Englishman in New York”
Conducting Research in the Middle East as a Foreign Scholar
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12378874 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anna Getmansky (0000-0002-0978-7095, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 03 |
| Pages | 490-493 |
| Publication date | 2019-04-24 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | PS Political Science & Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1049-0965 • E-ISSN: 1537-5935 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1049096519000192 |
| OpenAlex | W2941380551 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 9 |
Although fieldwork-especially ethnography and participant observation-has always been an integral part of the research of the Middle East (Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read, 2018:234), in recent years quantitative, surveys, and experimental studies of the region have been on the rise (Benstead,2018;Clark and Cavatorta, 2018).This change echoes the overall transformation in single country research in comparative politics, with increased focus on micro-level and individual-level analysis (Pepinsky 2018).The change so far has been slow: data compiled by Obermeier and Pepinsky (2018) suggest that this region still comprises a small fraction of all the published works in the leading political science journals: out of 2,442 articles in their dataset, only 42 are related to the Middle East, with 22 of them published in 2010 or later.This growing scholarly interest in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and the increased focus on micro-level studies has resulted in diverse new research in the areas of conflict (Zeira, forthcoming), migration (Author, 2018a), electoral politics (Bush and Prather, 2018; Corstange, 2016), and more.The number of foreigners doing empirical work in the Middle East is also increasing as the region is becoming more attractive to scholars with nonarea expertise.These scholars are likely to face several challenges that stem from their status as foreigners as well as from the region's characteristics, especially if they attempt to collect original data, although some of the issues may also affect collection of existing observational data.This piece explores some of these challenges, based on my experience of doing research in Turkey as a foreigner.I will begin by briefly outlining the motivations for conducting research in the Middle East.I will then discuss challenges that foreign scholars might face, and conclude by highlighting potential strategies for addressing them
Archaeology · Content (measure theory · Library science · Media studies · Middle East · Sociology · Computer Science · History · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Mathematics · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
The Return of the Single Country Study
Who's There? Election Observer Identity and the Local Credibility of Elections
Refugees and the Spread of Civil War
Field Research Methods in the Middle East
Conducting Research in the Middle East's Conflict Zones
No Easy Answers
Survey Research in the Arab World
Political Attitude Research in the Arab World
Refugees, xenophobia, and domestic conflict
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |