Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa

Description

A state-of-the-art assessment of recent scholarship

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This volume combines ethnographic accounts of fieldwork with overviews of recent anthropological literature about the region on topics such as Islam, gender, youth, and new media. It addresses contemporary debates about modernity, nation building, and the link between the ideology of power and the production of knowledge. Contributors include established and emerging scholars known for the depth and quality of their ethnographic writing and for their interventions in current theory.

The waves of change sweeping the MENA compel social scientists and anthropologists in particular to move beyond local specificities and images of 'untouched' communities or Middle East exceptionalism to consider wider patterns of social and cultural change. . . . [The essays in this volume] reflect a commitment to ethnographic research informed by current discussions about the field of Middle East anthropology. All attempt to take stock of what anthropologists have and have not accomplished in their attempt to understand this region.

Introduction: Power and Knowledge in the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa Sherine Hafez and Susan Slyomovics

Part I. Knowledge Production in Middle East and North Africa Anthropology
1. State of the State of the Art Studies: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa Susan Slyomovics
2. Identity and Difference in the Middle East and North Africa: A Review Essay Seteney Shami and Nefissa Naguib
3. Anthropology's Middle Eastern Prehistory: An Archaeology of Knowledge Jon W. Anderson
4. The Pragmatics and Politics of Anthropological Collaboration on the North African Frontier Paul A. Silverstein
5. Post-Cold War Politics of Middle East Anthropology: Insights from a Transitional Generation Confronting the War on Terror Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar

Part II. Subjectivities: Youth, Gender, Family and Tribe in the Middle East and North African Nation-State
6. Anthropology of the Future: Arab Youth and the State of the State Suad Joseph
7. The Memory Work of Anthropologists: Gendered Studies of Conflicts and the "Heroic Life" in Middle East and North Africa Sondra Hale
8. Rejecting Authenticity in the Desert Landscapes of the Modern Middle East: Development Processes in the Jiddat il-Harasiis, Oman Dawn Chatty
9. Notable Families and Capitalist Parasites in Egypt's Former Free Zone: Law, Trade, and Uncertainty Christine Hegel-Cantarella

Part III: Anthropology of Religion and Secularism in the Middle East and North Africa
10. Will the Rational Religious Subject Please Stand Up? Muslim Subjects and the Analytics of Religion Sherine Hafez
11. Defining and Enforcing Islam in Secular Turkey Kim Shively
12. Sharia in Diaspora: Displacement, Exclusion and Anthropology of the Displaced Middle East Susanne Dahlgren
13. A Place to Belong: Colonial Pasts, Modern Discourses, and Contraceptive Practices in Morocco Cortney L. Hughes

Part IV: Anthropology and New Media in the Virtual Middle East and North Africa
14. "Our Master's Call": Mass Media and the People in Morocco's 1975 Green March Emilio Spadola
15. The Construction of Virtual Identities: On-line Tribalism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond Sebastian Maisel
16. Youth, Peace, and New Media in the Middle East Charlotte Karagueuzian and Pamela Chrabieh Badine

References
Contributors
Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• África
• History of the Middle East
• General officer
• North Africa
• Middle East
• History of Africa
• Anthropology
• General
• North
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 05 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253007612
• Langue: English

Extrait

ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
PUBLIC CULTURES OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
Paul Silverstein, Susan Slyomovics, and Ted Swedenburg, editors
ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
Into the New Millennium

