Methodology

Our current methods are informed by two complimentary theoretical frameworks: food systems theory and political economics. Food system theory focuses attention on the complex practices involved in the quest for food and water and the natural processes that affect, and are affected, by them. Archival research, a bit of a novelty in Jordanian archaeology, is a new methodological focus for the project. By examining medieval Islamic written sources, many of which are unpublished handwritten scrolls, we have begun reconstruction of the political and economic administration of the region during that time. Together these approaches help document how rural landscapes have been transformed by imperial agrarian policies.

Edited 4/14/05