The Association of Middle East Anthropology is pleased to announce the winner for its bi-annual book award. This award is given to an anthropological work published in 2020 or 2021 that features creative ethnographic writing, innovative data collection strategies, and sophisticated analysis.
The winner of this year’s award is J. Andrew Bush, for Between Muslims: Religious Differences in Iraqi Kurdistan (Stanford)
This beautifully written book explores a number of contradictions among those who have “turned away from piety” and yet do not renounce Islam, but seek to know the “beloved” in Iraqi Kurdistan. Through an insightful analysis of mystical poetry, Bush additionally demonstrates how the pious and those who have turned away from piety negotiate desire, understand apostasy, and relate to each other across different ranges of piety through patience and acts of “holding back.” His analysis offers a thoughtful counterpoint to analyses of piety movements that are too concerned with exploring the secular.
The honorable mention goes to Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi, for Pious Peripheries: Runaway Women in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (Stanford)
Ahsan-Tirmizi’s wonderfully nuanced ethnography describes the acts of resistance among Afghan women who, for a variety of reasons, choose to leave their families. In beautiful prose, Ahsan-Tirmizi analyzes how these women situate their radical moves within Islamic tenets, offering insightful reflections on hospitality, promiscuity, and honor.
Please join us in congratulating our winners at the AMEA reception at MESA in Denver, Saturday, 3 December 2022, 7:30-9:30 pm, at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, Director’s Row H.
Committee Members:
Chair, Anne Meneley, Department of Anthropology, Trent University; Angie Abdelmonem, Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, Arizona State University; Sa’ed Atshan, Department of Anthropology, Emory University