Authoritarian Middle East regimes don't like academics – ask Matthew Hedges

The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.

When the news broke in mid-October that a young
British academic was held by Abu Dhabi for his research, Matthew
Hedges had already been imprisoned for over five months. As early as May, Matthew
had travelled to the Emirate aiming to
conduct interviews for his PhD on civil-military relations in the United Arab
Emirates, post-Arab spring.

Despite obtaining all the required permits
and meeting several officials, he had been arrested and placed in solitary
confinement at an undisclosed location. Emirati authorities claimed that his research
activities were but a cover for surveillance on behalf of British intelligence
and charged him with espionage for a foreign state.

Amid the international outcry about the
gruesome murder of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi in Istanbul by a Saudi hit squad, this came as yet another shock
to those who had thus far viewed the Arab Gulf as an anchor of regional stability.

For those studying the region, by contrast,
Matthew’s detention hardly came as a surprise. The case of the Durham PhD
student exposes the extreme limits on academic freedom in the UAE, but it is not an isolated incident. Instead, it exemplifies a larger authoritarian trend
in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that has impacted students of and in
the region at an alarming rate. Notably, the shrinking spaces for academic
research in and on the Middle East. This trend signals a massive rollback of the
auspicious research climate in the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring” of 2011.

An
Arab Spring in social sciences

In 2011, the wave of protests in the region
caught many social scientists by surprise. Prior to the Arab Spring, studies of
Middle East politics had largely centered on structural factors and on
political elites. Only a few critical scholars had focused on “politics from below” – and even they had mostly concentrated on
modes of contestation below the threshold of public protest which, effectively,
was rare in the repressive contexts of the Arab regimes.

The sudden emergence of popular coalitions between various social
sectors that had been assumed ineffective or apolitical, effectively revealed
the blind spots of these analytical frameworks.

This turned into an opportunity for many
researchers who had paid little attention to the region so far: transitologists
eagerly diagnosed the advent of a fourth wave of democratization in the Arab
World and North Africa. Movement scholars explored the similarities
between the roundabout revolutions in Bahrain,
Cairo, Sanaa and Tunis and the spatial occupations by the Occupy movement and the
anti-austerity protesters in Southern Europe. And students of
revolutions compared the cross-class and cross-ideological
coalitions of the Arab Spring to revolutionary movements in Eastern Europe and
Latin America.

The revolutions furthermore stirred feelings of solidarity,
particularly among young researchers who could identify with the agents of
change and their pluralist and emancipatory ideals. As their enthusiasm was
matched with new funding opportunities, the Arab Spring
created a gold-rush mood that prompted many social scientists to
venture into new terrain. This effectively propelled the discipline of
Middle East Studies from a niche existence to the centre
of political science.

However, the newfound interest in the region also
impacted the way in which Middle East scholars would henceforth be perceived. Between
2011 and 2013 western policymakers fostered
an active exchange with Arab activists and civil society organizations. Researchers
often facilitated this process by establishing contacts and supplying
roundtables with expertise. In many western capitals, researchers thereby functioned
as international multipliers of the protest actors’ voices and contributed to
the dissemination of their demands.

This cemented the image of Middle East Studies as a partisan
discipline that not only sympathized with its research subjects but energetically supported them in their struggle against
the old autocratic orders. The fact that part of the Arab Spring literature was authored by MENA newcomers reinforced this
impression.

In short, countless researchers with little to no experience in the
region had parachuted into the post-uprising contexts to
interview the Tahrir revolutionaries. This had consequences – including for seasoned scholars who, for
years, had treaded lightly to conduct their research despite the authoritarian closure. When the Arab Spring
gave way to an autocratic restoration, both
newcomers and old hands were in for a rude awakening. When the Arab Spring gave way to an autocratic restoration, both newcomers and old hands were
in for a rude awakening.

Researching
under the gun

Before 2011, authorities in the region largely regarded social
scientists as bearable, albeit annoying, interference. Compared to the
potential legitimacy costs of arresting and deporting critical (above all, western)
scholars, their presence was simply the lesser evil. With few exceptions, most
authoritarian powerhouses had furthermore condoned critical scholarship in
their countries’ universities as a poster child for the international community.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, this informal arrangement came
to a jarring halt. In most of the countries that had been shaken by mass
protests in 2011 (and in their neighbourhood), research
on organized non-state actors (opposition parties, critical civil society,
social movements, unions) became off-limits – followed by other issues regarded
as sensitive, from civil-military relations to corruption to cultural history.

In Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq, war and state fragmentation additionally
soon complicated field access. By contrast, in Bahrain, Egypt, the Maghreb, the
Gulf States and Turkey, scholars moved into the cross-hair of reinvigorated
security states that had recovered from their setbacks during the uprisings –
and learned from their mistakes. Recognizing researchers’ mediating function
and their hand in the dissemination of subaltern knowledge that challenged the new
order, these apparatuses began to target academic communities on a new level.

