From the Politics of Representation to the Ethics of Decolonization: What <scp>mena</scp> Social Research Can Learn from the “Indigenous Turn”

I argue that despite becoming a buzzword appropriated by many, “decolonizing” is an intellectual and political project with which social researchers, including those who work on the Middle East and North Africa (mena), should reckon. Sampling from a particular strand of decolonizing work, which came to be labeled the “Indigenous turn” in anthropology, the essay looks for what might be relevant for the ethics and practices of current social research on, and in, mena. I also consider some cautions voiced by scholars who-with no illusions about the possibility of value-free social science or scholarship-are wary of the risks of too quickly collapsing politics and academic scholarship into each other.