Description
Book SynopsisOver the nearly two decades that they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, Ahmed Kanna, Amélie Le Renard, and Neha Vora have regularly encountered exoticizing and exceptionalist discourses about the region and its people, political systems, and prevalent cultural practices. These persistent encounters became the springboard for this book, a reflection on conducting fieldwork within a field that is marked by such representations. The three focus on deconstructing the exceptionalist representations that circulate about the Arabian Peninsula. They analyze what exceptionalism does, how it is used by various people, and how it helps shape power relations in the societies they study. They propose ways that this analysis of exceptionalism provides tools for rethinking the concepts that have become commonplace, structuring narratives and analytical frameworks within fieldwork in and on the Arabian Peninsula. They ask: What would not only Middle East studies, but stu
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This thought-provoking book is a clear invitation and reminder for every reader interested in Gulf studies and involved in their production to always interrogate and revisit her/his own work, reflect and act upon her/his own research practice, thereby contributing to the "new venues for interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula" called for by the authors.
* Anthropos *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ethnography from the Exceptional to the Everyday
1. Space, Mobility, and Shifting Identities in the Constitution of the "Field"
2. How Western Residents in Riyadh and Dubai Produce and Challenge Exceptionalism
3. Anthropology and the Educational Encounter: Archival Logics and Gendered "Backlash" in Qatar's Education City
4. Class Struggle and De-exceptionalizing the Gulf
Conclusion: Centering the Arabian Peninsula, Decolonizing the Academy
