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Rethinking 'Fieldwork' in Popular Protests Times
Abstract
What is a ‘fieldwork’ after 2010-2011 uprisings in the Southwest Asia and North Africa region (SWANA)? As a 2011 protestor and grassroots organizer in Syria, I never had access to ‘fieldwork’ until popular protests erupted. Since exile in 2014, my understanding and experience of ‘fieldwork’ changed and therefore I am finding myself rethinking my positionality and ethical dynamics with my interlocutors, many of whom are still caught up in limbo and awaiting resettlements. What is a ‘fieldwork’ for an activist-scholar in exile? What are the questions and issues that native researchers who gone exile should be asking and thinking about? What does it matter? In this intervention, I reflect on my everyday experience on my 8-month fieldwork in Beirut between 2018-2019 as an activist-scholar in exile by attempting to think and address some of these questions.
Discipline
International Relations/Affairs
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
Diaspora/Refugee Studies