Auto/Biography and the Construction of Identity and Community in the Middle East

Abstract

This collection of reflective essays and research articles argues for thegreater use of auto/biographies, both as data sources and as representationaltexts, in examining individual and communal identity negotiations in theMiddle East. It reflects the theoretical and topical shifts toward the local,regional, and particular that characterize poststructuralist and postmodernistsocial science research. It also resonates to the increased concernabout representing marginalized populations in historical, sociological, andanthropological literature. Positing that "biography lies at the intersectionof the personal and the political and of public and private history," Fay callsfor a more flexible, interpretive, and micro-focused understanding of therelationship between individuals and their contexts. She also championsauto/biography as both a means of entry into private lives and a lensthrough which to view those lives as part of a broader sociohistoricalmilieu.The various authors assert that such a use of biography is consistentwith traditional Arab and Islamic forms of representation - a claim that recentersthe Middle East within the social sciences as a key site of know I ...