Defining a field’s core questions requires prolonged diffuse dissatisfaction

Evidence

This is one reason that in none of the established journals (nor for that matter in recent books by established scholars) is there any attention paid to the basic questions Why Middle East and Islamic studies? and For whom are they being transacted? The obliteration of the methodological consciousness is absolutely coterminous with the presence of the market, for news as well as whole clienteles of security-conscious consumers (governments, corporations, foundations): one simply does not ask why one does what one does if there is an appreciative, or at least a potentially receptive, clientele. Worse yet, the scholar stops thinking in terms of the region and the people about whom studies are being conducted. Islam, if it is “Islam” that is being studied, is not an interlocutor but in a sense a commodity. The overall result is a kind of institutional bad faith. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 327 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Critical history from marginal standpoints can pose questions differently — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 678; A lucrative market for expertise erases methodological self-questioning in a field — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 327; Persisting with further questions exposes ideology behind stated explanations — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 476 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• A lucrative market for expertise erases methodological self-questioning in a field #complicates (0.78) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 327