Abu El-Haj was born in the United States, the second daughter of a "Long IslandEpiscopalian" mother, and a PalestinianMuslim father. Her maternal grandfather was French and maternal grandmother, Norwegian-American,[6] and she has characterized her religious upbringing as "church twice a year."[6]
In 2001, Abu El-Haj published Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.[2] In it, she uses anthropological methods to explore the relationship between the development of scientific knowledge and the construction of the social imaginations and political orders, using the discipline of Israeli archaeology as the subject of her study.[2] Arguing that the facts generated by archaeological practice fashion "cultural understandings, political possibilities and 'common-sense' assumptions",[10] she posits that, in the case of Israel, the practice works to serve the "formation and enactment of its colonial-national historical imagination and ... the substantiation of its territorial claims".[12]
Facts on the Ground has been reviewed in both scholarly and popular publications. The book was awarded the Middle East Studies Association of North America 2002 Albert Hourani Book Award which it shared with Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled's Being Israeli: the Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship.[13] Negative reviews were intense. The book was also dismissed as 'crank scholarship,' and she was called a 'charlatan anthropologist'. An internet domain was registered in her name dedicated exclusively to defaming her and damaging her reputation.[14]
Other scholarship
Abu El-Haj's more recent scholarship explores the field of genetic anthropology through the analysis of projects aimed at reconstructing the origins and migrations of specific populations.[10] Analysis is also directed toward the role of for-profit corporations offering genetic ancestry testing.[10] How race, diaspora, and kinship intersect, and how genetic origins emerge as a shared concern among those seeking redress or recognition, are predominant themes in the work.[10]
Reviewing El-Haj's 2012 book, The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology, geneticist Richard Lewontin, writing in The New York Review of Books, described her as a "genetic determinist" not in the "usual sense" but because she writes that "fundamental aspects of who one is are determined by one's past" and that "who we really are collectively and individually is given by and legible in biological data." He proposes that a term such as "biological determinism" might be coined to describe her attitude despite her assertion that although the choice to act or not act on the available information about our ancestry, which she describes as telling us who we "really are" is a matter of free choice.[15][16]
Tenure controversy
Abu El-Haj joined the Anthropology Department at Barnard College in the fall of 2002.[10] Because of Barnard College's affiliation with Columbia University, professors recommended for tenure at Barnard are subject to approval by Columbia. Abu El-Haj was recommended for tenure by the faculty at Barnard in the 2006–07 academic year,[4] and by Columbia in the 2007–08 academic year.[17]
Dueling petitions
On August 7, 2007, an online petition against the professor was started by Paula Stern, a 1982 Barnard alumna who lives in the Israeli settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim.[1][6][18] In response to Stern's petition, in late August[6] a petition supporting Abu El-Haj was initiated by Paul Manning, a linguist in the anthropology department at Trent University in Peterborough, Canada.[1]
By the time Barnard announced that it had granted Abu El-Haj tenure, in November 2007, 2,592 people had signed the anti-tenure petition and 2,057 had signed the pro-tenure petition.[19]
The Chronicle of Higher Education also wrote that many of Abu El-Haj's supporters said that peer review, and not public pressure, is the appropriate measure of a scholar's work, noting that she has been the recipient of many awards, grants, and academic appointments.[20] An article in The New York Times in September 2007 reported that many of Abu El-Haj's supporters, particularly those in the field of anthropology, praised her book as "solid, even brilliant, and part of an innovative trend". For example, Michael Dietler, a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, described Abu El-Haj as a top-quality scholar. Dietler also said Abu El-Haj was being opposed because she is of Palestinian descent.[1]
Alan F. Segal, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard, questioned the quality of her research. Saying that Abu El-Haj had suggested that "ancient Israelites had not inhabited the land where Israel now stands", Segal said that she either ignored or misunderstood the evidence to the contrary.[1] In a critique of Facts on the Ground published in the Columbia Daily Spectator, Segal wrote that he opposed Abu El-Haj for professional, and not political, reasons.[21] Segal later told The Forward that Abu El-Haj hates Israelis.[22]
Segal and Dever spoke at lectures sponsored by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and LionPAC (a pro-Israel advocacy group at Columbia)[6] aimed at rebutting El-Haj. In his lecture, Dever disputed the notion that archaeology has inherent biases.[22] In responding to the controversy surrounding Abu El-Haj's work, Barnard President Judith Shapiro said that showing how archaeological research can be used for political and ideological purposes is a legitimate cultural anthropological enterprise.[4]
Tenure decision
On November 2, 2007, Barnard announced that Abu El-Haj had been granted tenure.[17] Subsequent to the tenure decision, Barnard president Shapiro praised Abu El-Haj to an interviewer from the New Yorker.[6]
Published works
The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. University of Chicago Press. 2012.
"Translating Truths: Nationalism, Archaeological Practice and the Remaking of Past and Present in Contemporary Jerusalem". American Ethnologist. 25 (2): 166–188. May 1998. doi:10.1525/ae.1998.25.2.166.[10]
^Harrington, Ralph (November 2007). "Was Nadia Abu El Haj Treated Fairly?". History News Network. Retrieved 29 May 2024. Professor Abu El Haj can have little reason to feel that her first book has been ignored; but it cannot have been pleasant to have ones work called 'crank scholarship' and 'a corruption of honest fact,' and to be described oneself as 'fraudulent,' a 'charlatan anthropologist,' and even 'a classic racist.' Nadia Abu El Haj also has the unenviable distinction of having her own personal name taken and registered as the Internet domain for a site dedicated to attacking her and damaging her reputation and her career; she is perhaps the first person who is not a politician or a convicted criminal to have been subjected to this disreputable treatment.
^Abu El-Haj, Nadia (10 January 2013). "Distressed Genes: An Exchange". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 May 2024 – via www.nybooks.com.
^Lewontin, Richard C. (6 December 2012). "Is There a Jewish Gene?". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 May 2024 – via www.nybooks.com.
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