The waves of change sweeping the MENA compel social scientists and anthropologists in particular to move beyond local specificities and images of ‘untouched’ communities or Middle East exceptionalism to consider wider patterns of social and cultural change.... [The essays in this volume] reflect a commitment to ethnographic research informed by current discussions about the field of Middle East anthropology. All attempt to take stock of what anthropologists have and have not accomplished in their attempt to understand this region.from the foreword