We lack comparable systematic
data for the violation of academic freedoms in the
region. This is partly because affected researchers have an incentive to keep
their experiences to themselves, either to avoid losing field access or out of fear
of endangering their research participants and interlocutors. The few NGOs that collect data
about the repression of researchers are equally hesitant to publish
non-aggregated data, as it could contain leads to individual cases and entail
repercussions.

But even the available evidence paints a stark
picture. Today, Middle East researchers routinely suffer from repression by
state authorities in the form of intimidation, travel bans, or imprisonment on
trumped-up charges; others face denial of entry into specific countries. Among those who have come
under fire are also scholars abroad: exiled writers are intimidated by representatives
of the regimes they study. Foreign scholars are monitored by Arab diplomatic
missions. And scholars based in the region often carefully conceal their
itineraries when travelling abroad to
avoid repercussions.

Consequently, several cities that previously served as intellectual
hubs (e.g., Berlin, London) are today shunned by many Middle Eastern academics,
due to the watchful eye of Arab security services. In 2016/2017, the UK-based Council for At-Risk Academics
recorded the highest demand
for external support for academics since the forced exodus of scholars from Nazi-occupied
Europe in the 1930s – most of them coming from the Middle East and the surrounding
region.

In 2016/2017, the UK-based Council for At-Risk Academics
recorded
the highest demand for external support for
academics since the forced exodus of scholars from Nazi-occupied Europe in the
1930s – most of them coming from the Middle East and the surrounding region.
Responsible for the rise of weekly applications for help, from 3-4 per week
before the 2011 upheavals to 15-20 today, were most notably the persecution of
critical scholars by the Syrian regime, the deportation or detention of
scholars with ties to Human Rights NGOs or the opposition in Egypt, as well as
the suspension and prosecution of researchers after the failed military coup of
2016 in Turkey.

Similar tendencies can be identified in Scholars-at-Risk’s “Academic
Freedom Monitor” and the Global
Coalition to Protect Education from Attack’s
yearly “Education under Attack” report. The latter puts a particular emphasis on a total of nine states in the region, identifying
Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Syrian, Turkey and Yemen as hot
spots for academic research – not even mentioning the GCC states which barely ever
grant access to foreign researchers and have recently detained several scholars
on charges of espionage.

The symbolism of Giulio Regeni’s murder

Despite widely shared protest notes, the
international reaction to the orchestrated campaigns against vocal academics has
been limited – as have been the repercussions for perpetrators. This is true
even in the most brutal cases: Giulio Regeni, an Italian
researcher of independent unions, was kidnapped on
the fifth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution in January 2016, tortured and killed in Cairo. The murder bears the hallmark of the Egyptian security state but remains
unresolved – even more than two years later.

There was nothing particularly contentious
about Regeni’s research. Regarding his
institutional affiliations, his personal characteristics, his command of Arabic
or his local networks nothing set him apart from most other researchers in
Egypt. His research topic, an interview-based study of an independent street
vendors union, was sensitive, but not more so than that of many others. It was precisely
because Regeni was so representative for
the entire field of Middle East studies that his murder sent such a strong
signal. On social scientists, it had its intended effect.

Poster of the “Verità per Giulio” campaign. All rights reserved. Researchers in Cairo at the time were
investigating outlawed socialist or Islamist movements, such as April 6 or the Muslim Brotherhood; others were researching army massacres or
forced disappearances. It was precisely because
Regeni was so representative for the entire field of Middle East studies that his murder sent
such a strong signal. On social scientists, it had its intended effect. Their reaction resembled that
of scholars in Turkey half a year later, when authorities engaged in a cleansing
campaign against alleged sympathizers of the Gülen movement: established researchers
hastily left the country or severed ties with their interlocutors, doctoral
students across the globe switched their country focus and renowned graduate
schools halted projects that involved fieldwork in Egypt.

Moreover, the case caused a lack of confidence between many researchers
and their research participants. One of Regeni’s
interlocutors had denounced him as a foreign spy to the police. The head of a
Cairo street vendors union saw it as a “national duty”
to report his suspicions to authorities. Who could guarantee that other interlocutors
would not follow suit? Almost all trade unions, social movements, and
opposition parties researched by social scientists in the region for their role
in the Arab Spring are today affected by state repression. After Regeni’s murder, many scholars began to
consider the scenario that some of them might collaborate with police in
exchange for alleviated restrictions.

