Knowledge Production on the Middle East
By Bassam Haddad.
ASI aims to embark on a historic project that it is uniquely positioned to undertake. For decades, analysts spoke of the skewed and distorted portrayal of the Middle East in academia, the media, and policy circles in the United States primarily. But the data to corroborate such claims, or any other fundamental claims on knowledge production, is either missing or scattered. There has never been a sustained attempt at gathering a comprehensive database of knowledge production on the Middle East that would be a resource, and a fact-checking mechanism, for confirming or debunking dominant knowledge and convictions in relation to the region, and for all parties/actors involved. In this eight-year project, KPP will involve the creation of six databases that include all peer-reviewed articles on the region, all books, and a variety of other online and hard-copy sources of knowledge, including Think-Tanks’ policy papers, films, and websites that produce knowledge. We seek to create such a comprehensive database and make it accessible to the public as an open source project. The potential uses are multiple across the board of potential audiences and perpetually self-regenerating.
