Nearly five decades of archaeological and anthropological research by Andrews University faculty and students at Hisban, Jordan have brought to light the remarkable story of survival resilience of the local population in the face of three millennia of successional imperial domination. Among the secrets of survival that have been identified are: local level water management, fluid homelands, mixed agro-pastoralism and transhumance, residential flexibility, honor and shame, hospitality, and tribalism. Publication of this project will examine these themes from a number of different encounters with the people of the region. The chapters of this multi-authored volume will be: 1. Introduction of the survival strategies; 2. The LaBianca family’s personal experiences living in Jordan doing ethnographic fieldwork in 1974, 1980, and 1981; 3. Nineteenth and early 20th century travellers’ accounts from the region; 4. A survey of habitation caves throughout Jordan, and particularly in the Hisban region; 5. An analysis of these themes as documented in Narratives and Poems from Hesban: Arabic texts recorded among the semi-nomadic el-Agarma tribe (al-Balqa district, Jordan); 6. Student ethnographers’ notes from fieldwork done during Summer seasons of excavations at Hisban; and 7. Conclusion.

My particular role with this project is authoring chapters 2 and 5, and editing the remaining chapters together with Øystein Sakala LaBianca, senior director of the Hisban Cultural Heritage Project.