Middle East and North Africa 390: Community Based Learning
Language and Orientalism in EDAMA
December 11, 2017
Orientalism takes many different forms in Jordan, but one of the persisting outlets it has is the language of the region. Although Arabic and English are both prominent languages in Jordan, English is spoken in more select groups of Jordanian society. Studying at Amideast, I had the privilege of working with Jordanians who spoke English as well as Arabic, and being surrounded by thirty other American students, I mostly hear and speak in English. At Edama, I also have the privilege of working with English and Arabic speakers, but as I am only with one other American student, I mostly hear Arabic being spoken. The challenges of this environment have caused me to think more critically about when I hear English in Jordan, and how isolating it is. Similar to the isolation I feel at Edama, I began to wonder how native Arabic speakers feel when surrounded by the English language, either socially or academically. At Edama, my job was to edit the English of documents produced for their international funders (all English speaking) and I saw a large divide in the English capabilities of the writer and the language required by official documents in English. This slow process of editing and revising made me frustrated, considering Edama's goals are environmental change in Jordan, not an English publishing agency. In this paper, I will analyze the effects of having English-speaking organizations based in the EU and US funding NGOs that exist for an Arabic-speaking population. Although my limited time with Edama will make my argument less of an argument and more of a tentative suggestion, my experience has inclined me think that more autonomy and creative freedom within NGOs without the pressure to produce papers for an English-speaking audience would make these NGOs overall more productive and effective for the society they aim to benefit.
According to Edama, their goal is to create a sustainable environment with a special focus on renewable energy and water independence. During my time with the company and my time simply living in Amman, I observed a relative lack of infrastructure surrounding environmental issues. An example of this was in the employees of Edama themselves, none of whom studied environmental science in their university. Additionally, most of the work the NGO did, from my observations, was in spreading awareness through surveys or hosting collaborations with schools. In one survey conducted by the company, Edama asked hotel employees in Aqaba about their waste management, and which environmental issues they desired to be trained in to better the sustainability of their work places. Rather than indicating a knowledge, or lack of knowledge, of environmental issues, employees displayed a lack of interest in general for the topic of sustainability by neglecting to answer questions or answering inaccurately. This perception that I got could be skewed, but I was able to read through a significant amount of the physical surveys, as well as drafts of the final proposal to their funders. However, regardless of whether or not this survey was representative of Edama’s work, it indicated that issues of sustainability in Jordan must be solved in a framework much different from the west, and by having western funders, Edama loses some of their autonomy to creatively influence necessary environmental changes.
The amount of apathy surrounding the issues Edama stands for can be represented by the company's physical space. While the excess of Jordanian society is easily seen in large, luxurious hotels in Amman and Aqaba, Edama is situated in a second floor apartment across from a women's hair salon, with no external indication of the company's existence inside the building. Issues of sustainability are similarly invisible to the average Jordanian, at least from my three months in Amman, with little to no indication that there are pressing environmental issues present. The Jordanian public stills sees large divides in socioeconomic class between refugees and expatriates from the US or Europe and Jordanians. Some sects of Jordanian society have the money and resources to participate in more sustainable practices, while other sects continue to struggle with everyday access to more vital resources such as water and jobs. Rather than focusing on the environmental practices of large hotels in Aqaba, Edama must focus on spreading environmental awareness to the sectors of Amman that can afford to change their lifestyle and present water independence and renewable energy as important issues that merit attention. Currently, with little to no environmental awareness, Edama has a difficult time implementing their goals in an apathetic parliament and Jordanian society.
