Drawing on new approaches in anthropology and related disciplines, the researchers are striving to go beyond the unnecessarily restricting ideal-type dichotomy of scriptural elite culture and oral popular culture which dominated Western perceptions of Muslim societies for a long time. While this dichotomy has its merits, it tends to lead observers into neglecting the multiple forms of interaction between "high" and "folk" culture, which is our focus of research.
The four case studies deal with specific cases of interrelations between different forms of cognition and communication, both traditional and modern, in their historical contexts and their empirically observable social manifestations. They are attentive to the way in which supralocal and global factors influence local world-views, forms and levels of knowledge, and social relations. An important related question is how the perception of cultural differences in knowledge and communication contributes to defining and redefining local and non-local identities in processes of social change.
Sharing a common theoretical and methodological approach, the case studies investigate and compare contrasting empirical situations and places: conceptions of taboo and ritual in Syria between popular cognition and scriptural knowledge, the impact of modern school education on semi-nomads in Syria, the interrelations between oral tradition and historiography among Berber tribespeople in Morocco, and the processes of identity construction and community building among Somali and Palestinian refugees in Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
By systematically combining various methods of qualitative field research with the study of written sources, the project aims at developing a theoretically grounded methodology which provides researchers with new means of interpretation and a framework for a more subtle appreciation of the processes of cognitive and cultural change affecting Muslim societies. This dynamic approach to the multi-levelled and hierarchically ordered forms of knowledge that are typical of scriptural civilizations may be fruitfully applied in other world regions as well.
Thus, the project attempts to link up the well-established Austrian tradition of Orientalist and anthropological research on Middle Eastern Muslim societies with the broadening of regional perspectives that is among the most important developments in today's anthropology.
