Unwelcome Dead (eBook)

METHODS AND LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH

I have utilized case study design methodology in order to analyze the narratives regarding differing conceptions of history and land. In order to do this, I needed to collect the narratives at work. My Arabic is elementary, and I did not understand the local Bedouin dialect of Arabic spoken within Kom Trougah. I was able to navigate within the local community, but my level of comprehension barred my understanding of the complex ideas presented during my interviews.

Kom Trougah remains a contested space where government claims to the land via the SCA are tied to the lands archaeological value. This claim of landownership is challenged by the villagers who, not recognizing the government as the owner of the land, ignore government laws as an authority over their lives and have built homes in this space (A similar observation of peasant-state relations was observed by Nathan Brown 1990). Problems arose while conducting my interviews with the villagers because many homes had been threatened or torn down by the inspectors I employed to translate for me. Poorer families, defined as such by their low social position, inferior kinship ties, and inability to own or control valued resources, often expressed their anger and frustration toward the SCA inspectors and guards during interviews. Wealthier families, defined as such by their position of authority, superior kinship ties, and ability to own and control valued resources, often had personal interests that were wrapped up with those of the inspectors. These families showed their loyalty to different inspectors by telling me what they felt I wanted to hear instead of their honest interpretations of the site, the village, and the historical remains. The conflicts over land and history would not have been apparent if I employed disinterested individuals consequently; a large part of my research included interviews with the inspectors and guards.

Because much of the research was recorded in English, incorporating Arabic terms would be sporadic and inconstant, so I chose not to incorporate Arabic translations or terms in this book. Some of my research notes are in Arabic to reassure those people who were concerned I may not be writing down their views accurately, but for the most part, I wrote down the inspectors’ English translations. My understanding of Arabic allowed me to verify the accuracy of these translations just through listening to the interviews and by employing different translators to conduct interviews with the same families.

I lived in Egypt for three and a half years, which allowed me to observe the importance of religion within Egyptian society as a whole. I knew the first thing to do was to introduce myself to the local imam, also referred to as sheikh, a highly respected member of the community. The village of Kom Trougah is completely Muslim. The local imam is responsible for calling out time for the daily prayers as well as delivering the Friday sermon, which is attended by men, women, and children. Visiting him first was a sign of respect. I knew he would discuss my project as part of the Friday sermon,1 which I hoped would help community members feel comfortable talking to me.

The sheikh sat with me for two days while he asked me questions about my political views toward the United States, Israel, the Denmark Cartoons, and my views on Egypt. The sheikh has a house in the village. I respected local customs of dress and hospitality while presenting myself and my research to the sheikh, who then accepted me and acted as my gatekeeper. I spent two days with the sheikh and his family. Members of the community who feared my intrusion into their lives and originally closed their doors, now welcomed me into their homes. This was a great boon to the direction of my research.

Kom Trougah includes a wide variety of social agents. Interviews were conducted with village members from varying social classes, education levels, and economic backgrounds. I quickly realized that communal relationships between the inspectors, guards, and various community members were extremely complex and dependent on each other. I needed a way to gather accurate information without compromising my position as a social scientist within the community. I was able to discuss most of my subject in the Cairene style of Arabic, so the people I interviewed not only understood me when I spoke, but they often used words they knew I understood. They wanted me to understand them.

INTERVIEW PROCESS

I have conducted qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted four times a week over a three-month period. Four different inspectors translated during the interview sessions—one inspector per interview. All the inspectors I worked with were males between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-seven. All four inspectors and five guards, as well as the five police officers who participated in this research, lived in other villages outside of Kom Trougah, commuting to the village daily. Many of their homes are also built in villages that have been built over registered archaeological sites. They were all members of the landowning class who had inherited land from their fathers renting the land out for high sums as their main sources of income. Originally, my intention was to stay in the Delta for three months, but safety and health concerns became an issue, causing me to travel to the site from Cairo daily. Each month, I changed the days of the week that I conducted interviews to get a sense of changes in village activities throughout the week. In the village, I conducted interviews with SCA employees with and without the presence of villagers. This allowed me to analyze SCA employee narratives separately as well as part of the collective narrative.

Most interviews took place in family homes on site. The front room of a home, while often a private area, was also a public space where family could gather and guests were welcome. Homes in Kom Trougah also represented contested spaces as a home could only exist if built over the archaeology. Homes were ideal space to conduct the bulk of my interviews. In order to include women, I would also sit outside in public spaces to make sure that they were not socially compromised when speaking to unrelated male inspectors. Twenty-three women were interviewed for this research. I conducted interviews with women from the two dominant Bedouin tribes living in the village as well as women who identified themselves as fellahin, or of non-Bedouin decent. Forty-eight men ranging in age from fifteen to eighty years old were interviewed for this research. Of my male participants, thirty were from the Red Bedouin tribe, eleven from the White Bedouin tribe, and seven identified themselves as fellahin. These numbers do not include those village members who listened to interviews but chose not to participate. In order to ensure accuracy and honesty from my translators, I visited many of the same homes repeatedly with different inspectors, conducting the same or slightly different interviews, to observe if answers or reactions changed when different inspectors interpreted.

In an attempt to include as many people living in the village as possible with my limited resources and limited time frame, I conducted interviews in front of all three local mosques. Interviews were also conducted at the public school in Trougah, where five out of the seven school teachers present participated, at the police department in the nearby city of Abu Matamir,2 as well as with the five police officers assigned by the government to escort me to and from the site. The village was organized in such a way that wealthy families lived primarily in the northern section of the village, and poorer village members lived around the edges of the village and in the center of the site. I measured social class by asking and observing different families social role in the village, kinship connections and prestige, and access to money, resources, and education. Families who owned large plots of land, who employed many poor villagers, and who were considered the owners of large homes in the village make up approximately 40 percent of my interlocutors. The remaining 60 percent of interlocutors struggled to find constant employment. Some owned small plots of land that they farmed themselves, but most of these families were virtually landless with the exception of the land their homes were built on. These families earned an income by performing various tasks. Some ran small businesses such as sheep herding or collecting pigeon eggs to sell, but most were hired as day laborers by wealthier families in Kom Trougah and the surrounding villages. The practice of hiring children out as day laborers rather than educating them limited their family’s access to government employment or more permanent forms of employment. This does not account for the high number of children in both categories who chose to drop out of school to seek employment for their own immediate financial benefit.

Initially, I approached my interviews by coming to the village with a list of questions that were meant to be vague. For example, I asked “what is history?” or “how is the village organized?” After a series of basic questions, I began to build off answers I was receiving. For example, most villagers were confused by my question, “What is history?” Most answered by talking about religion or their family genealogy. When asked about the history of Kom Trougah, most informants responded that Kom Trougah did not have a history. This led to a series of questions about family. These initial responses also began to distinguish ideas of history associated with people verses ideas of history...