The international responses were sobering, too. As Egyptian
authorities stonewalled the Italian investigations, the yellow press unleashed a fierce defamation
campaign against Maha Abdelrahman, Regeni’s
PhD supervisor at Cambridge University. There was no suggestion
that Abdelrahman was in any way involved in the case. However, Italian
magistrates questioned her, seizing her computer and cell phone, and this had a chilling effect on researchers
who had thus far counted on the undivided support of their governments and home
institutions. It wasn’t long until the unfounded reproach to Abdelrahman turned
into a general suspicion. Several media outlets concluded
that Middle East researchers were bringing it on themselves by conducting
research in this dangerous part of the world. These
suspicions unwittingly reified the narrative of many Arab autocrats according
to whom the deployment of western scholars to the Arab World represents nothing
short of a foreign intervention perpetuating neo-colonial asymmetries. It wasn’t long until the unfounded reproach to
Abdelrahman turned into a general suspicion.

Growing
uncertainty and “academic tourism”

Paired with the common anecdotes of
harassment during fieldwork, smear
campaigns and personal threats against friends or research participants, these
reactions contributed to a climate of uncertainty.

In the relatively small Middle East studies
community, it caused a setback in research activities as researchers felt left
alone with the changing realities of their work. The SAFEResearch project
for the development of a handbook for safer field research in conflicted environments
has gathered the experiences of dozens of scholars on this. Apart from self-protection
and the need for better preparation for field research, they reveal that especially
the protection of research participants has become challenging in a Middle East where red lines are constantly shifting.
Local informants and facilitators – activists, fellow researchers, but also
drivers, fixers, translators etc. – are usually affected by state repression
already. How can the additional attention be legitimized that “academic
tourism” from the Global North brings to them? Many researchers admit that,
in today’s Middle East, they cannot
really guarantee anonymity and adequate protection, given their increasing surveillance by security services.

For Middle East Studies institutions, the
current authoritarian contraction in the region is applying a litmus test as well. Thus far, their reactions have
varied from sheer ignorance to a
strategic disregard of the shifting climate, to a downright return to the structuralist
comfort zone of those times before the Arab Spring: the advantage of resuming such
a bird’s eye view on the region is that scholars do not necessarily have to
engage with those very civil society actors that could put them on the spot.

Reputable responses

Some reputable higher education institutions, by contrast,
controlled for the risk that their researchers could be targeted, by imposing
an informal embargo on projects in certain countries deemed as too risky. Others
at least tightened their fieldwork
approval process for their members. The degree of formalization ranges from
compulsory research visas for field trips (whose issuance for sensitive projects is highly unlikely in most
Arab countries), to an obligation to obtain specific risk insurance (whose
policies are all but unaffordable for most public universities), to compulsory risk
assessments prior to field researchers.

Many researchers have welcomed such a formalization of fieldwork. After all, it has showed that the question of how to make research safer has made
it onto the institutional agendas. Particularly field research embargos stem
from their realization that there is actually little universities can do to
protect their staff in case things go wrong. They are thus first and foremost
the visible symptoms of institutions honouring
their duty of care. This is also true when senior scholars, for understandable
reasons, decide to no longer supervise any projects that could put students in
harm’s way.

Revolutionary Graffiti from Mohammed Mahmoud Street in Egypt, by Hossam El-Hamalawy. Flickr. Some rights reserved. At the same time, however, the new restrictions on field research
have unwittingly contributed to a securitization and juridification of field research. What is more, many of the new constraints
on research are helpful in theory – but they put the
burden of dealing adequately with risks firmly on the individual researcher.

In particular, risk assessment requirements have become a fig leaf
that, without being accompanied by proper training, is hardly
capable of adequately protecting researchers. Such courses are still rare at
faculties. Resources, information and training opportunities for proper ways of addressing research-related
risk are widely lacking. Mostly, junior
researchers still acquire their knowledge
on the potential risks of their work by puzzling together bits of
advice from their fellow researchers. In the best case, these strategies are
field-proven and up to date. In the worst case, they are outdated or even counter-productive,
creating a false sense of security.

Need
for engagement

Unlike crisis journalists or NGO workers, social sciences have neglected
the risk factor that comes with their research for too long. This is not only
true for the Arab world. But it is here where the need for professional engagement with
the policing of researchers is currently most evident, and where the effect of
a repressed academia is so stark.

As the region is turning into a particularly
inhospitable place for critical inquiry, many researchers who had just
discovered the Middle East for their work are already turning way. Lacking solid institutional support in
dealing with the tougher fieldwork
conditions, unsurprisingly, also many seasoned scholars are directing their
attention to other parts of the world where they are facing fewer risks. Individually, this shift of priorities
is reasonable. For Middle East Studies as a discipline, however, it is detrimental. Not only because it risks sliding back
into its pre-Arab Spring niche existence. But first and foremost, because the remaining
Middle East scholars in the region will be left to fight their uphill battle
alone.

An Arab Spring in social sciences

Researching under the gun