Academic Staff - Lisa Wynn
Research Profile
Transnationalism in the Middle East
Both Western and Arab travels in Egypt are rooted in millennia of travel, trade, pilgrimage, conquest, colonialism, and tourism. This history of transnational encounters has in turn had a lasting impact on Egyptian national identity. Yet ultimately these different views of Egypt also reveal as much about Westerners and Gulf Arabs as they reveal about Egypt. The Western fascination with pharaonic Egypt cannot be understood without appreciating how Egyptology was intertwined with the history of Western imperialism. And the Egyptian stereotype of Gulf Arabs as spending long nights salivating over bellydancers belies a Middle Eastern migrant labor economy marked by cultural difference and vast disparities in wealth.
My dissertation research and first book examine several nodes of transnational contact that have shaped modern Egypt. The first half of the book explores the history of Western and Arab fascination with ancient Egypt, starting in the days when Egyptology was less a science than a mad, free-for-all European treasure hunt. It then explores New Age imaginations of ancient Egypt, from the psychic Edgar Cayce's prophecy that the secrets of lost civilizations would be found buried under the paws of the Sphinx to an Arab myth in a magical pharaonic elixir called "red mercury." The second half of the book examines Egyptian and Gulf Arab ideas about each other. One chapter interprets Egyptian urban legends-about the lesbian sex orgies of Gulf tourists in Egyptian hotels and rumors about the exploits of a marauding Saudi prince-as cultural texts that reveal a tense regional political economy and complex negotiations of national identity. Then it takes a look at the actual activities of Saudi youth vacationing in Cairo, to see what lies behind the Egyptian stereotypes.
An examination of Saudi and Egyptian stereotypes about each other shows how moments of cultural contact become opportunities for defining self and other: Egyptians nurture stereotypes whereby Gulf Arabs embody the transgression of social proprieties, while Saudis see Egyptians as obsequious economic mercenaries. Both groups portray the other as sexual predators. Linguistic and cultural differences between the groups get mapped out on a regional economy marked by labor migration and extreme differences of wealth. The tourist economy in Egypt illuminates the creative projects of cultural and identity production that occur through processes at once mimetic and oppositional in encounters with national others.
New reproductive health technologies
My postdoctoral research has focused on the politics of contraception and abortion in the US, Canada, and the Arab World, the translation of new medical terms into Arabic, and language that people use to talk about sexual and reproductive health. Research projects include:
- The politics of emergency contraception research
Emergency contraception (EC) is classified by medical science as a contraceptive, yet many anti-abortion groups consider it abortifacient because it may prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. There is tremendous pressure on researchers to conduct research that might disprove the post-fertilization method of action theory, and to interpret past research in ways that lend support to the ovulation suppression theory. This research project examines the mechanism of action debate amongst scientists and EC advocates, and the debate's implications for medical research.
- Embryonic personhood
This research project explores constructions in medical textbooks of what happens in between the time an egg is fertilized by sperm and the time that it implants in the uterus, and the way these medical constructions are appropriated in debates over when life begins, contraception and abortion.
- Sexuality and the state
The debate over access to emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) in the US demonstrates how women's bodies are a site of control where the politics of sexuality, discourses on public health, and medical constructions of biological processes intersect. An article for Medical Anthropology Quarterly examined the FDA hearings over nonprescription availability of the ECP Plan B, and an opinion piece for Obstetrics and Gynecology explored the archetypes of American sexuality and contraceptive use in debates over access to ECPs.
- Emerging reproductive health technologies in the Middle East
An ongoing research project explores the status of EC and medical abortion in Islamic jurisprudence, and particularly, how the status of these and other new reproductive health technologies are debated online at Islamic "cyberfatwas" websites.
- Reproductive health and languages
With collaborators at Ibis Reproductive Health, I helped produce an Arabic-language version of the emergency contraception website (http://ec.princeton.edu/Arabic) and a multilingual website on medical abortion in English, Arabic, French and Spanish (http://www.medicationabortion.com). But how do you write about emergency contraception and medical abortion in Arabic when there are no existing term for these medical technologies in Arabic? A chapter for the forthcoming volume Anthropology and Public Health (Hahn and Inhorn, eds.), entitled, "At a loss for words: Developing the language for emergency contraception in Arabic," explores this and other linguistic dilemmas lurking at the intersection of anthropology and public health.
