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Paper short abstract:

Based on a symposium I co-convened in 2023, I discuss the institutional development of anthropology in Arab countries, its insertion into transregional contexts, and the necessity of coming to a real co-production of knowledge, shared research focuses, methodologies, and publication practices.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I present the result of a conference I co-organised in April 2023 with the same title, together with Irene Maffi, Abdallah Alajmi and Imed Melliti. In this conference over thirty scholars discussed the development, or lack thereof, of anthropology in all Arab countries, and ways forward. Whereas there are some publications on the development of social sciences in the Arab-speaking countries or studies on selected disciplines in several countries, the institutional development of anthropology, its insertion into transregional contexts, and the material difficulties of conducting research in some countries, are still largely understudied topics. Even less discussed is the necessity of coming to a real co-production of anthropological knowledge, in terms of shared research focuses, methodologies, and publication practices.

The symposium we organised and the resulting publications, in Arabic and English, aim to contribute to this emerging field of analysis in a collaborative way. In the first part of the presentation I focus on some anthropologists’ individual trajectories, which I consider particularly relevant for the discussion of the insertion of anthropology in local or national research landscapes. I then briefly overview national or subnational case studies to investigate the institutional development (or lack thereof) of anthropology in various countries. In the third and last section I discuss how selected themes are dealt with by scholars based in the region who in languages other than English, with the aim of broadening existing knowledge on the region and open up fresh perspectives on new avenues of research.