BRISMES-CBRL Mentoring Event

Conducting Field Research in the Middle East

Date: Wednesday, 25 January 2023

Time: 16:00 GMT

Location: Online via Zoom (registration required)

Please note, this event is for members of BRISMES and CBRL only. More information about membership of BRISMES and CBRL can be found at the bottom of this page.

The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) together with the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) are pleased to announce their third joint mentoring webinar for members. 

Targeting postgraduate students and early career researchers, these on-line events offer practical advice and support from specialists, equipping the next generation of Middle East scholars with the insights needed to get ahead in their research and careers. This event will focus on the subject of “Conducting Field Research in the Middle East” and will feature a diverse line-up of academics from different disciplinary backgrounds who also utilize different methodological research techniques in their work. 

Field research in the Middle East has become increasingly complicated and restrictive, while the praxes of previous generations of scholars have also created problematic legacies and expectations. This webinar seeks to dive into all aspects of field research in the Middle East so that you can get the most out of your time in the field, while doing so in an ethical and safe manner.

Speakers to include:

  • Mayssoun Sukarieh, Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Development at King’s College London. Sukarieh received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and has lectured in anthropology and development studies in universities around the Arab region (American University of Beirut; American University of Cairo) and at Columbia and Brown Universities in the U.S. Sukarieh is co-author of ‘Youth rising: The politics of youth in the Global economy’ with Stuart Tannock (Routledge 2015). In addition to this scholarly monograph, she has published widely across an interdisciplinary range of highly ranked academic journals, including Anthropological Quarterly; Political and Legal Anthropology; Third World Quarterly; Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East; Race and Class; Journal of Youth Studies; and British Journal of Sociology of Education.
  • Tim Jacoby completed his PhD and an Economic and Social Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Department of Politics at the University of York. He joined the Institute for Development Policy & Management at the University of Manchester in 2003 where he is now a professor and co-founder of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute. His research has focused on state development in Turkey as well as broader topics related to political violence, civil society, Islam, nationalism and post-conflict reconstruction. He has published more than 25 articles in international journals and acted as guest editor for Disasters, International Studies Review, Middle East Critique, Progress in Development Studies and the Journal of Peasant Studies.
  • Julie Norman is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations and Director of the BSc programme in Politics and International Relations (PIR) at the University College of London. She also Co-Directors the UCL Centre on US Politics (CUSP). Norman is the author of The Palestinian Prisoners Movement: Disobedience and Resistance (Routledge 2021), and three books on unarmed resistance, including Understanding Nonviolence (Polity 2015) and The Second Palestinian Intifada: Civil Resistance (Routledge 2010).  She has also published on political imprisonment, conflict and development, and critical approaches to preventing/combatting violent extremism (P/CVE), with recent publications in Perspectives on Politics, Security Dialogue, PS: Politics & Political Science, and other journals.
  • Toufic Haddad is the Director of the Council for British Research in the Levant’s Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem and is the author of Palestine Ltd: Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Occupied Territory (I.B. Taurus and SOAS Centre for Palestine Studies, 2016).

BRISMES Membership

Annual membership fees start at £30 and benefits include access to the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies and a substantial discount on registration fees for the BRISMES Annual Conference. Student members are also eligible to apply for our Early Career Development Prize and Conference Student Paper Prize. 


CBRL Membership

Annual membership costs £30 or £15 for students and concessions. Benefits of CBRL membership include:

  • access to purchase add-on subscriptions to CBRL’s peer-reviewed journals Levant and Contemporary Levant at a cost of £25 each;
  • updates from CBRL’s research, funding opportunities and other activities via our monthly newsletter;
  • invitations to events across the UK, the Levant and online;
  • the right to attend CBRL’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), with the power to vote and nominate candidates and stand for election to CBRL’s Board of Trustees;
  • the right to book residential accommodation at the CBRL Kenyon Institute, Jerusalem (subject to availability and terms and conditions).

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