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- Convenors:
-
Nefissa Naguib
(University of Oslo)
Noha Fikry (University of Toronto)
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- Chair:
-
Nefissa Naguib
(University of Oslo)
- Discussant:
-
Anne Meneley
(Trent University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- 26 University Square (UQ), 01/005
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores emerging directions in Middle East anthropology including human-animal relations, land and seascapes. We situate new themes within a concern of living on a "common" planet, while also positioning these topics against gatekeeping concepts long defining Middle East anthropology.
Long Abstract:
In his most recent Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization, Achille Mbembe argues that reopening the future of this planet requires relearning how to share it among the multiple species living with humans. He points out that imagining a hopeful future in spite of the apocalyptic local and global conditions requires an attention to "radical sharing and universal inclusion….[through reflecting on] humankind's implication in a common that includes nonhumans" (41). In light of Mbembe's call for revisiting the humans' position as inhabiting a common planet with a multitude of nonhuman others, this panel focuses on new directions in Middle East Anthropology, ones that reframe, revisit, and attend to theoretical, methodological, and global/local challenges. In particular, this panel explores recent engagements with ecologies, landscapes, seas and oceans, and human-animal relations as unfolding in hopeful, apocalyptic, and unexpected ways in various locations in the Middle East.
Guided by the conference's focus on transformation, this panel situates emerging directions in Middle East Anthropology within an enduring conversation among scholars delineating and pushing against Orientalist themes gatekeeping the Middle East. The panel critically analyzes these transformations in theory and research on the Middle East, while also asking what these transformations can teach us about an ever-transforming Middle East. We regard ecologies, human-animal relations, seascapes and landscapes as generative examples of recent transformations in Middle East anthropology, ones that simultaneously respond to broader planetary crises and transformations.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Alia Shaddad (The American University in Cairo)
Paper short abstract:
Critically unpacking the discourse on AI in Egypt by looking at multiple Egyptian news and media outlets’ material that approach AI with apocalyptic and immanent-crisis undertones. This paper problematizes the human/machine dualism in an attempt to rethink what it means to be in the world.
Paper long abstract:
The journey of questioning who we are and what it means to be in the world is shared and heavily politicized. In 2022, we cannot ponder upon these questions without considering how they exist in a world with different forms of AI. With the numerous mechanical and technological advancements of our age being more perpetual and profound, our relationships and ideas of being have become more dynamic. The dynamic entanglement of human and machine is necessary to consider if we are to adopt a post-human stance aiming to decentralize the category of the human, and instead to rethink the multiple potentialities of doing so. This paper stems from a burning desire to bring these discussions home, and to consider these questions beyond the confines of western academia/media. I explore the dualism of machine/human in Egypt using a discourse analysis of multiple Egyptian news and media outlets’ material that approach AI with apocalyptic and immanent-crisis undertones. The discourse used in the material explored is one of othering, and one that deems different forms of AI a threat to human existence. I assert that current discourse in Egyptian news and media outlets continues to push forth an anthropocentric reading of the world. I attempt to unpack the discourse and think about what it entails using a post-human theoretical stance, specifically Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto. This paper is hence meant to critically unravel and discuss such discourse, within an Egyptian context, in order to rethink what it means to be in the world.
Noha Fikry (University of Toronto)
Paper short abstract:
This essay explores caring and killing as two intertwining modes of relating to animals among women farmers in rural Egypt. In the dearth of trusted proteins, caring for animals as food must entail killing, and the promise of a wholesome meal draws caring and killing as everyday bedfellows.
Paper long abstract:
How do we understand eating when caring and killing are its fundamental components? In this essay, I explore home-rearing practices of women farmers in rural Egypt, in which women rear animals to feed their families and in which caring for animals ends with a conscious act of killing. I rely on six stories from fieldwork to situate caring and killing practices in broader economic and nutritional dilemmas, juxtaposing these stories with the capitalist meat industry in Egypt.
I argue that for many families in rural Egypt, eating well is partly about caring for an animal before and during killing it. Far from a moral resolution, however, it is a particular mode of killing and caring for animals that my interlocutors offer as their attempt to live, kill, and eat well. This mode of killing is preceded by caring for animals, premised on caring for family members, and practiced according to religious laws. On the other hand, their mode of caring involves caring for animals and caring about animals. Caring for these animals operates both through a selfless move away from the self or an engrossment in the wellbeing of individual animals and through a self-interested outlook that situates care in the broader context of humans eating animals. We can only grasp this cultivated ethics of care upon following instances of killing and eating that accompany these multispecies care relations. In rural Egypt, eating “well” is a relational matter fraught with everyday acts of killing and caring.
