This essay by Halim Barakat was originally published in The Arab World: Society, Culture and State (University of California, 1993).

This essay is a section of the chapter called "Change in Practical Ideologies: Self, Gender and Ethnicity" from the book The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach, by Dartmouth College Professor of Anthropology Dale Eickelman.

Daniel Bates of Istanbul Bilgi University and Amal Rassam of Queens College of the City University of New York consider communal identities in the Middle East from an anthropological perspective. A discussion of ethnicity, race, language and religion is followed by discussion of communities such as the Kurds, Maronites, and several others.

This essay by Joseph Maïla, a Lebanese political scientist and Dean of the Institut des Sciences Économiques et Sociales of the Institut Catholique in Paris, is a historical survey of the status of Christian Communities in the Arab countries since the pre-Islamic era.

The French colonial legacy left an indelible mark on the countries of the Maghreb, especially Algeria, but also Morocco and Tunisia. Farida Abu-Haidar explores the manner in which authors from this region use French to write texts that "inscribe a Maghrebian identity." In their hands, French is transformed with new words, new styles, etc.

This is the introduction to a book dealing with the use of "Classical Arabic" and "Dialectal Arabic" and the registers in between in Egypt. Written by an anthropologist, the book examines the role that language plays in culture, politics, religions and the general organization of Egyptian society.