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Visual ethnography and Kurdish anthropology by Kameel Ahmady

Published on October 8, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, journal articles / papers, Middle East, Us and Them, Visual Anthropology, websites, youth

(LINKS UPDATED 21.9.2020) The first part of the paper Media consumption, conformity and resistance: a visual ethnography of youth culture in Iranian Kurdistan by anthropologist Kameel Ahmady has been published on KurdishMedia. Ahmady wanted to examine the factors which shape a sense of belonging among young people in Mahabad, a town on the north-west periphery of Iran.

His methodological approach is interesting:

I used reflexive visual methods, asking them [the young people] to take their own photographic pieces dealing with themes they saw as relevant to local current events and their place within these processes. The works they produced were then placed in a week long public exhibition in Mahabad, where further data was gathered in a Guest Book of reactions to the event, as well as participant observation notes taken at the time.

Kameel Ahmady has an interesting website with an image gallery and we also can read some of his articles and papers, mostly dealing with Middle East issues.

UPDATE (15.10.06): Part II of his paper Media consumption, conformity and resistance: A visual ethnography of youth culture in Iranian Kurdistan is out

How Islamic cassette sermons challenge the moral and political landscape of the Middle East

Published on October 4, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, media, Middle East, politics, religion cosmology, technology

The New York Times called it “Bin Laden’s Low-Tech Weapon”: Islamic cassette sermons are often associated with terrorism. They are rather a medium for democratic activism and ethical selv-improvement, anthropologist Charles Hirschkind argues in his new book “The Ethical Soundscape. Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics”.

There is an book excerpt on the website of Columbia University Press. Hirschkind writes:

To read the cassette sermon primarily as a technology of fundamentalism and militancy reduces the enormous complexity of the lifeworld enabled by this medium, forcing it to fit into the narrow confines of a language of threat, fear, rejection, and irrationality.

On the contrary, cassette sermons frequently articulate a fierce critique of the nationalist project, with its attendant lack of democracy and accountability among the ruling elites of the Muslim world. The form of public discourse within which this critique takes place, however, is not oriented toward militant political action or the overthrow of the state. Rather, such political commentary gives direction to a normative ethical project centered upon questions of social responsibility, pious comportment, and devotional practice.

(…)

For those who participate in the movement, the moral and political direction of contemporary Muslim societies cannot be left to politicians, religious scholars, or militant activists but must be decided upon and enacted collectively by ordinary Muslims in the course of their normal daily activities.

These sermons are a key element in the technological scaffolding of what is called the Islamic Revival (al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya), he writes. The cassette sermon has become an omnipresent background of daily urban life in most Middle Eastern cities:

In Cairo, where I spent a year and a half exploring this common media practice, cassette-recorded sermons of popular Muslim preachers, or khutaba’ (sing. khatib), have become a ubiquitous part of the contemporary social landscape. The sermons of well-known orators spill into the street from loudspeakers in cafes, the shops of tailors and butchers, the workshops of mechanics and TV repairmen; they accompany passengers in taxis, mini-buses, and most forms of public transportation; they resonate from behind the walls of apartment complexes, where men and women listen alone in the privacy of their homes after returning home from the factory, while doing housework, or together with acquaintances from school or office, invited to hear the latest sermon from a favorite preacher.

During his stay in Egypt, he spent much of his time meeting both with the khutaba’ who produced sermon tapes and with young people who listened to them on a regular basis.

One of the central arguments of his book is, he writes, “that the affects and sensibilities honed through popular media practices such as listening to cassette sermons are as infrastructural to politics and public reason as are markets, associations, formal institutions, and information networks.”

