Tarik Sabry, Cultural Encounters in the Arab World.

On Media, the Modern and the

Everyday. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010, pp. 228 (ISBN 978-1-8488-!9-1"
#$%i$&$d by '$or(iana Ni)oar$a
An ethnographic and phenomenological approach of what it means to be modern in the
Arab World, Tarik Sabrys book is an attempt to connect conceptualizations of modernity in
Arab thought with modernity as experienced in the everyday life of Arab societies This
pioneering work makes a strong plea in favor of considering the everyday as the main focus of
an emerging academic research field, that of Arab !ultural Studies, to the crystallization of
which this book contributes The book advocates for the studying of daily life, culture and
media in the Arab World, outlining the need for an anthropological perspective on culture that
the author considers "an amalgamation of different encounters and the dynamics they
produce# $p %&' (urthermore, he places the study of popular culture, in its forms
characteristic to the Arab World, "at the intersection of social, political, economic, existential
and anthropological dynamics resulting from the encounter between global and local# $p %)'
*n the first chapter, Sabry sketches a history of encounters of the Arab World with the
West, encounters that supposed, among others, the confrontation of Arab societies and its
intellectuals with modernity and affected the perspectives on culture which he discusses in the
following chapter The author poses the +uestion whether the encounters with the modern can
be studied as a cultural phenomenon and argues for the examination of modernness as a
phenomenological category, in an attempt to deal with the modern from an ontologically point
of view Sabry thus distinguishes between modernness and modernity, modernization and
modernism and he depicts modernness as being "about thinking through and reflecting on the
very kind of being, that thing we call "modern# , it describes a state of mind and being in
the world# $p %-'
The second chapter contains the central theoretical elements sustaining the claim of
the book as the author challenges topics around which revolves the discourses about culture in
the Arab World .e is mainly concerned with the a la $tradition' / hadta $modernity'
duality that dictates also how the category culture in articulated *n presenting the central
discourses on Arab culture, Sabry reveals the tension between those that advocate in favor of
heritage $turt' and their counterpart that favor modernity $hadta' *n the light of this
tension, Sabry proposes the use of the deleuzian concepts of deterritorialization and
reterritorialization in order to analyze phenomena of culture in the Arab World, phenomena
that he deems influenced by cultural contacts with the Western world .e calls for the
application of Abdel 0ebir 0hatibis principle of double critique, a concept influenced by
1errida2s deconstructionism that involves a critical analysis of both the local as well as the
global elements of contemporary cultural production Tarik Sabry identifies four directions
for the analysis of the relationship between tradition and modernity that are centered on the
concept of culture The first one represented in the works of Abdullah 3aroui is the
historicist / 4arxist direction that aims at a break with the past and with tradition A second
position is that of 4ohammed Abed Al56abiri, a realistic / structuralist direction that defends a
modernization from within and reconciliation with the present The Salafist / traditionalist
direction that claims that the Arab5*slamic heritage is the only coherent civilizational model is
the third one identified, and what he calls the anti5essentialist position which uses
deterritorialization as double critique is the forth Tarik Sabry describes this forth stand as a
philosophy of transcendence which promises to overcome the problem of duality between
tradition and modernity through the criti+ue of both concepts
*n the third chapter, Arab 7opular !ulture and 8veryday 3ife are bridged around the
notion of present tense as a powerful temporality, making claims for the establishing of the
two as ob9ect of research and study Tarik Sabry further criticizes the "elitist# view on culture
that hinders anthropological readings of the 8veryday 3ife in the Arab World and sets out to
identify the meaning of "popular culture# in the area :ne of the characteristics of the
"popular# being its position outside ruling mechanism, he points that "many voices that
constitute Arab popular culture remain unheard# as what is publicly identified as popular
culture is in fact "a pseudo5popular culture that speaks not with its own voice but with the
voice of the center# $p ;<' and the cause resides in the control the ruling elites exercise not
only over the means of production in general but also over cultural production in particular
.e encourages the study of the anthropological spaces of the daily life and privacy, to which
Arab subcultures are confined to by the authoritarian structures of the Arab World, in order to
examine the regions working class structure and social stratification
(ollowing the somewhat theoretical framework proposed in the first three chapters, in
chapter four the author analyzes ethnographic data from 8gypt and 4orocco with the purpose
of sustaining the claim for the study of moderness Sabry reads the =assr >ile ?ridge in !airo
and the +ueues outside the *talian and (rench embassies in !asablanca as anthropological
texts, approaching them as spaces of encountering with the modern The =assr >ile ?ridge is
perceived as a place that allows for "an acting out of the self and of desires that contradict
conventional and fixed ideas about gender and love in the Arab society# $p @A' while the
+ueue outside the *talian and (rench embassies in !asablanca, in its being a "colonial
imposition# $p B@' is a place of encounter with the local and the "Western other# in which we
can read "the story of the Arab working class, their hopes and aspirations# $p @A'
*n his second empirical chapter, chapter five, Tarik Sabry additionally explores the
theme of encountering by taking into scrutiny the role television in 4orocco plays in
generating self5reflexive narratives of modernness in young viewers, on the basis of fieldwork
conducted in 4orocco between C&&% and C&&< The author conse+uently demonstrates how
"difference in socio5economic and cultural strata $' produce different readings of and
reactions to modernity# which he classifies in categories ranging from "incoherent
acceptance# to "coherent re9ection# $p @@' The duality and ambivalence resulting from the
mechanisms of encountering originate in another duality, that of Arabs position towards the
modernity that Sabry considers a "handicap# $p %;;' that has to be ad9usted The author finds
the answer to this problematic in 0hatibis double-critique that supposes the +uestioning and
subversion of both the modern and the traditional
Tarik Sabrys book encourages the reconceptualization of the dominant paradigms
about Arabic culture, emphasizing the need for an analysis of contemporary cultural
particularities that challenges the stationary frameworks within which the 4iddle 8ast has
been approached *n the light of a new Arab !ultural Studies pro9ect the regions encounters
with modernity and its take on peoples everyday experiences encourage sociologic,
ethnographic and anthropologic dimensions of research conducted within the scope of
clarifying an Arab cultural panorama of the present 4ohammed Abed Al56abiri, the
supporter of a modernization from within and a reconciliation with the present, affirms, in the
same note that Arab thought suffers from a confusion in the cultural temporality leading to its
"unconscious time# $Al56abir, apud Sabry, C&%%D%&' Thus time stops as Arab thought deals
with cultural products of the past that co5exist in the same temporality as the new, accusing
the fact that the present is only a replay of the past through the prism of which it is analyzed
*n order to surpass this impasse, Sabry argues for an interdisciplinary approach to the cultures
of the contemporary Arab World thus outlining the need for the establishing of Arab !ultural
Studies as a field of research and study