified of disembodiment, present in different locations, allows Jordanian users to circumvent norms of gender segregation. Nevertheless, as this paper has shown, this disembodiment is only produced through explicitly embodied practices. The desire to use new technologies such as the internet is generated by and within already-existing social contexts. Nevertheless, technologies offer new material and semiotic tools with which to accomplish socially constructed goals. The practice of exploiting these tools can produce new subjectivities, such as the heightened individuality which I have described, as well as new social forms, such as the semi-public sphere of Jordanian chatting. Only time will reveal the larger effects of these forms on Jordanian society.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following colleagues for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper: Daniel Bass, Sonia Das, Bridget Guarasci, Luna Khirfan, Kairos Marquardt, Yaseen Noorani, Andrew Shryock, and the editors of Anthropological Quarterly.

274

LAURA PEARL KAYA

ENDNOTES
1 This is a true story, though it contains some composite elements, culled from interviews with both Mona and Romeo. Further, some details have been changed to protect their identities, and all dialogue is reconstructed. The dialogue was repeated to me by Mona, from memory and in English translation, and I jotted it down, again from memory, after I got home that day. 2 Like most Irbidi chatters, Mona used IRC software. See Kollock and Smith 1999:6 for a discussion of the particulars of text chat. 3 This Romanization uses English letters for similar sounding Arabic ones, and fills in the gaps with numbers. So, for example, h signifies the Arabic , and 7, is written 7; the apostrophe represents the dot. 4 On modern conceptions of romance in other locations, see Ahearn 2001, Adrian 2003, Hirsch and Wardlow 2006. 5 The fact that neither of the women involved had a living father may indicate that such engagements are still socially problematic. 6 While my paper focuses on the contrast between Western and Jordanian productions of space, I do not intend to imply that these ways of producing space are opposite to each other, nor to deny the existence of many other types of spatial production, both throughout the world today and in the past. For examples of other ways in which space has been produced, see Lefebvre (1991). 7 8

This generalization does not apply to the wealthy neighborhoods of West Amman.

In Amman, though I did not visit enough cafs to obtain an accurate sample, this did not seem to be the case. There, I visited one caf that did have a womens section, and another which was apparently patronized exclusively by men. Most of the research for this paper was performed in 2000; by 2002, many Jordanians had come to condemn internet chatting for promoting inappropriate relationships between men and women. In 2000, the details of internet chatting were not widely known by older authority figures; when parents learned that their daughters could have romantic encounters with boys in chatrooms, many condemned chatting even from safe spaces such as the home. As computers began to enter a significant number of homes over next five years and to be valued for a range of uses, internet cafs became increasingly disreputable. They continued to be associated with internet chatting in the public imagination. Nevertheless, cafs remained well-attended, and many students continued to chat. Though they knew the practice to be controversial, they still viewed it as less damaging to their reputations than more direct contact with the opposite sex. Many students continued to defend chatting as harmless and modern.
10 While written communication is widely seen as a minor infraction, for those who oppose internet chatting, writing undertaken with romantic intent falls into a different category. 11 Pornography is also extremely popular in Jordanian internet cafs, though it will not be addressed in this paper. 12 Some cafs invest in a safer image. These cafs ban pornography and make their chatting users anonymous. 13 14 9

It is not usual, though neither is it uncommon, for friends to share one computer screen.

The one male chatter whom I questioned about this issue implied that male Irbidi chatters do form a community. He expressed pride in his internet exploits, and described a group of male friends who represented themselves to one another as savvy internet users.

275

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

REFERENCES
Abu-Lughod, Janet. 1987. The Islamic CityHistoric Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance. International Journal of Middle East Studies 19:155-176. Adrian, Bonnie. 2003. Framing the Bride: Globalizing Beauty in Taiwans Bridal Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Afsaruddin, Asthma, ed. 1999. Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiating Female Public Space in Islamic/ate Societies. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Ahearn, Laura. 2001. Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Alexanian, Janet A. 2006. Publicly Intimate Online: Iranian Web Logs in Southern California. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 26(1):134145. Anderson, Jon W. 2003. New Media, New Publics: Reconfiguring the Public Sphere of Islam. Social Research 70(3):887-906. Anonymous. 2001. Jordan Seeks New Guinness Record for Internet street. Arabia Online. Dubai: Arabia Online. Available from World Wide Web: (arabia.com/article/0,1690,Life%7C38295,00.html.) Arat, Yesim. 1997. The Project of Modernity and Women in Turkey. In Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba, eds. Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey. Washington:University of Washington Press. Armbrust, Walter. 2000. Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1968. On Some Motifs in Baudelaire. In Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Shocken Books. Bernal, Victoria. 2005. Eritrea on-line: Diaspora, Cyberspace, and the Public Sphere. American Ethnologist 32(4):660-675. Boddy, Janice. 1989. Wombs and Alien Spirits. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. New York: Cambridge University Press. vom Bruck, Gabrielle. 1997a. A House Turned Inside Out: Inhabiting Space in a Yemeni City. Journal of Material Culture 2(2):139-182. ____________. 1997b. Elusive Bodies: The Politics of Aesthetics among Yemeni Elite Women. Signs 23(1):175-215. Crary, Jonathan. 1999. Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press. Dresch, Paul. 1989. Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eickelman, Dale and Jon W. Anderson, eds. 1999. New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Feenberg, Andrew and Darin Barney, eds. 2004. Community in the Digital Age. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Gilsenan, Michael. 1982. Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Arab World. New York: Pantheon Books. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Woodstock: Overlook Press.

