In the last three decades due to urbanization and modernization, the social, cultural, political, and economic life of the Bedouins of Jordan underwent several changes. As a result of the sedentarization process, which started in the beginning of 1970's, the Bedouins moved from a nomadic to sedentary life-style in which their customs, their houses, and their ethnic habits were deeply influenced. Their new settlements remind more of the Jordanian suburban landscape that characterizes most of the urban centers. These settlements provided them with dwelling units influenced by some of the western planning models. / To explore the issue of housing design policies of the Bedouins population, the author conducted an extensive literature review that deals with the complexity of the relation between culture, housing, identity, and user participation. It highlighted the process of sedentarization and its impact on their housing environments. The received literature, was supplemented by a field case study that aimed at showing to what extent the permanence of tradition and change can be perceived in the variety of modifications and extensions carried out by the Bedouins as users of the government built housing, projects. It also, aimed to investigate what kind of transformation the Bedouins introduced to their traditional habits while moving from nomadic life-style to the permanent settlement. / The case study of Bedoul housing settlement (Um Sayhun), shows that the Bedouin families life-style has became more diversified between traditions and modernity. The inappropriate housing environment design tend to influence the way the Bedouins use the living spaces in their houses. The thesis pointed out the role of community participation in enhancing the Bedouins understanding of the different issues related to their housing and their sense of identity.

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Agricultural settlement projects have been the main Jordanian strategy to settle the nomads. This study focuses on one example of this strategy, namely the Qatrana projects. The main objectives of this study are to analyze the traditional socio-economic aspects of the Qatrana people, spontaneous settlement and changes which have experienced by them, the Jordanian policy to settle the nomads, and the achievements of the Qatrana settlement projects to the planned governmental goals and the settlers' objectives. Major findings of the study are that: (1) traditional nomads in Qatrana were adaptive to their arid environment in terms of their socio-economic way of life. (2) in Qatrana, the traditional nomadic way of life is diminishing, and the number of nomads is declining because they are vulnerable to the recent forces of change. (3) Jordan's official strategy to settle the nomads has been to encourage them to settle on the basis of agricultural projects and social services provided at these projects. This strategy has been carried out within the general policy of national development. To determine the achievements of settlement projects in Jordan, interview schedules in Qatrana were conducted by the writer with 66 settlers, representing all the families in the projects and 50 households of the squatters. Results of the survey showed that the governmental goals in terms of creating a reserve fodder for the animals in the area and for sheep fattening, and alleviating pressure put on the natural range have failed. The governmental goals to settle the nomads and improve their living conditions, which coincides with the settlers' goals to settle, have succeeded in social equity terms, but not in economic efficiency terms. The majority of Qatrana nomads were settled in fixed houses, received title to the lands, enjoyed better living conditions, social services and greater income. These achievements have been of high governmental costs. It seems that settling the Jordanian nomads on the basis of livestock and range management strategy would develop the nomadic sector in Jordan with less costs than the agricultural strategy.

Most of the recent studies on the southern Jordan Bedouins portray the Bedouins as being resistant to change and development. These studies are more descriptive than analytical, focusing on romantic aspects of the Bedouin's lifestyle. In contrast, this study, based on fieldwork conducted in Wadi Rum between June-November 2004, attempts an ethnographical study that does not represent the Bedouins in a stereotypical way, neither romanticising them nor treating them as in need of development. It is based on an examination of the relationship between the socio-cultural, economic and political aspects of Bedouin society and the physical environment in which they live. The different types of settlements inhabited by Wadi Rum's Bedouin society are documented, and the contextual sources of change that shaped, and are still shaping the Bedouins' living patterns, are analyzed.

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