My first introduction to the lower Medjerda Valley was in 1976 byWerner Kiene, then director of economic development programs in NorthAfrica for the Ford Foundation, and by professors Ali Ben Zaid Salmi andMonee£ Ben Said, codirectors of the Department of Rural Social Sciences atthe National Agronomy Institute of Tunisia (INA TI. The region ofMedjerdaturned out to be an ideal fieldsite, and I am grateful to the team at INAT forintroducing me to the region. My fieldwork in the late 1970s was supportedby two sources: A Fulbright Hays Research Fellowship and an InternationalDoctoral Research Fellowship provided jointly by the Social Science ResearchCouncil (SSRC) and the American Council for Learned Societies. Subsequenttravel grants from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the Universityof California, Berkeley, and California State University Faculty ResearchGrants also were instrumental to this study. Without the financial supportof these organizations, this research could riot have been conducted.