Lila Abu-Lughod on Power, Feminism, and Migration

Ingrid Martin

So today, we’re diving into the work of Lila Abu-Lughod, someone who’s reshaped anthropology’s foundations in ways that still reverberate. To introduce Abu-Lughod, she’s an anthropologist who’s pushed hard—really hard—against the conventions of her discipline. Her career spans feminist ethnography, postcolonial studies, and some searing critiques of how anthropology has handled cultural representation. And along the way, she’s also done deeply engaged fieldwork, spending years among the Awlad ‘Ali Bedouin in Egypt. That experience wasn’t just a personal journey; it sharpened her theoretical lens and laid the foundation for her most groundbreaking ideas.

Ingrid Martin

One of her main provocations—and where I think her brilliance just shines—is in how she tackled anthropology’s, let’s call it, 'crisis of representation.' Historically, colonial narratives seeped into anthropology, often portraying cultures as static or frozen in time, which kind of paints people as disconnected from the messy, global realities we all live through. Abu-Lughod turned that on its head. She argued, compellingly, that ethnography itself needs to be localized. And what she means by that is owning up to all those sociopolitical and historical forces that shape not just the communities we study, but also the way we, as researchers, interpret and represent them. It’s a kind of intellectual humility that the field was—and still is—desperately in need of.

Ingrid Martin

Okay, so let’s layer in this concept of what Abu-Lughod called 'the halfie anthropologist.' This term describes someone whose identity spans two or more cultural worlds. Imagine someone who’s researching a community they’re also ancestrally or linguistically tied to—like Abu-Lughod herself, being Palestinian-American. It adds this fascinating insider-outsider perspective. And for forced migration studies, this lens is gold. Scholars with personal ties to displacement or diaspora can bring a depth of lived experience that challenges the usual narratives about migrants or refugees. But it also raises tough questions about bias, relatability, and where—or if—we draw the line between subjectivity and expertise.

Ingrid Martin

Now, this ties into Abu-Lughod’s critique of objectivity in anthropology—a critique she bases on feminist scholarship. Classic ethnography often claimed, or pretended, objectivity. You know, this detached, omniscient view of other cultures. But Abu-Lughod—so powerfully—rejects that. She champions an ethnographic practice that’s reflexive, meaning the researcher is always aware of their positionality, of how their presence and power dynamics shape the narrative. And, big bonus, she uses storytelling as a tool to reveal truths about gender, power, and resistance within communities. For her, these lived, human narratives aren’t just context—they’re the heartbeat of understanding a culture.

Ingrid Martin

I mean, that approach—to combine these textured, personal stories with razor-sharp analysis—is part of what’s so transformative about her work. And it’s had ripple effects far beyond anthropology: into migration studies, gender theory, even debates on who gets to speak and how. It’s this dynamic tension between analysis and narrative—a push and pull that invites us to rethink what it means to know something about another person, another culture.

Ingrid Martin

All right, let’s zero in on two of Abu-Lughod’s cornerstone works. First up, her 2000 essay "Locating Ethnography." This piece really redefines the way anthropologists conceptualize the field. You know, historically, anthropology romanticized fieldwork—the lone researcher immersing themselves in this supposedly untouched, separate cultural sphere. But Abu-Lughod says, hold on, that’s a myth. The field is never some isolated cultural bubble; it’s intricately connected to global politics, economies, and histories. So what she’s saying, fundamentally, is that we have to stop pretending that these communities we study exist in a vacuum.

Ingrid Martin

A key critique she offers—and this one really hits home—is about how we represent the cultures we study. Often, ethnographies create these rigid dichotomies: modern versus traditional, us versus them. But does that even hold up? For Abu-Lughod, no way. She advocates for disrupting these over-simplified binaries by focusing on lived experiences. For example, instead of saying, This is what the Bedouin community is like, she asks us to zoom in on the nuanced and often contradictory stories of individual women navigating their daily lives. By doing this, she refuses to turn people into static caricatures or symbols of their culture. It’s a more honest—and frankly, more human—approach to representation.

Ingrid Martin

Now, let’s pivot to an earlier essay she wrote, “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” This was published way back in 1990 but feels radical even now. Here, Abu-Lughod takes a deep dive into the tensions between anthropology and feminism. Classically, anthropology prides itself on cultural relativism, which, in theory, asks researchers to observe without judgement. But feminism is about calling out injustices wherever they exist. So there’s this clash—especially when you’re studying communities where gender inequalities are woven into societal norms. Abu-Lughod doesn’t shy away from this tension. Instead, she invites us to sit with it, to examine how power—between men and women, researchers and subjects—seeps into every layer of the ethnographic process.

Ingrid Martin

And her reflections on objectivity turn this discussion on its head. She critiques the old-school notion that researchers should—or even could—be neutral, detached observers. Instead, she argues for reflexivity, a kind of methodological transparency where researchers acknowledge how their identities, biases, and privileges shape what they see and write about. What’s groundbreaking here is how she ties that reflexivity to storytelling. For Abu-Lughod, storytelling isn’t just an aesthetic choice; it’s epistemological. It lets her explore how women within these communities navigate systems of power, often in ways traditional ethnography would overlook entirely.

