Encountering Morocco: Fieldwork and Cultural Understanding

297 Pages·2013·2.049 MB·English

by  David Crawford, Rachel Newcomb, Kevin Dwyer

EncountEring Morocco
Public cultures of the Middle east and north africa
Paul silverstein, susan slyomovics, and ted swedenburg, editors
EncountEring Morocco
FiE ldwork and c ultural
undE rstanding
Edited by
david crawFord and
racHEl nEwcoMB
indiana univErsity prEss
Bloomington & Indianapolis
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library of congress cataloging-in-Publication data
encountering Morocco : fieldwork and cultural understanding / edited by
david crawford and rachel newcomb.
pages cm. — (Public cultures of the Middle east and north africa)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-253-00904-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-253-
00911-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-253-00919-7 (electronic book)
1. anthropology—fieldwork—Morocco. 2. anthropologists—Morocco.
3. Morocco—social life and customs. 4. intercultural communication—
Morocco. i. crawford, david, [date] ii. newcomb, rachel, [date] iii. series:
Public cultures of the Middle east and north africa.
Gn649.M65e54 2013
306.0964—dc23
2012047778
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
to Jamila, noureddine, and sofia —r.n.
to hillary, for acumen, inspiration,
and the babies —d.c.

contEnts
Acknowledgments ix
introduction David Crawford and Rachel Newcomb 1
1 arabic or french? The Politics of Parole at a Psychiatric
hospital in Morocco Charlotte E. van den Hout 16
2 time, children, and Getting ethnography done in
south ern Morocco Karen Rignall 40
3 Thinking about class and status in Morocco
David A. McMurray 56
4 forgive Me, friend: Mohammed and ibrahim
Emilio Spadola 77
5 suspicion, secrecy, and uncomfortable negotiations
over Knowledge Production in southwest ern
Morocco Katherine E. Hoffman 99
6 The activist and the anthropologist Paul A. Silverstein 116
7 a distant episode: religion and belief in Moroccan
ethnography Rachel Newcomb 131
8 shortcomings of a reflexive tool Kit; or, Memoir of an
undutiful daughter Jamila Bargach 146
9 reflecting on Moroccan encounters: Meditations on
home, Genre, and the Performance of everyday life
Deborah Kapchan 165
10 The Power of babies David Crawford 195
11 afterword: anthropologists among Moroccans
Kevin Dwyer 213
References 257
Contributors 269
Index 271

acknowlEdg MEnts
a version of chapter 4 previously appeared in Anthropological Quar-
terly and is being reprinted with permission. The anecdotes in chap-
ter 3 appeared in In and Out of Morocco, by david a. McMurray, and
are used by permission of the university of Minnesota Press.
ix