The socioeconomic divide is stark in Amman and characterized by scarce resources being selectively siphoned to those in society who can afford them. When one looks at the availability of resources such as water and electricity, it is not difficult to see why NGOs such as Edama are necessary to maintain sustainability. However, when one walks through refugee camps or areas in Eastern/downtown Amman, it becomes clear that the Jordanian infrastructure has not worked to benefit these areas where resources did not expand as quickly as the population did and cannot adequately provide for them. Even resources aside from water and electricity are stretched thin in these areas of Amman, where refugees and migrant workers have fewer rights and autonomy. It is easy to see why environmental changes are not within the realm of priorities for residents of these poorer classes. This explains the responses to the survey that Edama conducted at key hotels in Aqaba as well, in which employees of the hotel displayed a lack of knowledge and interest for the issues brought up by Edama. These employees are merely participants in an unequal society, not those who would have significant sway over the environmental attitude of the population. Jordan gets much of its economic support from NGOs and external donors so it seems like targeting the practices of hotels is not spreading awareness among the relevant sects of Jordanian society. The most profitable sects of Jordanian economy do not work in the hotel business in Aqaba, they tend to work in NGOs and for foreign-funded companies. By leaving these higher economic classes out of the discussion about sustainability and the environment, this issues remain largely invisible to the classes that benefit from the current infrastructure, and continue to hurt those that cannot change their economic situation, much less their access to resources.
However, instead of having the opportunity to advertise to the average Jordanian citizen, Edama's focus has largely been with businesses, whose representatives participate for their individual company's benefit rather than a moral imperative for saving Jordan's environment. It is possible this focus on business has been influenced by foreign aid that has a misrepresentative mission for the Jordanian NGO. Donor influence in Jordan is widely known, and there are a host of fundamental issues that come with an economy being supported by outside donors. Donors from the EU and US have agendas when they enter Jordan, and regardless of the local opinion or investment in this issue, these agendas are implemented, even though their relevancy could be debated. I am not arguing that environmental change is not an important issue that must be addressed, I am suggesting that the reality of socioeconomic class structures in most countries, including Jordan, make change more difficult and a slower process. By jumping into Jordan with preconceived agendas, these NGOs are assuming fundamental authority over what needs to be changed and how, rather than assessing how receptive the population will be to such changes. This can be detrimental to Edama as a company that is productive and positively influences the environment, as well as to the overall level of interest in these issues.
Regardless of the overall aims and tactics of Edama, the pressure from foreign investors creates a hostile work space day-to-day that becomes entrenched in issues irrelevant to the environment, such as use of the English language. Because the writers of the papers I have been editing do not have the necessary mastery of the English language, I have observed that the management in Edama, both inside and outside the company, has recently been focusing on employees' abilities to communicate rather than the actual content of their projects. One day while I was at Edama, there was a meeting with several English-speaking men who primarily discussed how hard it was for them to understand the papers (written in English) produced by Edama. By making this the focus of the meeting, these expatriates contributed to this refocusing of Edama's goals from spreading environmental awareness to adequately expressing the products of their work in English. Because this goal is irrelevant to the environment, it is easy to understand how the office environment becomes frustrated and tense. Rather than prioritizing employees' knowledge of the environment or creativity for finding sustainable solutions, employees are reduced to their mastery of this second language first and foremost, with their professional skills related to sustainability coming in second.
If one expands the scope of this communication issue, it can be traced back to orientalism and the colonialist idea that this region requires the aid and direction of western governments in order to create a more perfect society. In Edward Sa’id’s introduction to his book Orientalism, he explains how westerners create the Orient through academy and creative works, and by not acknowledging the political context of their productions. There is an assumption that academic writing is more pure and the knowledge produced is universal and therefore exists through time and space. Sa’id argues, however, that all academy is produced within a political context that influenced the production of knowledge, and to fail to acknowledge this context would be to misrepresent the subject. The importance of the socio-political context can be applied to the english documents produced by Edama, which must be read while acknowledging the language structures familiar to the writer. English was artificially forced into the Jordanian society to accommodate for expatriates who come temporarily to work for NGOs. So to judge the NGO by the quality of their english when this language is neither the language of the study subjects, nor that of the research conducted, is to engage with Orientalist views about the widespread influence of the English language. In reality, this skill is secondary to the jobs performed by the employees at Edama.
