by Benjamin V. Allison In November 1980, the Arab League met in Amman, Jordan, for a summit aimed at promoting Arab unity, particularly against Israel and Egypt, which had concluded a peace treaty the previous year. But the summit rapidly fell apart, as members of the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front (جبهة الصمود والتّصدي) — Syria, Algeria,…
Fellows
Dating Mamluk Manuscripts from Levantine Collections
by Sarah Islam For Islamic intellectual and social historians, medieval manuscripts are indispensable primary sources for investigating what ideas and perspectives were being discussed in a given time period and region. Islamic manuscript repositories are often difficult to access and the manuscripts they contain even more difficult to read and assess, requiring the researcher to…
Places and the Past: The Bidul, the Layathna, and Narratives about Indigeneity in Petra
by Nicolas Seth Reeves The former capital of the ancient Nabataean Empire, the city of Petra serves today as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s most popular tourist destination. Tourism constitutes the lifeblood of three tribal communities that live in and around Petra Archaeological Park: the Bidul of Umm Sayhoun, the Layathna of Wadi Musa, and…
Being Introduced to Archaeology in Jordan at Khirbat al-Mukhayyat
by Miya Pletsas I had the opportunity to participate in the Khirbat al-Mukhayyat Archaeological Project in Jordan for my first field school as an undergraduate from Wilfrid Laurier University thanks to a Jennifer C. Groot Memorial Fellowship award from the American Center of Research. I enjoyed working alongside my peers, the local community, and professors,…
Recyling Refuse in Ancient Petra
by Sarah Wenner Hidden below an urban façade but nevertheless essential for its shaping, a city’s trash was routinely used in construction processes across the Roman world. Before that occurred, both established and ad hoc frameworks dictated the lifecycles of urban waste, from its initial discard, through its sorting and storage, to its reclamation by…
Between Jordanian and International Law: UNRWA Involvement in Jordanian Court Cases, 1948–1967
by Kimberly Katz Many excellent studies have been published over the decades examining the impact of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Palestinians’ lives, in the refugee camps, on relief efforts, with human development, in camp structures, and on politics with host countries, among other topics. Legal…
Toward a Romani Ethnology of Jordan
by Arpan Roy Romani people in Jordan, by some estimates, are as numerous as 70,000. Present in the Arab region in some capacity since the 8th century, Romani characters appear recurrently in literary works by luminous authors from the early centuries of Islam and into the medieval period, including al-Jahiz, al-Harriri, Ibn al-Muqaffa’, and Ibn…
In Small Things Remembered: Late Neolithic Material Culture of the Black Desert, Jordan
by Yorke Rowan Material culture provides a glimpse into the important objects that people created, exchanged, and carried with them for functional and symbolic purposes. The study of archaeology requires a suite of specializations and perspectives, but material culture remains a fundamental source of information. In his pioneering volume In Small Things Forgotten (1977), James Deetz…
Speaking SOGI Asylum: Humanitarian Discourses of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Amman
by Keegan Terek From September to November 2021, I carried out a final stage of dissertation fieldwork with the support of an ACOR-CAORC Predoctoral Fellowship in Amman. My research uses theories and methods from linguistic anthropology to examine contemporary contestation over Arabic discourses around non-heteronormative gender and sexuality. In plain terms, I study how people…
Exploring the Political Economy of Cultural Heritage
by Charlotte Vekemans “Heritage is Jordan’s oil.” This statement, which I heard from heritage experts, development workers, and Jordanian government officials, has come to be the most captivating way for me to summarize my PhD project. With the support of a Harrell Family Fellowship granted by the American Center of Research, I conducted field research…
“Ask A Scholar” with predoctoral fellow Kendra Kintzi
This written interview is part of a new series on Insights, “Ask A Scholar,” through which we highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The following conversation with Kendra Kintzi (ACOR-CAORC predoctoral fellow, 2021–2022) took place by email in July 2021. Thanks for joining us on Insights! Tell us a little more about yourself…
Wellbeing and Living Well: Ethnographic Approaches to Health and Disability
by Christine Sargent, with Timothy Loh and Morgen Chalmiers What can ethnography contribute to our understandings of health and disability in Jordan and elsewhere? In this roundtable event, Morgen Chalmiers (University of California San Diego), Timothy Loh (MIT), and I offered provisional responses by drawing on fieldwork in Jordan and the United States while reflecting…
A Journey from the Excavation Archive Back to the Site: The Architectural Decoration of the Temple of the Winged Lions, Petra
by Marco Dehner In my recent role as a fellow at ACOR, it was my responsibility to assist with the preparation of the upcoming final publication of the Temple of the Winged Lions (TWL) and to conduct my own research about this Nabataean- to Roman-era (1st–4th-century AD) site in Petra, Jordan, which will lead to…
“Ask A Scholar” with ethnomusicologist Melissa J. Scott
This written interview is part of a new series on Insights: “Ask A Scholar,” through which we highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The following conversation with Melissa J. Scott (ACOR-CAORC predoctoral fellow, 2019–2020; fellow in residence at ACOR winter 2020–spring 2021) took place by email in April and May 2021. Thanks…
Ask a Scholar: Prof. Waleed Hazbun (Former Fellow, Political Scientist)
This written interview is part of a new series on Insights: “Ask A Scholar,” through which we highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The following conversation with former fellow Waleed Hazbun (ACOR-United States Information Agency, 1997–1998), who is now professor of political science at the University of Alabama, took place by email…