SPME
In the decades after WWII, anthropologists carried out ethnographic field research in the Middle East inspired by a scientific spirit to discover the cultures of the region and their dynamics. Among those who produced sound, grounded research were Fredrik Barth…
read moreOne of the core principles of modern anthropology is cultural relativism, the idea that researchers must not make value judgements about the societies they study. Anthropologists think of themselves as setting aside their biases and preferences in order to see…
read moreAs we enthusiastically follow the “Arab Spring” overthrow of Arab tyrants and dictators, we think, and hope, that “the Arab street” is calling out for democracy and human rights, and that Arab societies are…
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My entry into Middle East studies was innocent of politics. I was drawn to the Middle East by my academic interest in nomadic tribes, including, ironically, the politics of nomadic tribes. My M.A. thesis was a comparison of tribes from…
read moreLetter to the Editor Regarding Mark Peaker’s parallel between the Berlin Wall and Israel’s barrier („Israel’s wall imprisons hope“, November 12)the comparison is inexact, to say the least. The Berlin Wall was built to keep East Germans prisoner in East…
read morehttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2009/03/president-obama-speaks-to-iran/ . President Obama used the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, to reach out to the Iranian people and the government of the Islamic Republic, promising a new start and relations based on mutual respect. The President stressed…
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In Israel, there is a political lobby group called “Peace Now,” as if peace were a circumstance that could be brought into being by the political will of one party. The same sentiment was expressed, somewhat less arrogantly, by Israel’s…
read morehttp://sandbox.blog-city.com/self_induced_nakba.htm This is a guest post contributed by Philip Carl Salzman, professor of anthropology at McGill University. The greatest Middle Eastern success in public relations opinion-shaping in the last forty years has been the Palestinian self-definition of themselves as a…
read morehttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/09/anthropology_and_strategic_studies/ There is one central lesson that cultural anthropology has to offer. It is the lesson of Franz Boas, who founded American anthropology, of his students Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, and of their intellectual descendants, such as Clifford Geertz,…
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MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books-why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Philip Carl Salzman is professor of anthropology at McGill University and a member…
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