Based on the concept of ‘affectedness’ (or ‘Betroffenheit’, Mies 1978), this article attempts to demonstrate how all participants in research, education, and social activism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are impacted by the lack of a stable social environment, which is seen as the bedrock of scholarship by mainstream Northern theories and scientific methodologies. Researchers, academics and activists – as part of civil society – must deal with this intentional lack of security, social justice and freedom. In it we can recognize a form of elite-produced, and potentially indefinite, postcolonial, systemic liminality. Whether women or men, from the Global South or North, we should consider how the topics we are studying and the conditions under which we work impact us individually and collectively. Inversely, we should determine how our endeavors directly impact the lives and environment of the subjects we are interacting with. Reflection on the impact of affectedness-based research methods in the Middle East, and their application to work with men and masculinities in the region, is the main contribution of this article.
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