Leonardo Schiocchet (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Paper short abstract:
The few articles published to date on the anthropology on Palestine and on Palestinian anthropology tend to conflate these two terms. None discuss the fact that the overwhelming production by Palestinian anthropologists has been about Palestine. How does this affect Middle East anthropology?
Paper long abstract:
The few publications to date on the state-of-the-art of anthropology on Palestine and Palestinian anthropology tend to conflate these two terms (Abu-Lughod 2020; Furani and Rabinowitz 2021; Schiocchet 2018, 2022; Atshan 2021). Furani and Rabinowitz’s seminal article largely shifts the tone from a discussion on data production about Palestine and Palestinians to Palestine (and Palestinians) as a site of theory production at large. However, none discuss what lies in the conflation between an anthropology of Palestine and a Palestinian anthropology, namely, that the overwhelming production by Palestinian anthropologists has been about Palestine. What social processes and academic mechanisms cause this conflation and what does it entail in practice? How does it affect the Palestinian anthropological production about the rest of the world at large? How can it invisibilize the academic production and circulation of Palestinian anthropologists working elsewhere and reproduce established academic (im)mobilities and hierarchies? Last by not least, how does it affect theoretical-methodological developments in anthropology at large?
Anna Zadrożna (Institute of Anthropology, University of Gdańsk)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines human-nonhuman relationalities that shape/emerge through politics and practices of environmental governance in Istanbul. As political polarization deepens in Turkey, what ontological and empirical premises shape the governance of urban green? What kind of future(s) is envisioned?
Paper long abstract:
In spring of 2022, 129 plane trees were cut in Istanbul due to a fungal disease. As they grew along one of the city`s most recognizable street, the trees’ removal soon ignited a political quarrel. Whereas the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality justified its decision by providing a scientific report, some government representatives challenged its credibility and accused the Municipality of neglect and hidden agenda.
Drawing on several months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted on Istanbul’s green spaces governance, this paper examines human-nonhuman relationalities that shape and emerge through politics and practices of environmental governance in Turkey. As political polarization deepens in the country, opening and successful governance of urban parks become ways of exercising political power and displaying efficiency. In this context, the paper addresses the following questions. Which governance practices are preferred, by whom, and why, and what are their ontological and empirical premises? What concepts such as “national garden” (millet bahçesi), urban ecosystems, or “green space increase” tell us about human-nonhuman relationalities, hierarchies of power, and structures of governance? Selected key terms such as wild (yaban), clean (temiz), controlled (kontrollu), and natural (doğal) will facilitate our understanding of the role of aesthetics, affect, and collective belonging in shaping the ways in which humans perceive and engage with green spaces and nonhumans. Finally, if Istanbul`s future(s) is envisioned as “green”, to whom it belongs? I critically examine the idea of quantifiable progress, its premises, and tangible results. I also bring in the question of entanglements and their importance for planetary survival.
Idunn Lüllau Holthe (University of Oslo)
Paper short abstract:
Through a mixed method combining Geographic Information System (GIS) and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper builds on an ongoing study that explores local, national and global relations to land and cultural heritage in what is often called the world’s largest open-air museum in Luxor, Egypt.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how a mixed method can be used to approach questions on commons in the Middle East, focusing on the “universal commons” of UNESCO World Heritage sites. With the ongoing project of making Luxor the world’s largest open-air museum, the ever-changing landscape in the Upper Egyptian city is increasingly affected by man-made structures to protect, to control, to manage and to attract. If we compare old maps, aerial photos and satellite images, the changes and developments appear stark and clear: the city grows, but as the conservation sites expand, houses and villages are consequently being demolished. Yet, these images tell us noting about the actual stories on the ground. What do these top-down developments tell us about living in a supposedly “universal common”?
Through a method combining Geographic Information System (GIS) and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper builds on an ongoing study that explores local, national, and global relations to land and cultural heritage in Luxor. What are the possibilities when we approach the field from both above and within? Following these questions, this paper explores the different knowledges our methodologies create, and challenges some of the ways anthropological fieldwork is traditionally imagined. It looks into possibilities and advantages of using GIS, but also explores its limits, challenges, and potential pitfalls. Finally, it argues that this approach can present a valuable platform for discussing local effects of top-down conservation practices, elitist and neo-colonial appropriation of heritage, and Western imaginations of geographies.