Ethnography and Knowledge in the Arab Region

The Ethnography and Knowledge Working Group is engaged in a collaborative exploration of the critical knowledge that can be generated from attention to embodied, emotional and cognitive aspects of the ethnographic endeavor and from the methodological adaptations that the ethnography makes as a result. The group is interested in understanding how ethnography can counter dominant regimes of knowledge about the Arab countries and produce a more nuanced ethnographic understanding of the Arab region today. This working group proposes that particular modes of attention are vital for ethnographic research, including attention to fear, sound, memory, lies, movement, dreams, and the immersive quality of violence.

Before it formally became a working group of the ACSS but with support from it, the collective had already published a special journal issue entitled “Ethnography as Knowledge in the Arab Region” (Contemporary Levant vol. 2, no. 1), which helped define the agenda of the working group as described below. The introduction and abstracts of the issue were translated into Arabic by the ACSS and are available on the website.

The Ethnoknowledge working group focuses on three overarching themes: Ethnography and Medicine, which explores the intersection of ethnography and medical knowledge in the Arab region; Ethnography and Commoning, which investigates how commoning practices inform collective ethnographic approaches; and Research in Turbulent Times, which examines the challenges and possibilities of conducting ethnographic research during periods of crisis and change, with a focus on its unique capabilities and contributions in such contexts.

This Working Group is funded by a grant provided to the ACSS by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Publications

“The Violence We Live in: Reading and Experiencing Violence in the Field”

by Lamia Moghnieh (2018). Also available in Arabic.

“Soundtracks of War: Contesting the Temporal and Experiential Boundaries of War Ethnography”

by Muzna Al-Masri (2019). Also available in Arabic.

Contact Information

For inquiries about the EthnoKnowledge working group, please contact Jana Chammaa at chammaa@theacss.org