Minutes, August 2019

Middle East Sociology Working Group
Minutes, August 2019

The Middle East Sociology Working Group and Sociology of Islam network met for brunch at Radiance Tea House in New York during the American Sociological Association’s annual conference on August 11, 2019.

Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill drew participants’ attention to the data archive of quantitative and qualitative social science research that was recently launched by the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (http://dataverse.theacss.org). Colleagues who know of datasets that might be deposited in the archive for the use of future generations of researchers are encouraged to contact the ACSS, and to encourage their colleagues to contact the ACSS.

Louise Cainkar of Marquette University discussed the ASA initiative on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology, which is conducting a qualitative study of the experiences of “minority” faculty around academic freedom, including issues such as silencing, micro-aggressions, stereotyping, and collegiality. The Committee has agreed to include MENA (Middle East/North Africa) and Muslim faculty in this study, and Professor Cainkar is conducting short confidential interviews (which will have all identifiers removed) with relevant faculty. She invites colleagues to contact her if she may have the pleasure of interviewing you. The Committee hopes this study will prove to be the launching ground for continued scholarly work on this topic.

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