Money In-between the Fields: Performances and Expectations

Abstract

Drawn on the sketches of the ethnographic fieldwork I undertook in Lebanon and Jordan in 2018–2019, this article hopes to shed light on the ethical questions about earning and spending involved in between the institutional field and the field site. It traverses from the “dance” of hospitality in which multiple social expectations are in action and require constant negotiation, to the talks of money in which research relationship and its “give and take” dynamic and inequality stand out among the multiple social relations and entangled expectations. Essentially, the article examines the performance I made in the research relationship in order to meet the multiple, and at times conflicting, expectations produced in both the “field” and our academic “field”.