Beyond Exception: New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula
Ahmed Kanna, Amélie Le Renard, and Neha Vora
Abstract
Over nearly two decades during which they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, the authors 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 the book, a reflection on conducting fieldwork within a “field” that is marked by such representations. The book's focus is on deconstructing the exceptionalist representations that circulate about the Arabian Peninsula. It analyzes what exceptionalism does, how it is used ... More
Over nearly two decades during which they have each been conducting fieldwork in the Arabian Peninsula, the authors 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 the book, a reflection on conducting fieldwork within a “field” that is marked by such representations. The book's focus is on deconstructing the exceptionalist representations that circulate about the Arabian Peninsula. It analyzes what exceptionalism does, how it is used by various people, and how it helps shape power relations in the societies studied. The book proposes 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. It asks: What would not only Middle East studies, but studies of postcolonial societies and global capitalism in other parts of the world look like if the Arabian Peninsula was central, rather than peripheral or exceptional, to ongoing sociohistorical processes and representational practices? The book explores how the exceptionalizing discourses that permeate Arabian Peninsula studies spring from colonialist discourses still operative in anthropology and sociology more generally, and suggest that de-exceptionalizing the region within their disciplines can offer opportunities for decolonized knowledge production.
Keywords:
Arabian Peninsula,
fieldwork,
exceptionalism,
Middle East,
postcolonial society,
global capitalism
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781501750298 |
Published to Cornell Scholarship Online: January 2021 |
DOI:10.7591/cornell/9781501750298.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Ahmed Kanna, author
University of the Pacific
Amélie Le Renard, author
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Neha Vora, author
Lafayette College
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