ethics, Islam, public ethnography, face-to-face interaction, non-state governance, conflict, ethnographic methods in film production

Arabic-speaking Middle East, Switzerland

Emanuel Schaeublin is an anthropologist interested in how people use ethical concepts and narratives in order to live ethical lives in community with others and hold those in positions of power accountable. He has conducted extensive research on the role of giving in lived Islam (zakat & sadaqa) based on ethnographic fieldwork in Palestinian cities under Israeli military occupation.

He holds a DPhil and an MSc in Anthropology from the University of Oxford and an MA in Arabic Language, Philosophy, and Politics from the University of Geneva. Being trained in mediation and conflict negotiation, he previously worked for the Graduate Institute in Geneva, where he published conflict-sensitive studies (published in English and Arabic) analysing the role of Islamic social institutions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. His article Islam in face-​​to-​face interaction won the 2020 award of the Swiss Academy for Humanities and Social Sciences for outstanding scientific essays written by young researchers.

From 2018 to 2021, he presided the Swiss Society of the Middle East and Islamic Cultures and initiated a new science communications project in Middle East Studies. He has also initiated and co-convened the conference No country for anthropologists? addressing the difficulties of conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the contemporary Middle East leading to two reports (see Publications).

Emanuel is also advising film productions, such as Those who Are Fine and Unrueh (forthcoming). He supports filmmakers in conceptualizing their ideas, drafting screenplays and using ethnographic methods in order to situate the story and the production in existing social and political contexts.

Publications