ISSN 0256-004/Online 1992-6049 pp. 86–105 21 (1) 2007 © Unisa Press DOI: 10.1080/02560040701398798 86 An economy of legitimating discourses: the invention of the Bedouin and Petra as national signifiers in Jordan Salam Al-Mahadin Salam Al-Mahadin is Assistant Professor at the Department of English at Petra University in Jordan, and is a mem- ber of the editorial board of Feminist Media Studies. Her research and publications have focused on media discourse, identity formation and women’s issues in Jordan and the Arab World. email address: smahadin@go.com.jo Abstract In this paper I examine the historical and political contingencies which have produced the city of Petra and the Bedouin as national signifiers in Jordan. The invention of a collective na- tional memory and a utilitarian national identity are inseparable from the power-relations that operate in national contexts. Both Petra and the Bedouin have become symbols of Jordanian national identity in response to crises of legitimacy faced by the Monarchical Establishment in Jordan. Identity construction in Jordan has been based on strategies of inclusion and ex- clusion, re-inscribing histories, producing new forms of knowledge on groups and sites, and great fluidity and flexibility in response to political ruptures and contingencies. This paper will situate Petra and Bedouins within those contexts to contribute to a better critical understand- ing of the fluctuating and shifting constructions of Jordanian national identity. Keywords: Bedouin, Jordan, Hashemite establishment, legitimacy, national identity, Petra This paper is a critical reflection on identity construction in Jordan as it pertains to the construction of the Bedouin and Petra as national signifiers. The problemat- ics of legitimacy will underpin the claim that these two signifiers were produced and propagated in response to politico-historical contingencies that threatened the Hashemite monarchical regime’s survival and legitimacy in Jordan. The paper draws on Michel Foucault’s understandings of genealogy, power relations and knowledge in the construction of regimes of truth and subjectivity. Foucault’s framework will inform my inquiry into the problematics of identity construction within the Jorda- nian context and the conditions of knowledge, discontinuities and ruptures which have produced the Bedouin and Petra as the two national signifiers par excellence. Both Petra and the Bedouin testify to Homi Bhabha’s (1994) formulation of cultural