>> read the whole book excerpt

Charles Hirschkind: What is Political Islam? (Middle East Report)

Charles Hirschkind: The Betrayal of Lebanon (tabsir, 1.8.06)

The New York Times called it "Bin Laden's Low-Tech Weapon": Islamic cassette sermons are often associated with terrorism. They are rather a medium for democratic activism and ethical selv-improvement, anthropologist Charles Hirschkind argues in his new book "The Ethical Soundscape.…

Anthropologists on the Israel-Lebanon conflict

Published on July 23, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Middle East, politics, Us and Them

(post in progress) “Strangely, you rarely see anthropologists on the front lines at times like these”, anthropologist Maria Teasdale Brodine wrote at anthropology.net on the war in Lebanon nine days ago:

It seems that anthropologists might have the tools to go into a place like this and help opposing sides understand one another. After all, being a cultural anthropologist takes both a lot of diplomatic skill, and being able to respect and attempt to represent the people you’re working with.

Since then, some (not many, though!) anthropologists have raised their voice or have been asked to do so by journalists.

Gabriele Marranci, lecturer in the Anthropology of Religion, is one of the authors at the anthropology blog on the Middle East called Tabsir. He makes some comments that are typical for anthropologists (in a positive sense – in my view):

First, it is important to deconstruct one point. “Israel is not ‘the Jew’”, my very religious Rabbi friend repeated again and again to me. I have no problem to believe him: a state cannot be a person or represent what today is a very heterogenic faith: Judaism. (…) Zionism is not Israel; leave aside ‘the Jew’. An ideology can help to build a state, but a state cannot be an ideology, leave aside the personification of a person, ‘the Jew’.

Hence, to really understand what is happening today (…) means to stop observing the antithesis (terrorist vs. non-terrorist, axis of evil vs. axis of good, pro-Israeli vs. anti-Israeli and so on) and focus on more complex macrostructures.

He goes on and explains his thesis: “We are witnessing this carnage because of secularism in action.”

>> read the whole post: Secularism in action?

Also on Tabsir, anthropologist Daniel Martin Varisco commented several news reports f.ex in the posts The Lobby and Lebanon and Impudence, Impotence and Impunity where he comments an “fascinating article” Indonesia and Malaysia Ready to Send Troops to Mid-East:

Those who are informed by the likes of Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis or Sam Huntington would assume that the headline refers to the readiness of the Muslim nations to go fight jihad in support of the Hezbollah. And they would be WRONG! Instead the article talks about how these nations are encouraging the UN Security council to take quick action to end the active fighting and to establish a peacekeeping force. And when that peacekeeping force is established, they will send troops. If we really were locked in a Clash of Civilization, at this point, Hezbollah would be receiving reinforcements from all over the Islamic world.

>> read the whole post: Indonesia, Malaysia Ready to Send Troops

William Anthropologist O. Beeman, explains in an article at New American Media why Iran could play a role in bringing about peace”. Last month, the anthropology professor of Brown University has started blogging >> visit his blog “Culture and International Affairs”

A similar point is made by political scientist Bahman Baktiari and anthropologist Augustus Richard Norton. They argue that “the latest Middle East war underlines the need for an effective structure for dialogue, even with adversaries like Iran” >> read the whole text: Beyond the war in Lebanon. Norten is also interviewed in the Harpers Magazine

There are lots of stories about people escaping from Lebanon. Among them, of course, are anthropologists, f.ex. Rosemary Sayigh. Maybe also typical for anthropologists, she says, she “would not have left had it not been for pressure from her children”:

I’ve never left in any war before. I’ve lived in Lebanon for 50 years, we’ve had a lot of war in that time, and I’ve stayed usually. (But) they said that they would worry too much about me. And I’ve been planning to come to Cyprus for a holiday, so I thought I’d take it now instead of later, and rationalise it that way.

>> read the whole BBC story “Safe in Cyprus, worried about home”

Efstratios Sourlagas another tough anthropologist. He has no plans to postpone his fieldwork on Greek Orthodox communities in Beirut, he says:

I think it’s important to do my research here and I guess, when I decided to come here to do research, I knew perfectly well … the history of the place and the conditions of being here. I’m not going to be intimidated by the attacks.

