Auto/Biography and the Construction of Identity and Community in the Middle East By Mary Ann Fay, ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2001. 226 pages.)

Abstract

This collection of reflective essays and research articles argues for the
greater use of auto/biographies, both as data sources and as representational
texts, in examining individual and communal identity negotiations in the
Middle East. It reflects the theoretical and topical shifts toward the local,
regional, and particular that characterize poststructuralist and postmodernist
social science research. It also resonates to the increased concern
about representing marginalized populations in historical, sociological, and
anthropological literature. Positing that "biography lies at the intersection
of the personal and the political and of public and private history," Fay calls
for a more flexible, interpretive, and micro-focused understanding of the
relationship between individuals and their contexts. She also champions
auto/biography as both a means of entry into private lives and a lens
through which to view those lives as part of a broader sociohistorical
milieu.
The various authors assert that such a use of biography is consistent
with traditional Arab and Islamic forms of representation - a claim that recenters
the Middle East within the social sciences as a key site of know I ...