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hittle place for traditional schools and theories of anthropology, like
Structural-Functionalism, Structuralism, Symbolism, Practice Theory and Cultural
Ecology.

A final example of these interactions demonstrates itself in the emergence of a ne
phenomenon knon as "native anthropolog‫ﻫ‬sls'. This phenomenon can be considered
as a result of the post-colonial era as ell. Several native anthropologists, for instance,
appeared after the 19s and ith them different interpretations of the cultures that
have been studied by their anthropological ancestors came into existence. Hence, the
quesiton as to ho can better translate the native culture began to force itself as a
methodological problem.' The question as, therefore, hether the native
anthropologist could best represent or translate his culture or the outside.2

Being a native anthropologist and training in the field in the 198s, here
post-modern anthropological ritings dominated the debate in British and mAerican
academe, I benefited from all such interactions by knoing more about here I stood
in relationship to the culutre that I ant to represent, to my disciple and its political
and ideological implicaitons, and ith my colleag‫ﻫ‬es and readers, that is to say the
professional audience.

AIl these experiences of self-consciousness occurred not only to me but to several
other anthropologists as ell. hTe result, ith hich everybody agrees, is that
anthropological ritings and ethnograpihes are becoming less and less apologetic,
and more dialogic and reflexive in nature. Hoever, the quesiton remaisn for me, as
ell as for many anthropolog‫ﻫ‬sts, to asner: fair enough, being dialog‫ﻫ‬c and reflexive
as a good lesson for us to learn, but the problems that e are professionally trained
to asner are still aiting for us at the end of the day, unsolved. For, ulnie other
disciplines in the social sciences, anthropology emerges out of the dust and the
sharing of the ethnographer in the everyday life of the people he studies. This quality
of research life, I arg‫ﻫ‬e, tends to urge the anthropologist to search constantly for
more models, so htat he can be more capable of putting ihs ethnographic materials in
anthropologically more absrtact theoreitcal structures.

What matters, then, for us anthropolog‫ﻫ‬sts is ho to explain and better analyse
our ethnograpihc daat for our audiences. And if e sihft tihs problem to the ifeld of
Middle Eastenr Anthropology or the Anthropology of Islam, then hat mattres is
ho to explain hte different soical and culrutal phenomena that e come across ni
htese societies.

Several ethnograpihes, in recent years, have exaimned various aspects of eihtre
Islmaic or rtibal isnitutitosn or boht in hte context of .different reg‫ﻫ‬ons of the Middle
East. hTsee different ethnograpihc studies, especially hte ones ihch have been
prdoucde since hte 19s, have ranged in their emphasis rfom seeing the relationship
of lslam and tribalism iniht hte scoial structural context, ith close attention to the

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