Paper short abstract:

In this introduction, we discuss the potential of thinking through uncertainty in the Middle Eastern context. Focusing on subject formations, lived experiences and daily practices, we show how lack of certainty and trust affect Egyptians as well as researchers in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Paper long abstract:

In this introduction, we discuss the potential of thinking through uncertainty in the Middle Eastern context. Focusing on subject formations, lived experiences and daily practices, we show how a lack of certainty and trust has come to affect Egyptians as well as researchers in Egypt since the January revolution. Building on ethnographic research as well as personal experiences, we aim to illustrate how a general state of uncertainty works itself around and inside people, in ways that make consensual 'truths' utopian, and something that at best could be considered a rare exception or a luxury. We also want to bring attention to how situations of uncertainty challenge some of anthropology's core practices: How do we anthropologically write about e.g. Egypt, when the situation in 2011 most likely cannot be written in the 'ethnographic presence', as things are so clearly dynamic and changing? How do we as researchers find ways and motivation to do anthropological long-lasting research in the midst of rapidly developing political transformations?

Paper short abstract:

A historical and anthropological study of Bilad al-Sham from the end of the Ottoman period to the present looking at the near-normal phenomena of living with political uncertainty from the closing days of World War I to the uncertainty of the late Asad era through a theoretical lens borrowing from Bourdieu.

Paper long abstract:

A historical and anthropological study of Bilad al-Sham (and what it encompassed in each era) from the end of the Ottoman period to the present looking at the near-normal phenomena of living with political uncertainty through a theoretical lens borrowing from Bourdieu. I propose to return to my set of 40 interviews conducted between 2005/2007 with the oldest living members of minority groups who settled in Bilad al-Sham at the close of WWI and compare and contrast these findings with a second set of interviews I conducted in 2009/2010 reflecting on life on in the 19930s, 1940s, 1950s 1960s and early 1970s in the making of the cosmopolitan quarter of Damascus, Sha'laan. These were periods of great political upheaval and uncertainty re the French Mandate,the establishment of the state of Israel, the short-lived republican era and finally the military dictatorship and a kind of certainty that followed. The present era is again uncertain and I propose to juxtapose my historical findings with reflections and anecdotal and unsystematic information gathered from colleagues, friends and family living regarding this new era of uncertainty in 2011/2012.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the epistemological implications of highland Moroccan Berbers' claims that other people's thoughts and intentions are almost wholly inscrutable. Accordingly, people's statements are best thought of as neither true nor false, but as existing in a state of “suspended veracity”.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the epistemological constraints on communication in the Berber-speaking highlands of Morocco, focusing on local people's insistence 1) that the thoughts and intentions of others are almost perfectly inscrutable; and 2) that any attempt to pierce this "hermeneutic veil" is fundamentally immoral.

Together, these two claims have a significant impact on local concepts and practices of truth and lying. In line with the first, people suggest that their interlocutors are properly speaking unpredictable and rhetorically stress that "there is no such thing as trust". The truth or falsehood of other people's statements cannot be known or even guessed at, except on those occasions when unfolding events confirm or deny them. Otherwise, though, they exist in a state of "suspended veracity" (like quantum particles whose properties are uncertain). The second claim, meanwhile, both condemns attempts to pierce the veil and encourages people openly (and amusedly) to dissemble about their plans and intentions when these are unverifiable. I suggest that such speech acts are best understood not as "lies" intended to mislead or misinform, but as examples of obfuscation designed to protect their autonomy and whose truth value is null because they cannot be disproved. These strategies are magnified by modern forms of communication (mobiles, msn, facebook), where greater anonymity equals greater unverifiability.

Finally, the paper addresses the implications of this cultural complex for people's assessments of the reliability of news media and the nature of the information they convey.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the balancing act which constitutes the work of humanitarian organisations for and with Iraqi refugees in Syria. I argue that a successful work within grey zones is only possible if people and organisations involved pursue a common ulterior goal, accept to deal with half-truths, and adapt work routines to local options and possibilities.

Paper long abstract:

Iraqi refugees in Syria very often experience double bind situations: while it seems unlikely that they can ever return to their former home country the attempt to create for themselves a life of confidence and security in Syria, or in a third country of their choice, often turns out to be all but impossible.

