Rethinking social research in the context of a Thermidorian Arab Middle East: for a Gramscian Methodology

How can Gramsci help twenty-first-century researchers conduct field research in the contemporary Arab Middle East when academics and activists are increasingly intimidated, detained, or even killed? Drawing on Gramsci’s 1926 The Southern Question, we illustrate how scholarly and activist communities can continue to critically learn and study in repressive environments while considering the complex geographies of knowledge production and preserving a commitment to egalitarian emancipatory politics. By reviewing key steps in the field research cycle – research design, data collection, and dissemination/restitution of analyses – we rethink the role of scholars as intellectuals, or conscious subjects, embedded in contexts that often transcend national boundaries. Reflexive methodology, with lessons drawn from Gramsci, can help tackle the problem of uneven levels of repression in the current Thermidorian climate that characterizes the Arab Middle East.