"Kapchan's splendid enthnographic study of women's performance genres in Beni Mellal, Morocco, is an outstanding contribution to gender studies and to the understanding of Middle Eastern society... Through the idiom of social performance, Kapchan paints a vivid picture of the changing domains of household and family... This book will be useful to a broad audience, including those concerned with discourse analysis, the anthropology of gender, and the contemporary Middle East and North Africa."-Choice

• List of FiguresTranscription and TransliterationAcknowledgments: Possession by Three SpiritsIntroduction: The Dialogic Enterprise of Women in Changing Social ContextsPART ONE. WOMEN IN THE MARKET1. In the Place of the Market2. Shtara: Competence in Cleverness3. Words of Possession, Possession of Words: the Majduba4. Words About Herbs: Feminine Performance of Oratory in the Marketplace5. Reporting the New, Revoicing the Past' Marketplace Oratory and the CarnivalesquePART TWO. GENDER ON THE MARKET6. Women on the Market: The Subversive Bride7. Catering to the Sexual Market: Female Performers Defining the Social Body8. Property in the (Other) Person: Mothers-in-Law, Working Women, and Maids9. Terms of Talking Back: Women's Discourse on Magic10. Conclusion: Hybridization and the MarketplaceAppendix 1: Discourse of the MajdubaAppendix 2: Discourse of the 'AshshabaGlossaryBibliographySubject IndexAuthor Index