ABSTRACT

Middle East and Islam Studies is one of the most popular academic expertises in the humanities in Israel, where it is one of the biggest actors within global MEIS, especially relative to the size of its population. Like many social researchers of science since Latour and Woolgar’s Laboratory Life, this study is inspired by ethnographic approaches for studying the practice of science ‘where it takes place’, using fieldnoted observations of its everyday practice. The remoteness of universities from the city is not exclusive to Israeli universities, and in some cases reflects the governmentality concern of potential political student unrest, or other planning constraints. The sociology of knowledge is interested in the ways knowledge, as a fungible product, is constructed, produced and exchanged in particular contexts, and critical discourse studies are interested in the various ways of decontextualising and recontextualising and repoliticising meaning.