Minutes, November 2007

Middle East Sociology Working Group

Informal meeting at the Middle East Studies Association, Annual Meeting, Montreal, November 18, 2007.

We met at the registration desk at 1:00 p.m., as arranged via our list-serve the previous week, and then wandered through the Palais des congrès looking for a spot to sit and eat, before settling on a collection of couches with no food. We numbered about 10 people, a majority of them graduate students. After introducing ourselves and our current research projects, we discussed shared concerns, including the availability of datasets on the Middle East, guidance on interviewing and other qualitative methodologies, questions of access in difficult political environments, availability of language training, lack of teaching materials such as textbooks, lack of communication with colleagues working on sociology of the region.

Suggestions for the development of Middle East sociology included: writing a textbook on “Sociology of the Middle East,” scheduling more panels and informal get-togethers at future ASA and MESA meetings, sharing drafts of written work with one another, and including outside members on master’s and dissertation committees.

Minutes taken by Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill