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This volume combines ethnographic accounts of fieldwork with overviews of recent anthropological literature about the region on topics such as Islam, gender, youth, and new media. It addresses contemporary debates about modernity, nation building, and the link between the ideology of power and the production of knowledge. Contributors include established and emerging scholars known for the depth and quality of their ethnographic writing and for their interventions in current theory.

\"This volume presents a series of studies by scholars working in Middle Eastern archaeology who actively apply social theory to interpret their fieldwork. It aims to highlight the value of using social theory in the interpretation of field work in a region where, traditionally, such approaches have not played a major role. There are a number of factors that account for why social theory is often under-exploited by archaeologists in this part of the world. In many countries, where large numbers of the foreign archaeologists are involved, a division between those doing fieldwork and those undertaking archaeological interpretation can easily arise. Or, the lack of interest in social theory may stem from a legacy of positivism that overrides other approaches. There is also the fact that archaeology and anthropology often belong to separate academic departments and are considered two separate disciplines disconnected from each other. In some cases the centrality of historical paradigms has precluded the use of social theory. There are also divisions between universities and other research institutions, such as departments of antiquities, which is not conductive to interdisciplinary cooperation. This factor is especially debilitating in contexts of rapid destruction of sites and the exponential growth of salvage excavations and emergency surveys. The papers integrate a wide range of perspectives including 'New' or 'Processual' archaeology, Marxist, 'Post-Processual', evolutionist, cognitive, symbolic, and Cyber- archaeologies and touch on many topics including 3D representation, GIS, mapping and social theory, semiotics and linguistics, gender and bioarchaeology, social and technical identities, and modern historical modellingy and social practices\"--Provided by publisher.

Late antique sites are often excavated badly and are hardly ever published in full, especially in the East. This volume seeks to provide a critique of this situation and exemplars of best practice. It will be an important reference work for scholars engaged in fieldwork and those seeking to use archaeological evidence in historical discussions.

Conducting research in conflict environments is a challenge, given their complexity and common attitudes of distrust and suspicion. Yet, conflict and methodology are usually analyzed as separate fields of interest. Methodological aspects of field work in conflict environments have not been systematically analyzed. This article addresses the central methodological problems of research conducted in conflict environments. We suggest the use of the snowball sampling method (hereafter, SSM) as an answer to these challenges. The effectiveness of this method has been recognized as significant in a variety of cases, mainly regarding marginalized populations. We claim that in conflict environments, the entire population is marginalized to some degree, making it 'hidden' from and 'hard to reach' for the outsider researcher. The marginalization explains why it is difficult to locate, access and enlist the cooperation of the research populations, which in a non-conflict context would not have been difficult to do. SSM directly addresses the fears and mistrust common to the conflict environment and increases the likelihood of trusting the researcher by introduction through a trusted social network. We demonstrate how careful use of SSM as a 'second best' but still valuable methodology can help generate cooperation. Therefore, the evaluation of SSM, its advantages and limitations in implementation in conflict environments can be an important contribution to the methodological training of researchers. In addition to its effectiveness under conditions of conflict, SSM may, in some cases, actually make the difference between research conducted under constrained conditions and research not conducted at all. Together with our experiences in the field, we supply several insights and recommendations for optimizing the use of SSM in a conflict environment.

The period I have spent exploring tribal societies in Yemen's northernmost Saʿdah area spans—with interruptions—around fifteen years, and I can hardly imagine a more profound set of changes converging on and in one place. For an anthropologist, these changes are of a political, spatial, technological, and methodological nature, all of which are deeply intertwined.

Israel is a place of paradoxes, a small country with a diverse population and complicated social terrain. Studying its culture and social life means confronting a multitude of ethical dilemmas and methodological challenges. The first-person accounts by anthropologists engage contradictions of religion, politics, identity, kinship, racialization, and globalization to reveal fascinating and often vexing dimensions of the Israeli experience. Caught up in pressing existential questions of war and peace, social justice, and national boundaries, the contributors explore the contours of Israeli society as insiders and outsiders, natives and strangers, as well as critics and friends.

Recent uprisings across the Arab world raise the question of how populations living under dictatorial regimes moved from apparent quiescence to active revolt. The question is particularly acute for Syria, where the Asad regime has ruled not simply through coercion, but also by enforcing a culture of everyday cynicism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Aleppo in 2008-9, I argue that everyday Syrian narratives that lament or scorn the self are a way of radically identifying oneself with a contemptible situation, and inviting that fact to be witnessed and empathized with. I term the radical identification enacted in these narratives 'involvement'. In order to understand why these narratives do not merely reproduce a cynical political culture in the same way that private mockery of the regime does, I propose a model of agency that develops the theme of authentic voice. I argue that the self-scorning voice sounds authentically through the combined agency of the involved subject and the empathetic witness. By enacting involvement, narratives that scorn and lament the self defy the culture of political cynicism and prepare the ground for revolt. Les troubles récents dans le monde arabe conduisent à se demander par quel processus les populations subissant un régime dictatorial passent du calme apparent à la révolte ouverte. La question est particulièrement aiguë en Syrie, où la famille Assad s'est maintenue au pouvoir non pas par la seule coercition, mais aussi en imposant une culture du cynisme au quotidien. À partir d'un travail de terrain ethnographique mené à Alep en 2008-2009, l'auteur affirme que les récits quotidiens des Syriens et leur auto-apitoiement ou dénigrement sont un moyen de s'identifier de façon radicale à une situation méprisable. Ils prennent l'interlocuteur à témoin de ce fait, et cherchent à susciter l'empathie. L'auteur nomme « engagement » (involvement) l'identification radicale réalisée dans ces récits. Pour comprendre pourquoi les histoires racontées ne se contentent pas de reproduire une culture politique cynique, comme les sarcasmes sur le régime formulés en privé, il propose un modèle d'agencéité développant le thème de la voix authentique, affirmant que celui qui s'autodénigre s'exprime authentiquement par le biais de l'agencéité combinée du sujet engagé et du témoin empathique. En mettant en actes l'engagement, les récits où le narrateur se méprise et se lamente défient la culture du cynisme politique et préparent le terrain à la rèvolte.

The history of the archive is the history of the state. Or so say conventional approaches to the archives. Until recently, the archive has been seen solely as a site, or rather a repository, of modern state power and governmentality, and a crucial medium for the making and preservation of national memory in the late 19th century. There is a truth to this state-centric perspective: the archive was conceived as a place where governments keep their records; they usually contain a term such as “state,” “government,” or “national” in their names; and they are often funded by and connected to a governmental body.

Challenging the idea that fieldwork is the only way to gather data, and that standard methods are the sole route to fruitful analysis, Serendipity in Anthropological Research explores the role of fortune and happenstance in anthropology. It conceives of anthropological research as a lifelong nomadic journey of discovery in which the world yields an infinite number of unexplored issues and innumerable ways of studying them, each study producing its own questions and demanding its own methodologies. Drawing together the latest research from a team of senior scholars from around the world to reflect on the experience of research, Serendipity in Anthropological Research presents rich new case studies from Europe and the Middle East to examine both new and old questions in novel and enriching ways. An engaging examination of methodology and anthropological fieldwork, this book will appeal to all those concerned with writing ethnography.