The politics of the English language in Jordan are excluding, even among educated Jordanians, and the narrative of the English language's value over Arabic is resisted by a population that sees both languages as equally professional and academic. But by requiring Edama to submit their documents in English rather than translating the documents from Arabic, the international companies guiding Edama's policies are making subtle hints about the value they place on the language. This indicates that they have not addressed this orientalist perspective guiding their perception of Edama, and are continuing to perpetuate inaccurate judgements about the Arabic language as a professional means of technical communication. In a study conducted by Emad Al-Saidat, 420 students at the Jordanian University were surveyed about their attitude towards english as well as their perception of the space the language occupies in Jordanian society. While 66% agreed that the English language is prestigious, 65.2% disagreed with that statement "to be an academic expert in Jordan, you have to be good at English." This indicates that while students acknowledge the prominence of the English language, they do not perceive it as a necessity for entering the academic world in Jordan. Considering this is the opinion of the educated part of Jordanian society, this survey draws significance in the large amount of autonomy Arabic has in an academic setting and how the level of English accomplished by a Jordanian is not indicative of their professional abilities.
Bibliography
Al-Saidat, Emad M. “English in Jordan: Attitudes and Prestige.” Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics vol. 35, no. 2 (2009): 155-167.
https://www.academia.edu/19886322/English_in_Jordan_Attitudes_and_Prestige
Ana Echague, Helene Michou. “Assessing Democracy Assistance: Jordan.” Fride, Foundation for the Future, May 2011.
"EDAMA's Facebook Page." Facebook.com. Accessed November 30, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/EDAMAnetwork/
Robert B. Potter, Khadija Darmame, Nasim Barham, Stephen Nortcliff. “‘Ever-growing Amman’, Jordan: Urban expansion, social polarisation and contemporary urban planning issues.” Habitat International 33, (2009): 81-92.
Sa’id, Edward, Orientalism (Penguin Books, 1978): 1-28.
December 11, 2017
Orientalism takes many different forms in Jordan, but one of the persisting outlets it has is the language of the region. Although Arabic and English are both prominent languages in Jordan, English is spoken in more select groups of Jordanian society. Studying at Amideast, I had the privilege of working with Jordanians who spoke English as well as Arabic, and being surrounded by thirty other American students, I mostly hear and speak in English. At Edama, I also have the privilege of working with English and Arabic speakers, but as I am only with one other American student, I mostly hear Arabic being spoken. The challenges of this environment have caused me to think more critically about when I hear English in Jordan, and how isolating it is. Similar to the isolation I feel at Edama, I began to wonder how native Arabic speakers feel when surrounded by the English language, either socially or academically. At Edama, my job was to edit the English of documents produced for their international funders (all English speaking) and I saw a large divide in the English capabilities of the writer and the language required by official documents in English. This slow process of editing and revising made me frustrated, considering Edama's goals are environmental change in Jordan, not an English publishing agency. In this paper, I will analyze the effects of having English-speaking organizations based in the EU and US funding NGOs that exist for an Arabic-speaking population. Although my limited time with Edama will make my argument less of an argument and more of a tentative suggestion, my experience has inclined me think that more autonomy and creative freedom within NGOs without the pressure to produce papers for an English-speaking audience would make these NGOs overall more productive and effective for the society they aim to benefit.
According to Edama, their goal is to create a sustainable environment with a special focus on renewable energy and water independence. During my time with the company and my time simply living in Amman, I observed a relative lack of infrastructure surrounding environmental issues. An example of this was in the employees of Edama themselves, none of whom studied environmental science in their university. Additionally, most of the work the NGO did, from my observations, was in spreading awareness through surveys or hosting collaborations with schools. In one survey conducted by the company, Edama asked hotel employees in Aqaba about their waste management, and which environmental issues they desired to be trained in to better the sustainability of their work places. Rather than indicating a knowledge, or lack of knowledge, of environmental issues, employees displayed a lack of interest in general for the topic of sustainability by neglecting to answer questions or answering inaccurately. This perception that I got could be skewed, but I was able to read through a significant amount of the physical surveys, as well as drafts of the final proposal to their funders. However, regardless of whether or not this survey was representative of Edama’s work, it indicated that issues of sustainability in Jordan must be solved in a framework much different from the west, and by having western funders, Edama loses some of their autonomy to creatively influence necessary environmental changes.