276

LAURA PEARL KAYA

Haraway, Donna. 2001. A Manifesto for Cyborgs. In David Trend, ed. Reading Digital Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Hirsch, Jennifer and Holly Wardlow. 2006. Modern Loves: The Anthropology of Romantic Courtship and Companionate Marriage. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Johnson-Hanks, Jennifer. 2007. Women on the Market: Marriage, Consumption, and the Internet in Urban Cameroon. American Ethnologist 34(4): 642-658. Jones, Stephen. 1998. Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. California: Sage. Joseph, Suad, ed. 1999. Intimate Selving in Arab Families: Gender, Self, and Identity. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Kelty, Christopher. 2005. Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics. Cultural Anthropology 20(2):185-214. Khater, Akram Fouad. 2001. Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kraut, Robert, M. Patterson, V. Lundmark, S. Kiesler, T. Mukhopadhyay, and W. Scherlis. 1998. The Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Wellbeing? American Psychologist 53(9):1017-1032. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991. Lysloff, Rene T.A. 2003. Musical Community on the Internet: An Online Ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 18(2):233-263. Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Massad, Joseph A. 2001. Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. New York: Columbia University Press. Meneley, Anne. 1996. Tournaments of Value. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Nelson, Cynthia. 1974. Public and Private Politics: Women in the Middle Eastern World. American Ethnologist 1(3):551-563. Newcomb, Rachel. 2006. Gendering the City, Gendering the Nation: Contesting Urban Space in Fes, Morocco. City and Society 18(2):288-311. OBrien, Jodi. 1999. Writing in the Body: Gender (Re)Production in Online Interaction. In M. Smith and P. Kollock, eds. Communities in Cyberspace . London: Routledge. Pearl, Laura. 2006. The Girls from the Prayer Room: The Womens Islamist Movement at Yarmouk University, Jordan. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan. Shryock, Andrew. 2001. Une politique de maison dans la Jordanie des tribus: rflexions sur lhonneur, la famille et la nation dans le royaume Hashemite. In Emirs et Prsidents: Figures de la parente et du politique dans le monde arabe. Paris: CNRS Editions. Smith, Mark A. and Peter Kollock, eds. 1999. Communities in Cyberspace . London: Routledge. Sreberny, Annabelle. 2001. Mediated Culture in the Middle East: Diffusion, Democracy, Difficulties. Gazette 63(23):101-119. Starrett, Gregory. 1998. Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Thompson, Elizabeth. 2000. Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon. New York: Columbia University Press.

277

Dating in a Sexually Segregated Society: Embodied Practices of Online Romance in Irbid, Jordan

Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen. New York: Simon and Schster. Utvik, Bjorn Olav. 2003. The Modernizing Force of Islamism. In J. Esposito and F. Burgat, eds. Modernizing Islam, pp. 43-67. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. 2003. Students by Sex. Tertiary education. Country: Jordan [online]. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Available from World Wide Web: (www.uis.unesco.org/pagesen/dbenroltersex.asp) Wheeler, Deborah. 2006. The Internet in the Middle East. Albany: State University of New York Press. White, Jenny. 1994. Money Makes Us Relatives. Austin: University of Texas Press. Wikan, Unni. 2008. In Honor of Fadime: Murder and Shame. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wilson, Samuel and Leighton C. Peterson. 2002. The Anthropology of Online Communities. Annual Review of Anthropology 31:449-467. Yarmouk University. 2003. President Office [online.] Irbid: Yarmouk University. Available from World Wide Web: (www.yu.edu.jo/main.htm)

278