My paper focuses on the balancing act which is an essential part of the work of local and international organisations in Syria which have been supporting Iraqi refugees in precarious situations since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. I present examples from my own work experiences and research within an Iraqi refugees project, showing how local employees and international staff together tried to ameliorate the precarious living conditions of Iraqi refugees, while they themselves worked in grey zones, fraught with challenges they had to face. I describe some of these challenges, focusing on examples of how the team members' own life experiences impacted the co-operation and how their approaches to assignments changed as they worked within the confined frame of the project and in a state like Syria where activities of NGOs are hardly tolerated, if not forbidden. Finally, I point out factors that supported or hindered a successful co-operation. And I argue that only if people and organisations who work in grey zones pursue a common ulterior goal, accept to deal with half-truths, and adapt work routines to local options and possibilities a "creative management of uncertainties" is possible.

Paper short abstract:

Old City Palestinians have to negotiate politics as well as religious, social and familial affiliations. This creates fears of not meeting all these demands and raises questions if to remain in or leave symbolically loaded "communities". Those who stay have to discuss their relations to city space.

Paper long abstract:

Members of Palestinian groupings in the ideologically and geographically dense space of the Old City of Jerusalem are exposed to and have to engage with unpredictable politics and oppression. But only taken together with changing and insecure familial figurations as well as the requested commitment to religious and social principles, it creates a fear of not suitably fulfilling all demands connected with it.

Firstly, this brings up the biographically relevant question of remaining in or leaving the Old City - implicitly, it imposes on dwellers to decide if they are willing to carry the burden of belonging to symbolically loaded "communities" and to help stabilizing them in familial, religious and national regards. I will discuss why remaining or leaving is often discussed as a dichotomy of "modern"/"traditional" as well.

Secondly, based on a contrastive comparison of cases of dwellers and a thorough reconstruction of their "small life-worlds" I will show that remaining in the Old City may be interpreted as defeat or as chance in their perceived subjective engagement with the city. Spatial surroundings and material "truths" as they present themselves to the dwellers become essential metaphors to talk about life in Jerusalem.

My paper is based on fieldwork which is part of my PhD-project and embedded in a larger research on established/outsider relations, funded by the German Research Foundation. Thus, although or because Jerusalem is often presented as a "special case", these questions serve to illustrate relevant issues of people's everyday life in a larger context: Palestine/Israel and the Middle East.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will present the lives of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories under a permanent and purposed regime of uncertainty produced by the Israeli authorities. This will be done by anthropological phenomenology based on the roles and function of the five human senses.

Paper long abstract:

The paper would present the lives of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation, taking the point of view of the senses and their roles. The purpose would be twofold: (1) to show that in the Occupied Territories prevails a regime of structured and permanent uncertainty, that is used purposely as a means of control; (2( to investigate the anthropological implications of that control technology on the daily lives of the Palestinians in the OT, taking the five human senses, which are the connectors of the human being and the outer world, as the interrogation's key. The paper would analytically define the primary functions of the senses - from the positive function, enabling to enjoy scenery, sounds, smells, and tastes, to the preventive function helping to avoid dangers and obstacles - and to show how, due to the unstable and uncertain nature of the occupied public and private spaces, those functions are hurt, reducing the sensory protective belt to the borders of the body itself, making it penetrable and vulnerable.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper I will concentrate on working class Egyptian families and examine the creative ways in which some of the men and women I met during the revolution in Tahrir in January and February 2011, and later in the summer of 2011, construct alternative forms of supporting their families and community in the midst of poverty and rising food prices. It describes household´s food habits, links them to large-scale economic processes, and assays through them social relationships and affective ties in households and local communities.

Paper long abstract:

Revolutions create new possibilities and relationships. This paper begins with an ethnographic account of food distribution in Cairo during the "25 January revolution." Food, especially bread, served not only to feed and please, but the circulation of food also created new spaces and human intimacies for men and women during the three weeks of economic dislocation.

Description and analysis of the distribution and eating of bread - the most important food in Egyptian households - illustrates how through the mundane rounds of daily living we eventually gain insight into the complexities of transformations in the economy and social life of men and women in Egypt. In this paper I will concentrate on working class families and examine the creative ways in which some of the men and women I met in Tahrir, and later in the summer of 2011, construct alternative forms of supporting their families and community in the midst of poverty and rising food prices. It describes household´s bread habits, links them to large-scale economic processes, and assays through them social relationships and affective ties in households and local communities.