Abstract
This chapter introduces the factory as the main field site of this research. It presents the research questions, the contributions, and the structure of the book.
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Notes
- 1.
Field diary, 2018/02/15
- 2.
A rather simple and relaxing board game.
- 3.
Interview with Mahjoub G., 2019/02/28
- 4.
Field Diary, 2017/10/09
- 5.
Interview with Safouen L. 2019/03/16
- 6.
Field Diary, 2017/10/11
- 7.
I use the abbreviation WANA to refer to the more or less culturally and politically connected region of Arabic, Berber, Kurdish, Turkish, Farsi, and Hebrew speaking countries of West Asia and North Africa. In academia, this geographic unit of analysis is often called MENA (Middle East and North Africa). While it is debatable in how far it makes sense to uphold this unit of analysis, it has become clear since long that white people had and have the condescending habit of understanding this region only in contrast to themselves (Said 1979). Often, analyses of the region have served as a (self-righteous) self-portrayal on the blank canvas of an exotic Other. Thus, different historical, cultural and political contexts have been lumped together under labels that situate the region in relation to an imagined superior and white ‘West.’ This tendency finds its expression in terms like ‘the orient’ (as contrasted to the occident) or MENA (east of what?). Using the term WANA does not solve all those problems, but it is an attempt to describe the region in more objective terms that can function without the reference to Europe and ‘the West.’
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© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
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Weißenfels, A. (2024). Introduction. In: Development at Work. Politik und Gesellschaft des Nahen Ostens. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43870-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43870-8_1
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