Thank you Muzna for bringing that up. This is something I have thought a lot about, so thread https://twitter.com/zamakan/status/1287119390526386176

1/ Of course, we are familiar with Maysoun’s brilliant article and are very aware of these power differentials. This initiative comes at a particular moment: covid + economic crisis— I believe that we have to work at different levels: the macro and the micro

2/ And the initiative is a very modest thing we can do to address the micro. This is a “band-aid” for the immediate needs of some. We also need to work on the macro level, and that is why institutions like the Arab Social Science Council are so important.

3/ And partnering with Beirut-based scholars to get funding is something that many of us do and are committed to, but it is something that takes much more time, and will not address current immediate needs.

4/ The initiative is also not meant as a model for research—most researchers who would sign up usually do, and prefer to do, the research themselves but cannot do so this year because of COVID

5/ Positing that through such initiatives, “outside resources and decision making” are deciding on research agenda simplifies a much more complex situation.

6/ Many of the researchers outside Lebanon are Lebanese and are very much anchored in Lebanon. And many local institutions, including the ACSS, have outside funding

7/ And the interests of all researchers, including those in Lebanon, come from particular positions (say class) and are not inherently more relevant to the country. And many researchers in Lebanon have been trained “outside.”

8/ Unequal power relations exist in all research endeavors. This is the case even when you are in Lebanon, especially if you are working with a team, including research assistants.

9/ And this is something that individual researchers should negotiate with their “team,” interlocutors, and sites. Worse abuse than that described by Mayssoun happens within Lebanon-based research teams.

10/ thank you for the opportunity to publicly talk these difficult issues. these questions about unequal power in research and how to be a decent human who lives by their values are the hardest part of doing research./ the end