"I was horrified and yet fascinated ..."
October 25, 2017 10:06 PM Subscribe
In "Palestinian winemaking under occupation," Anya Evans presents a brief multi-faceted human interest story typical of ethnographic research, but she has also written about a mode of inquiry noteworthy in itself: "#Tinder as a methodological tool" and "Follow up: #Tinder as a research method" ("This unconventional methodological approach gave me a unique opportunity to understand the spatial politics of the Israeli settlement project ..."). One well-known statement on anthropological ethics suggests relevant considerations. Meanwhile, Judith Duportail writes, "I asked Tinder for my data. It sent me 800 pages of my deepest, darkest secrets," explaining that "this is my reality ... a reality that is constantly being shaped by others – but good luck trying to find out how."
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is not being received very well. -- goodnewsfortheinsane
She was horrified and yet fascinated by a Jewish man... wow. That’s shitty as fuck. Could you imagine how quickly this fpp would
get taken down if that pull quote was about a black man? I think a discussion of using tinder for research is possible, and the bottom link is interesting, but you used the worst possible top link and pull quote. Hard pass.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:06 AM on October 26, 2017
get taken down if that pull quote was about a black man? I think a discussion of using tinder for research is possible, and the bottom link is interesting, but you used the worst possible top link and pull quote. Hard pass.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:06 AM on October 26, 2017
According to Camera, which sources its assertions, "about half of the land farmed by Israeli-Arabs is leased from the ILA."
That does not contradict the statement that the ILA manages 93% of total land. This is exactly what wikipedia says with a source at mmi.gov.il.
She was horrified and yet fascinated by a Jewish man... wow. That’s shitty as fuck. Could you imagine how quickly this fpp would get taken down if that pull quote was about a black man?
This is ridiculous false equivalence. She did not say she was horrified by "a Jewish man" she was horrified that there were so many Jewish men so near to her in Palestinian territory that is occupied by Israel, something she did apparently not fully realize before this. If you stay inside Palestinian cities and you have no personal connections with Israelis, the spatiality of the occupation can be hard to understand. And all most of these men had at least one picture of them posing proudly with their guns in army uniform.
posted by blub at 1:22 AM on October 26, 2017
That does not contradict the statement that the ILA manages 93% of total land. This is exactly what wikipedia says with a source at mmi.gov.il.
She was horrified and yet fascinated by a Jewish man... wow. That’s shitty as fuck. Could you imagine how quickly this fpp would get taken down if that pull quote was about a black man?
This is ridiculous false equivalence. She did not say she was horrified by "a Jewish man" she was horrified that there were so many Jewish men so near to her in Palestinian territory that is occupied by Israel, something she did apparently not fully realize before this. If you stay inside Palestinian cities and you have no personal connections with Israelis, the spatiality of the occupation can be hard to understand. And all most of these men had at least one picture of them posing proudly with their guns in army uniform.
posted by blub at 1:22 AM on October 26, 2017
Blub, you missed the words "and ensures that it can only be rented and cultivated by Jewish citizens". That's the false bit. And I hope that if you think about it, you'll understand what an incredibly racist line the pull-quote is.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:44 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:44 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
There is a deeply unsettling tone to the Tinder piece, which does feel anti-Semitic to me. For example, look at how she describes - the objectively rather similar - self-presentation of Israeli and Palestinian men on the app:
- "The nationalism I discovered on Tinder was somehow both alarming and fascinating. Most Israeli men I saw had at least one picture of them posing proudly with their guns in army uniform, images from their three years of mandatory national service. Israeli users also often used nationalist memes in lieu of a personal photo or had the Israeli flag washed over their picture."
- "Palestinian male users generally preferred to use nationalist or romantic memes and quotes, or images of men with keffiiyehs over their faces throwing stones – the archetypal image of the Palestinian resistance actor. "
Similarly, her horror and revulsion is not used to describe specific situations of violence or repression in the West Bank; instead, she says she is appalled by the mere presence of Israeli men within a 2 km radius, the absence of an area "populated solely by Palestinians". This is the language of purity and pollution. It isn't the language of ordinary political critique. She is not criticising the particular actions of the state of Israel; she is expressing something like disgust at the physical presence of individual Israelis in the territory.
That doesn't sound, to me, like the tone of someone angered by the political situation in the West Bank. Her use of Tinder as a methodological tool--other concerns about the ethics of that apart--is problematic from that perspective too. It suggests that she sees Israelis, even in this most personal and individual context, only as representatives of a political order she finds repulsive. Even when she encounters individual Israelis in that context, she makes no attempt at differentiation, or at close analysis. Her tone is one of undifferentiated contempt. I don't know if Tindr is a good methodological tool for anthropologists, but it's definitely one to be avoided by researchers with this level of prejudice against their subjects.
posted by Aravis76 at 2:25 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
- "The nationalism I discovered on Tinder was somehow both alarming and fascinating. Most Israeli men I saw had at least one picture of them posing proudly with their guns in army uniform, images from their three years of mandatory national service. Israeli users also often used nationalist memes in lieu of a personal photo or had the Israeli flag washed over their picture."
- "Palestinian male users generally preferred to use nationalist or romantic memes and quotes, or images of men with keffiiyehs over their faces throwing stones – the archetypal image of the Palestinian resistance actor. "
Similarly, her horror and revulsion is not used to describe specific situations of violence or repression in the West Bank; instead, she says she is appalled by the mere presence of Israeli men within a 2 km radius, the absence of an area "populated solely by Palestinians". This is the language of purity and pollution. It isn't the language of ordinary political critique. She is not criticising the particular actions of the state of Israel; she is expressing something like disgust at the physical presence of individual Israelis in the territory.
That doesn't sound, to me, like the tone of someone angered by the political situation in the West Bank. Her use of Tinder as a methodological tool--other concerns about the ethics of that apart--is problematic from that perspective too. It suggests that she sees Israelis, even in this most personal and individual context, only as representatives of a political order she finds repulsive. Even when she encounters individual Israelis in that context, she makes no attempt at differentiation, or at close analysis. Her tone is one of undifferentiated contempt. I don't know if Tindr is a good methodological tool for anthropologists, but it's definitely one to be avoided by researchers with this level of prejudice against their subjects.
posted by Aravis76 at 2:25 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
Sorry about that Joe in Australia. If I understand correctly, there's a law that says the land cannot be leased to foreign nationals, but you're saying that this law is not really enforced?. Your quote is from a paper from 1990 and the source doesn't talk about land leased by Israeli-Arabs but about land farmed by them. Do you have a more recent source that shows that it's very possible for Palestinians to lease land from the ILA? All I'm reading is that it is possible for Palestinians to lease land if they "would qualify as Jewish under the Law of Return".
posted by blub at 2:37 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by blub at 2:37 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
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She doesn't give any data so I don't know what the quality of her research is, but her false statements, her frequent distinctions between "illegal Israelis" and "native Palestinians", and the appalling pull-quote at the top of this FPP (describing her reaction to encountering Israeli men on Tinder) show that she is tendentious, prejudiced, and at the very least excessively credulous.This isn't research; it's racism.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:38 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]