Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa Methodological and Ethical Challenges

by Clark, Janine A.; Cavatorta, Francesco

• ISBN13: 9780190882969
• ISBN10: 0190882964
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2018-08-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In conducting political science research today, one's methodology is of paramount concern. Yet, despite the obvious chasm between theory and practice that all scholars experience in the field, there are no specific guidebooks on meeting the methodological and ethical challenges that fieldwork presents. Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa helps fill this vacuum, focusing specifically on doing research in the one of the most important regions in contemporary world politics. Janine A. Clark and Francesco Cavatorta have gathered together a large and diverse group of researchers who study the region and focus on methodological "lessons learned" from their first hand experiences of employing a variety of research methods while conducting fieldwork. The contributors also look at the challenges of conducting field research in a variety of contexts, such as in areas of violence, and using research methods such as interviewing and ethnography. This volume will therefore be an invaluable companion book to more standard methods books and a useful tool, not just for Middle East scholars, but for all researchers conducting research in complex settings.

Author Biography

Janine A. Clark is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Guelph. She has conducted extensive field research on Islamism, decentralization, and civil society activism in the Middle East and North Africa. She is the author of Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco (Columbia UP) and Islam, Charity and Activism (Indiana UP) and co-editor of Economic Liberalization, Democratization and Civil Society in the Developing World (Macmillan/St. Martin's).

Francesco Cavatorta is an Associate Professor in Political Science at Laval University. He has conducted extensive field research on Islamism, party politics in the Arab world and civil society activism in the Middle East and North Africa. He is the author of The international dimension of the failed Algerian transition: Democracy betrayed? (Manchester University Press), co-author Politics and Governance in the Middle East (Palgrave), and co-editor of Salafism after the Arab Awakening: Contending with people's power (Hurst).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of contributors

1. Introduction: The Methodological and Ethical Challenges of Conducting Research in the Middle East and North Africa
Janine A. Clark and Francesco Cavatorta

Part 1: Context
2. Encountering the Mukhabarat State
Jillian Schwedler and Janine A. Clark
3. What Is So Special about Field Research in Iran? Doing Fieldwork in Religiously Charged Authoritarian Settings
Paola Rivetti and Shirin Saeidi
4. Authoritarianism, Gender, and Sociopolitics in Saudi Arabia
Gwenn Okruhlik
5. Researching in and on the Palestinian Occupied Territories
Benoit Challand
6. Seeing Beyond the Spectacle: Research on and Adjacent to Violence
Sarah E. Parkinson
7. Doing Research during Times of Revolution and Counter-revolution
Atef Said
8. Researching the Countryside: Farmers, Farming, and Social Transformation in a Time of Economic Liberalization
Ray Bush

Part 2: Methods
9. Interviewing: Lessons Learned
Janine A. Clark
10. Interviewing Salafis: Negotiating Access and Ethics
Massimo Ramaioli
11. Interviewing Salafis: Overcoming Mistrust in Middle Eastern and European Contexts
Zoltan Pall and Mohamed Ali Adraoui
12. Interviewing and Gender
Emanuela Dalmasso
13. Process tracing and the Political Economy of Development in the Middle East
David Waldner
14. Ethnography Is an Option: Learning to Learn in Yemen
Stacey Philbrick Yadav
15. Coding in Qualitative Research
Mohammed Yaghi
16. Quantitative Research in MENA Political Science
Miquel Pellicer and Eva Wegner
17. Of Promise and Pitfalls: Population-Based Experimental Research in the Middle East
Steven Brooke
18. Online Media as Research Topic and Research Tool: Fact, Fiction and Facebook
Elizabeth Monier
19. Researching Twitter
Geoffrey Martin

Part 3: Ethics
20. Blurred Lines of Inclusion and Exclusion: Research Ethics for Sympathizers
Irene Weipert-Fenner
21. Playing with Positionality? Reflections on"Outsider" / "Insider" Status in the Context of Fieldwork in Lebanon's Deeply Divided Polity
Paul Kingston
22. Intersectionality Theory and Working with "Both Sides"
Lihi Ben Shitrit
23. The (Ambiguous) Fieldwork Experiences of a German Moroccan in Jordan
Malika Bouziane

Notes
Bibliography
Index