>> read the whole story: Princeton students are caught in hiatus

At Electronic Lebanon, Sourlagas tells us more about doing fieldwork in this situation – and his doubts:

I came to Lebanon two weeks ago to start my own fieldwork, slightly optimistic that having being before in the region and country several times, feeling as a Greek more at home here with the way of life than in the US where I spent the last three years, possessing a knowledge of Arabic (admittedly poor as it is), and especially my girlfriend being Lebanese, I would not face such problems. (…) However, I find myself now feeling helpless and questioning the purpose and the feasibility of my research here one day after the first Greek nationals have been evacuated from Lebanon via Damascus.

The infrastructure is destroyed, but…

…what leaves one feeling much more helpless and angry is that mainly civilians have to bear the onslaught of the Israeli army (many times with their own lives) as it ushers in its familiar tactic of collective punishment as a response to the capture of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah.
(…)
How this scene of eerie quietness contrasted with the noises of thousands of Lebanese taking to the streets of downtown Beirut honking in their cars and waving Italian (and Brazilian!) flags in celebration after the World Cup Final just a few days ago!

>> read the whole story: Personal Thoughts From A Besieged Country

For more comments see Proxy War by Kevin Friedman and A protracted colonial war by Erkan Saka.

UPDATE 2 (8.8.06):

Hizballah: A primer by Lara Deeb, cultural anthropologist

Several new posts on Lebanon at Tabsir

UPDATE:
GlobalVoices analyses / sums up some interesting coverage by bloggers from Lebanon and the Middle East >> read Globalvoices: Lebanon Resistance & Unity

Book review: Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change (American Ethnologist)

Do anthropologists have anything relevant to say about human rights?

Live from Gaza: Blogger and journalist Mohammed Omer

(post in progress) "Strangely, you rarely see anthropologists on the front lines at times like these", anthropologist Maria Teasdale Brodine wrote at anthropology.net on the war in Lebanon nine days ago:

It seems that anthropologists might have the tools to…

“Welcome to an Engaged Anthropologist’s Blog”

Published on June 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cosmopolitanism, Middle East, websites

Former professor of anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and peace activist for over 30 years, Jeff Halper has started blogging. In his post “Welcome to an Engaged Anthropologist’s Blog” he explains:

My idea for this blog is to to bring you into the world of a peace activist in Israel-Palestine, an American-born Jew who became an Israeli some 35 years ago when he immigrated from Minnesota to Israel, who nevertheless believes in peace, justice, human rights, international law and critical thinking — thinking “out of the box” when it come to framing solutions to the world’s problems.

(…)

I’m not really conspiratorial or nutty as some of my words on the link among Israel, Jewish “leaders” and American Empire might imply (…). In fact, I’m a mild-mannered professor of Anthropology (used to teach at Ben Gurion University and elsewhere) who would love to do nothing more than go back to teaching and writing about the deconstruction of consciousness among the Nacirema or some other such stuff.

>> visit Jeff Halper’s blog (but why is there no RSS-feed??)

Halper has been nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his grass root peace activities, along with Professor Ghassan Andoni

>> ‘As Israelis, We Also Fight for Palestinians’ – Interview with Jeff Halper at OhMyNews

Former professor of anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and peace activist for over 30 years, Jeff Halper has started blogging. In his post "Welcome to an Engaged Anthropologist's Blog" he explains:

My idea for this blog is to to…

New Journal: “Anthropology of the Middle East”

Published on June 6, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, journal articles / papers, Middle East

Recent political events have shown an alarming lack of awareness in western countries of life in the Middle East. Anthropologists play an important role in making social and cultural developments in the Middle East more comprehensible to a wider world, states Berghahn publication in its announcement about their new journal – Anthropology of the Middle East.

This journal will be run with the editorial of Soheila Shahshahani, Iranian anthropologist in Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and managing editorial of Brigit Reinel from University of Tubingen.

“There are so many journals in the area of anthropology in the world, but it will be the first special journal in the field of anthropology in the Middle East” Soheila Shahshahani says in an article by the Cultural Heritage News Agency.