Edited by Sherine Hafez
and
Susan Slyomovics
I NDIANA U NIVERSITY P RESS
B LOOMINGTON AND I NDIANAPOLIS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
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2013 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa : into the new millennium / edited by Sherine Hafez and Susan Slyomovics.
p. cm. - (Public cultures of the Middle East and North Africa)
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-00746-9 (cl : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00753-7 (pb : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00761-2 (eb) 1. Anthropology-Fieldwork-Middle East. 2. Anthropology-Fieldwork-Africa, North. 3. Middle East-Social life and customs. 4. Africa, North-Social life and customs.
I. Hafez, Sherine. II. Slyomovics, Susan.
GN 635. N 42 A 6 2013
306.0956-dc23
2012037380
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
Dedicated to our fathers, Mounir Hafez (1927-2009) and Josef Slyomovics (1913-2011)
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Power and Knowledge in the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa
Sherine Hafez and Susan Slyomovics
PART 1.
K NOWLEDGE P RODUCTION IN THE A NTHROPOLOGY OF THE M IDDLE E AST AND N ORTH A FRICA
1. State of the State of the Art Studies: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa
Susan Slyomovics
2. Occluding Difference: Ethnic Identity and the Shifting Zones of Theory on the Middle East and North Africa
Seteney Shami and Nefissa Naguib
3. Anthropology s Middle Eastern Prehistory: An Archaeology of Knowledge
Jon W. Anderson
4. The Pragmatics and Politics of Anthropological Collaboration on the North African Frontier
Paul A. Silverstein
5. The Post-Cold War Politics of Middle East Anthropology: Insights from a Transitional Generation Confronting the War on Terror
Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar
PART 2.
S UBJECTIVITIES : Y OUTH , G ENDER , F AMILY, AND T RIBE IN THE M IDDLE E ASTERN AND N ORTH A FRICAN N ATION -S TATE
6. Anthropology of the Future: Arab Youth and the State of the State
Suad Joseph
7. The Memory Work of Anthropologists: Notes Toward a Gendered Politics of Memory in Conflict Zones-Sudan and Eritrea
Sondra Hale
8. Rejecting Authenticity in the Desert Landscapes of the Modern Middle East: Development Processes in the Jiddat il-Harasiis, Oman
Dawn Chatty
9. Notable Families and Capitalist Parasites in Egypt s Former Free Zone: Law, Trade, and Uncertainty
Christine Hegel-Cantarella
PART 3.
A NTHROPOLOGY OF R ELIGION AND S ECULARISM IN THE M IDDLE E AST AND N ORTH A FRICA
10. Will the Rational Religious Subject Please Stand Up? Muslim Subjects and the Analytics of Religion
Sherine Hafez
11. Defining (and Enforcing) Islam in Secular Turkey
Kim Shively
12. Shari a in the Diaspora: Displacement, Exclusion, and the Anthropology of the Traveling Middle East
Susanne Dahlgren
13. A Place to Belong: Colonial Pasts, Modern Discourses, and Contraceptive Practices in Morocco
Cortney L. Hughes
PART 4.
A NTHROPOLOGY AND N EW M EDIA IN THE V IRTUAL M IDDLE E AST AND N ORTH A FRICA
14. Our Master s Call : Mass Media and the People in Morocco s 1975 Green March
Emilio Spadola
15. The Construction of Virtual Identities: Online Tribalism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond
Sebastian Maisel
16. Youth, Peace, and New Media in the Middle East
Charlotte Karagueuzian and Pamela Chrabieh Badine
References
List of Contributors
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume had its origins in a two-day conference organized by Sherine Hafez and Susan Slyomovics in April 2010 at the Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies ( CNES ) of the University of California, Los Angeles ( UCLA ), when a group of scholars convened to tap into the recent contributions to the field of the anthropology of the MENA . We thank the staff of the Center, Mona Ramezani, Warren Berkey, and Hanno Petro, for expertly helping to organize the conference. The conference attempted to provide comprehensive and comparative coverage of Middle East and North African countries; however, our edited volume essays do not fully reflect conference participation, so our thanks to participants in the conference whose papers are not in this volume: Alan Fromherz, Stephen Russo-Shilling, Camila Pastor y Flores, and Sofian Mrabet as well as to Professors Barbara Aswad, Jessica Cattelino, Saloni Mathur, and Aamir Mufti who ably served as panel chairs and discussants. Funding for the conference came from the Department of Education Title VI awards to CNES . For close readings of the manuscript and expert comments and editing, we thank Thomas Mertes. Funding for this volume is from UCLA S Committee on Research ( COR ) Faculty Grant for 2010-2011 to Susan Slyomovics and a grant from the Department of Women s Studies of the University of California, Riverside, to Sherine Hafez.
INTRODUCTION
POWER AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
Sherine Hafez and Susan Slyomovics

The third millennium opened to a decade of transformation in the Middle East and North Africa ( MENA ). From Tunisia to Egypt to Iran, to Libya and Syria and beyond, riveting images of revolutionary Tunisians, Egyptians, Iranians, and others captured the world s attention, as young and old, women and men, changed forever the course of their countries history. Revolts calling for the end of authoritarian governments gave witness to more than just history in the making. Dubbed by many the advent of a new Arab Spring, the events sweeping the region emerge from the depths of a recent history of oppression and silence. They call attention to an incredible will, an underlying determination and a burgeoning social and cultural movement that has challenged postindependence myths of failure and incompetence in the region. The sociocultural dynamics of this recent past are evolving into an unknown future, filled with possibilities, that are captured in this volume by anthropologists working in the region on issues that range from human rights, empowerment, memory, youth, and media, to governance, gender and sexuality, religion, and secularism.
The region of the Middle East and North Africa (hereafter the MENA ) has played a prominent if not central role in the development of human civilization. The twenty-one countries in this region that extends from Morocco to Iran are home to approximately 381 million people. Agriculture, systems of writing, codified law, and social and political structures were developed and honed in this region. Mathematics, literature, philosophy, and astronomy from the MENA -all shaped the modern sciences around the world today. And, lest we all forget, the Middle East was the cradle of the contemporary world s major monotheistic traditions.
Despite and perhaps because of this historical importance, the area that we call the MENA has been at the core of political and militaristic upheaval since the turn of the century. From Western colonialist occupation in the nineteenth century to wars of independence in the following decade, the area has been enmeshed in world political events to this day. Contemporary struggles include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and growing problems over natural resources such as oil, water, and land.
Anthropologists who have dedicated what is now an overwhelming corpus of work to understanding the MENA have been faced with the very challenging task not only of conducting fieldwork in a region that is commonly linked to war and terrorism but also of contending with the need to constantly work against the grain of constructed and now normative knowledge. Since the beginning of anthropological interest in the region, such knowledge has been linked to the exercise of Western power and Orientalist representations of the region s peoples. So while anthropologists of the MENA produced a plethora of works on kinship, gender, tribal and urban social organization, religion, and ritual, this scholarly work continues to engage with hegemonic power, whether by rejecting or normalizing it. Processes of knowledge construction grew more complicated after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States, when media images of the peoples of the region began to evoke suspicion, fear, and a reductionist demonization of MENA peoples.
This volume contains selected anthropological studies of the MENA that represent a tre