The amount of apathy surrounding the issues Edama stands for can be represented by the company's physical space. While the excess of Jordanian society is easily seen in large, luxurious hotels in Amman and Aqaba, Edama is situated in a second floor apartment across from a women's hair salon, with no external indication of the company's existence inside the building. Issues of sustainability are similarly invisible to the average Jordanian, at least from my three months in Amman, with little to no indication that there are pressing environmental issues present. The Jordanian public stills sees large divides in socioeconomic class between refugees and expatriates from the US or Europe and Jordanians. Some sects of Jordanian society have the money and resources to participate in more sustainable practices, while other sects continue to struggle with everyday access to more vital resources such as water and jobs. Rather than focusing on the environmental practices of large hotels in Aqaba, Edama must focus on spreading environmental awareness to the sectors of Amman that can afford to change their lifestyle and present water independence and renewable energy as important issues that merit attention. Currently, with little to no environmental awareness, Edama has a difficult time implementing their goals in an apathetic parliament and Jordanian society.
The socioeconomic divide is stark in Amman and characterized by scarce resources being selectively siphoned to those in society who can afford them. When one looks at the availability of resources such as water and electricity, it is not difficult to see why NGOs such as Edama are necessary to maintain sustainability. However, when one walks through refugee camps or areas in Eastern/downtown Amman, it becomes clear that the Jordanian infrastructure has not worked to benefit these areas where resources did not expand as quickly as the population did and cannot adequately provide for them. Even resources aside from water and electricity are stretched thin in these areas of Amman, where refugees and migrant workers have fewer rights and autonomy. It is easy to see why environmental changes are not within the realm of priorities for residents of these poorer classes. This explains the responses to the survey that Edama conducted at key hotels in Aqaba as well, in which employees of the hotel displayed a lack of knowledge and interest for the issues brought up by Edama. These employees are merely participants in an unequal society, not those who would have significant sway over the environmental attitude of the population. Jordan gets much of its economic support from NGOs and external donors so it seems like targeting the practices of hotels is not spreading awareness among the relevant sects of Jordanian society. The most profitable sects of Jordanian economy do not work in the hotel business in Aqaba, they tend to work in NGOs and for foreign-funded companies. By leaving these higher economic classes out of the discussion about sustainability and the environment, this issues remain largely invisible to the classes that benefit from the current infrastructure, and continue to hurt those that cannot change their economic situation, much less their access to resources.
However, instead of having the opportunity to advertise to the average Jordanian citizen, Edama's focus has largely been with businesses, whose representatives participate for their individual company's benefit rather than a moral imperative for saving Jordan's environment. It is possible this focus on business has been influenced by foreign aid that has a misrepresentative mission for the Jordanian NGO. Donor influence in Jordan is widely known, and there are a host of fundamental issues that come with an economy being supported by outside donors. Donors from the EU and US have agendas when they enter Jordan, and regardless of the local opinion or investment in this issue, these agendas are implemented, even though their relevancy could be debated. I am not arguing that environmental change is not an important issue that must be addressed, I am suggesting that the reality of socioeconomic class structures in most countries, including Jordan, make change more difficult and a slower process. By jumping into Jordan with preconceived agendas, these NGOs are assuming fundamental authority over what needs to be changed and how, rather than assessing how receptive the population will be to such changes. This can be detrimental to Edama as a company that is productive and positively influences the environment, as well as to the overall level of interest in these issues.
