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Setting itself against the social and cultural background of southeastern Arabia, this paper explores the social and symbolic boundaries of the peasant and pastoralist Bedouin of the Western Hajar range of the Emirates.  In this context, the modes of livelihood associated ritual symbolism and the rhetorical devices of tales and metaphors are examined in order to disorder how boundaries are constructed and manipulated by the members of the Hajari community and the rest of the world.  In order to arrive at such a result, the Hajar ecology, social organization and economic practices are delineated and used as a context for examining the constructions and manipulations of these boundaries.