"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."-Choice

List of Figures Transcription and Transliteration Acknowledgments: Possession by Three Spirits Introduction: The Dialogic Enterprise of Women in Changing Social Contexts PART ONE. WOMEN IN THE MARKET 1. In the Place of the Market 2. Shtara: Competence in Cleverness 3. Words of Possession, Possession of Words: the Majduba 4. Words About Herbs: Feminine Performance of Oratory in the Marketplace 5. Reporting the New, Revoicing the Past' Marketplace Oratory and the Carnivalesque PART TWO. GENDER ON THE MARKET 6. Women on the Market: The Subversive Bride 7. Catering to the Sexual Market: Female Performers Defining the Social Body 8. Property in the (Other) Person: Mothers-in-Law, Working Women, and Maids 9. Terms of Talking Back: Women's Discourse on Magic 10. Conclusion: Hybridization and the Marketplace Appendix 1: Discourse of the Majduba Appendix 2: Discourse of the 'Ashshaba Glossary Bibliography Subject Index Author Index

"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."

"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."—Choice