Anthropology of the Middle East

In this introduction to this special issue on economic anthropology in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), I provide a short background on what economic anthropology is, its major debates since the 1950s, and its practice in the MENA region. I also summarise and bring together the articles that cover a range of different and emergent themes from social media in the belly dance industry through inflation and lotteries to startup cultures and mobile phones.

In 2018, Russian belly dancer Gohara catapulted to stardom after being charged with ‘inciting debauchery’ and nearly deported when a video of her Cairo disco performance went viral. Based on participant-observation of the belly dance industry in Egypt, this article employs ethnographic narratives to demonstrate that although attention is commodified across Egyptian belly dance venues, so is inattention and discretion. While foreign dancers like Gohara can often profit from any attention, for Egyptian dancers the social costs of attracting attention frequently make it undesirable, creating opportunities for exploitation and the commodification of inattention and discretion. As such, the growing dominance of the visually based economies of attention on social media is generating new challenges for Egyptian belly dancers trying to compete in a changing market.

Whether with central bankers or strolling passers-by, inflation is a recurring term, one that encapsulates contemporary life in Tunisia. How does a concept of economics become everyday talk? Through three stories, I show how what I call ‘inflation-talk’—a mode of small talk that operates as critique and affect—circulates across discursive spaces, ultimately becoming a medium to question economic transformations and reveal political disillusions in post-revolutionary Tunisia. I consider how inflation has become a ‘feel’ of the economy, meaning a measurement not solely for economists but for people to make sense of their everyday. Ultimately, I ask how in times of global inflation, anthropologists, especially ones working in North Africa and West Asia, can theorise a critical anthropology of inflation.

I focus on middle-class engagement with lotteries and numerical games of chance, to understand the symbolic boundary-making processes in the Turkish context. Based on 18 months of ethnographic research (2021–2022) with people who regularly participate in state-regulated games of chance in Istanbul, I argue that the middle class(es) have diversified subjectivities with elusive moral boundary-making and differentiated views on risk-taking that transcend the classic distinction between the old middle class and the new middle class. The uncertain socioeconomic situation has rendered my participants precariat and made them move beyond the illusionary boundaries of a perceived stability or ‘in-betweenness’ of the middle class. To mitigate future uncertainty, they engage in speculative ventures, such as games of chance and entrepreneurial pursuits and act beyond what has been considered safe, rational, or secure economic activities.

This article explores the development of Beirut's innovation ecosystem in the context of its social composition, complementing popular narratives of informal power in Lebanon. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores the extensions of existing institutions and practices—how universities, banks, and diaspora returnees collaboratively developed a context for venture development. By focusing on diaspora returnee expertise as a key driver for innovation ecosystem founding, the article also qualifies a key element of Lebanese economic development—the loops of emigration and return immigration of Lebanese people and the resulting economic and managerial cosmopolitanism inherent in their involvement in their country's commercial and financial settings. The emergent innovation ecosystem is a function of existing Lebanese cultural and organisational tendencies.

In this article, I am concerned with how female domestic workers use the mobile phone to expand employment opportunities in the shantytowns of urban Morocco. I examine how mobile telephony is a resource for human agency and action, not just a force for culture change. Second, I describe how mobile phone use has resulted in higher revenues by enlarging the circle of economic activity and by enabling supplementary informal income-generating possibilities. Third, I explore how the mobile phone has allowed them not only to generate more revenue but also to escape the stifling conditions of their workplace and renegotiate the gender politics of private-domestic space.

Moctar Maghlah, Loves in Saharan Time. Anthology of Oral-Written Moorish Poetry Translated from Hassaniyya (Avignon: Wallada, 2020). xiv +165 pp. ISBN 978-2-904201-94-3

Moctar Maghlah, Les Amours au temps du Sahara. Anthologie de poésie maure orale-écrite traduite du hassaniyya (Avignon: Wallada, 2020). xiv +165 pp. ISBN 978-2-904201-94-3

Tatiana Benfoughal, The Palms of Skill: Basketry in the Saharan Oasis (Paris: Muséum d'histoire naturelle, 2022). 462 pp. ISBN 978-2-85653-980-4

Tatiana Benfoughal, Les palmes du savoir-faire: la vannerie dans les oasis du Sahara (Paris: Muséum d'histoire naturelle, 2022). 462 pp. ISBN 978-2-85653-980-4