Regardless of the overall aims and tactics of Edama, the pressure from foreign investors creates a hostile work space day-to-day that becomes entrenched in issues irrelevant to the environment, such as use of the English language. Because the writers of the papers I have been editing do not have the necessary mastery of the English language, I have observed that the management in Edama, both inside and outside the company, has recently been focusing on employees' abilities to communicate rather than the actual content of their projects. One day while I was at Edama, there was a meeting with several English-speaking men who primarily discussed how hard it was for them to understand the papers (written in English) produced by Edama. By making this the focus of the meeting, these expatriates contributed to this refocusing of Edama's goals from spreading environmental awareness to adequately expressing the products of their work in English. Because this goal is irrelevant to the environment, it is easy to understand how the office environment becomes frustrated and tense. Rather than prioritizing employees' knowledge of the environment or creativity for finding sustainable solutions, employees are reduced to their mastery of this second language first and foremost, with their professional skills related to sustainability coming in second.
If one expands the scope of this communication issue, it can be traced back to orientalism and the colonialist idea that this region requires the aid and direction of western governments in order to create a more perfect society. In Edward Sa’id’s introduction to his book Orientalism, he explains how westerners create the Orient through academy and creative works, and by not acknowledging the political context of their productions. There is an assumption that academic writing is more pure and the knowledge produced is universal and therefore exists through time and space. Sa’id argues, however, that all academy is produced within a political context that influenced the production of knowledge, and to fail to acknowledge this context would be to misrepresent the subject. The importance of the socio-political context can be applied to the english documents produced by Edama, which must be read while acknowledging the language structures familiar to the writer. English was artificially forced into the Jordanian society to accommodate for expatriates who come temporarily to work for NGOs. So to judge the NGO by the quality of their english when this language is neither the language of the study subjects, nor that of the research conducted, is to engage with Orientalist views about the widespread influence of the English language. In reality, this skill is secondary to the jobs performed by the employees at Edama.
The politics of the English language in Jordan are excluding, even among educated Jordanians, and the narrative of the English language's value over Arabic is resisted by a population that sees both languages as equally professional and academic. But by requiring Edama to submit their documents in English rather than translating the documents from Arabic, the international companies guiding Edama's policies are making subtle hints about the value they place on the language. This indicates that they have not addressed this orientalist perspective guiding their perception of Edama, and are continuing to perpetuate inaccurate judgements about the Arabic language as a professional means of technical communication. In a study conducted by Emad Al-Saidat, 420 students at the Jordanian University were surveyed about their attitude towards english as well as their perception of the space the language occupies in Jordanian society. While 66% agreed that the English language is prestigious, 65.2% disagreed with that statement "to be an academic expert in Jordan, you have to be good at English." This indicates that while students acknowledge the prominence of the English language, they do not perceive it as a necessity for entering the academic world in Jordan. Considering this is the opinion of the educated part of Jordanian society, this survey draws significance in the large amount of autonomy Arabic has in an academic setting and how the level of English accomplished by a Jordanian is not indicative of their professional abilities.
Bibliography
Al-Saidat, Emad M. “English in Jordan: Attitudes and Prestige.” Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics vol. 35, no. 2 (2009): 155-167.
https://www.academia.edu/19886322/English_in_Jordan_Attitudes_and_Prestige
Ana Echague, Helene Michou. “Assessing Democracy Assistance: Jordan.” Fride, Foundation for the Future, May 2011.
"EDAMA's Facebook Page." Facebook.com. Accessed November 30, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/EDAMAnetwork/
Robert B. Potter, Khadija Darmame, Nasim Barham, Stephen Nortcliff. “‘Ever-growing Amman’, Jordan: Urban expansion, social polarisation and contemporary urban planning issues.” Habitat International 33, (2009): 81-92.
Sa’id, Edward, Orientalism (Penguin Books, 1978): 1-28.
Comments
Post a Comment