Another project examines the language writers use to communicate about their bodies, their health, and their sexual encounters. We examined 1,200 e-mail questions sent to an emergency contraception website over the course of one year. One surprising finding was that many writers referred to sex with a hormonal contraceptive but not a barrier contraceptive as "unprotected sex," even in the context of concern over pregnancy risk. In other words, women repeatedly reported having "unprotected sex" while taking the Pill, meaning that they did not use a condom, but then, perplexingly, they would ask if they needed to use EC to prevent pregnancy. This suggests that the language of AIDS-prevention campaigns has changed how women think about contraception.
In collaboration with two medical doctors at the University of Rochester, Justine Wu and Teresa Gipson, another language study focuses on oral narratives of women communicating their sexual experiences when requesting EC prescriptions. The theme of "good sex" versus "bad sex" dominates women's narratives. Women experience moral tension as they attempt to reconcile societal expectations of appropriate sexual behavior (being "prepared," "safe," and "smart") and the realities of everyday sexual encounters (often "unprepared and spontaneous," "not safe" and "not smart").
Publications:
Book:
L.L. Wynn. Pyramids and Nightclubs: A Travel Ethnography of Arab and Western Imaginations of Egypt, from King Tut and a Colony of Atlantis to Rumors of Sex Orgies, a Marauding Prince, and Blonde Belly Dancers. Austin: University of Texas Press (November 2007).
Selected articles:
L.L. Wynn and James Trussell. "Images of American Sexuality in Debates over Nonprescription Access to Emergency Contraceptive Pills." Obstetrics and Gynecology 108(5):1272-1276 (November 2006).
L.L. Wynn and James Trussell. "The Social Life of Emergency Contraception in the United States: Disciplining Pharmaceutical Use, Disciplining Women's Sexuality, and Constructing Zygotic Bodies." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 20, no.3 (September 2006), 297-320.
Lisa Wynn and James Trussell. "The Morning After on the Internet."Contraception 72, no.1 (July 2005), pp.5-13.
Lisa Wynn, Angel Foster, Aida Rouhana, and James Trussell. "The Politics of Emergency Contraception in the Arab World: Reflections on Western Assumptions and the Potential Influence of Religious and Social Factors." Harvard Health Policy Review vol. 6 no.1 (Spring 2005), pp.38-47.
Lisa Wynn. "The Romance of Tahliyya Street: Youth Culture, Commodities and the Use of Public Space in Jiddah." Middle East Report no.204 (Winter 1997), pp.30-31.
Forthcoming:
L.L. Wynn. "Women in Saudi Arabia: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Political Discourse of Islam and Tradition." Women's Movements and Gender Debates in the Middle East and North Africa, Homa Hoodfar, ed. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, Contemporary Issues in the Middle East Series. Forthcoming 2007.
Wynn, L.L. "Marriage Contracts and Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia: Mahr, Shurut, and Knowledge Distribution." The Islamic Marriage Contract, Asifa Quraishi and Frank Vogel, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Spring 2008).
Wynn, L.L. "Shape Shifting Lizard-People, Israelite Slaves, and Other Theories of Pyramid-Building: Notes on Labor, Nationalism, and Archaeology in Egypt." Journal of Social Archaeology (June 2008).
Entries in The Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Cultures (Leiden: Brill):
Volume V: Practices, Interpretations and Representations
- Ablution and Purification, Prayer, Fasting and Piety: The Gulf.
- Women, Gender, and Religious Commemorations in the Gulf and Yemen.
Volume IV: Economics, Education, Mobility, and Space
- Women, Gender, and Domestic Space: The Gulf.
- Women, Gender, and Female Space: The Gulf.
- Women, Gender, and Tourism: Egypt.
Volume III: Family, Body, Sexuality, and Health
- Constituting the Female Body: Saudi Arabia and Gulf States.
- Courtship in the Arab States.