An eco-critical approach to John Lewis Burckhardt's notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys

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The aim of this study is to shed light upon the interaction between man and environment in John Lewis Burckhardt's Notes on The Bedouins and Wahabys.

The study shows how the environment could determine the social, economic and political activities of the tribes of Najd and Hejaz, underlining the fact that some of the Orientalists' travel writings could be considered as eco-critical or environmental studies.

Although Burckhardt as an Orientalist has explored and written about the environment of Najd and Hejaz as well as the incidents that took place in that part of the Arabian Peninsula, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, to pave the way for the European colonizers to grasp some geopolitical facts about the region and its inhabitants, he could incidentally reveal that unique relationship between the Arab Bedouins and their environment.

Thus, Burckhardt's Notes on The Bedouins and Wahabys is also considered as an example of the interdisciplinarity of some colonial-environmental studies despite of the divergences between the aims of colonialism and eco/environmentalism.

The anthropocentric view of the colonizer and the eco-centric living of the Arab Bedouins have been exposed.