Ingrid Martin

So what can we take away from this? Abu-Lughod essentially reframes ethnography—not as an act of describing culture, but as a way to interrogate the structures that produce it. Her work challenges us to rethink not only how we conduct research but also how we position ourselves in relation to those we study. It’s anthropology doing the hard work of looking in the mirror, and it’s incredibly powerful.

Ingrid Martin

Building on Lila Abu-Lughod’s transformative work, let’s consider how her ideas reshape the way we study forced migration and displacement. One of her core critiques—her stand against cultural essentialism—offers an invaluable way to rethink how we represent displaced people. Too often, refugees are portrayed in stark binaries: as vulnerable victims in need of saving or, in other cases, as potential threats to national security.

Ingrid Martin

But Abu-Lughod challenges such generalizations head-on by rejecting static notions of culture. She argues that cultures aren’t these fixed, unchanging entities. Instead, they’re dynamic, shaped by ongoing interactions with history, politics, and global processes. What does this mean for forced migration studies? Well, it’s a call to craft more layered, nuanced portrayals of migrants—ones that recognize their agency, their resilience, and their complexity within the structures they navigate.

Ingrid Martin

Now, this insight extends to something that’s often discussed in migration research—liminality, or the state of being in-between. It’s that unsettling space refugees occupy, where they’re not quite belonging to their home countries anymore, and yet, they’re not fully integrated into their host societies either. Through Abu-Lughod’s lens, we see how storytelling can illuminate this experience. Personal narratives help us understand how refugees make sense of their identities, of being both here and there, caught in this in-between space.

Ingrid Martin

What’s even more powerful is how these stories resist the dominant narratives that so often frame refugees as passive or burdensome. In retelling their experiences, they assert their agency and redefine the terms on which they’re seen. It reminds us that these aren’t just abstract political categories—'migrant,' 'refugee'—but real, breathing individuals grappling with displacement in deeply personal ways.

Ingrid Martin

And this brings us to the role of the researcher. Abu-Lughod’s critique of the ethnographic gaze is critical here. When studying displaced communities, researchers must ask themselves how their own positions—their backgrounds, their affiliations—impact the narratives they construct. Are we unintentionally reinforcing power imbalances? Are we too tied to the frameworks created by NGOs or governments that influence how migration is discussed?

Ingrid Martin

This is why reflexivity isn’t just a buzzword; it’s essential. Knowing who we are—our privileges, our biases—and how we interact with the communities we study changes the way we produce knowledge. Abu-Lughod reminds us that the power dynamics embedded in representation are not neutral. They shape policy, public opinion, and, ultimately, the lives of the displaced people we aim to understand.

Ingrid Martin

When we think about feminist ethnography, especially in the context of forced migration, it’s not just a question of research tools—it’s about rethinking the very frameworks we work within. Lila Abu-Lughod invites us to consider, deeply, the question of position: where we, the researchers, stand and how that shapes every part of the story we try to tell. So when we approach something as complex as forced displacement, it’s not enough to document the lives of refugees in terms that fit neat academic categories or policy-driven buzzwords. Instead, feminist ethnography pushes us to center the voices of displaced people themselves, treating them as co-authors of knowledge rather than subjects we observe from a distance.

Ingrid Martin

Take, for example, how refugee women are often portrayed in dominant narratives. There’s this repetitive focus on their vulnerability—how they’ve suffered in camps, how they’ve lost homes, families, and livelihoods. And while these are critical truths, what’s missing is their resilience, their creativity and agency in resisting, surviving, and sometimes even thriving under impossible circumstances. Abu-Lughod’s work is a striking reminder that these individuals aren’t just passive recipients of aid or subjects of scrutiny; they are navigating complicated intersections of power—within their own communities and in the larger systems they’re forced to confront.

Ingrid Martin

But here’s the kicker: Abu-Lughod challenges us to question the universalizing frameworks we often bring to these issues. For instance, Western notions of gender liberation might not align with a refugee woman’s lived experience or her own understanding of power and freedom. So the key is to avoid projecting those external ideas of empowerment onto her story. Instead, feminist ethnography compels us to listen—to ask, What does navigating displacement look like from her perspective? How does she negotiate gendered challenges in ways that we might not immediately recognize or understand?

Ingrid Martin

This is where Abu-Lughod’s concept of relationality becomes so powerful. She argues that culture, identity, even our responses to crises, are all shaped by relationships—intimate, social, political. Think about this in the context of climate displacement. As rising sea levels and extreme weather force communities to leave their homelands, relationality offers a lens to see not only the human toll but also the connections between displaced individuals and their ecologies, their economies, their histories—all in ways that challenge the dominant global narratives about climate refugees. What’s missing from so much of this research is an acknowledgment of emotions and power dynamics, what Abu-Lughod might call the 'affective geographies' of displacement. And that’s exactly where feminist methodologies can step in to fill these gaps.

Ingrid Martin

So what’s the big takeaway here? Abu-Lughod’s work doesn’t just give us new theories to play with; it’s a call to action. It asks us to be more critical of the power dynamics we reinforce, more nuanced in how we represent displaced individuals, and, honestly, more courageous in acknowledging our complicity in these systems. It’s a reminder that research isn’t neutral—it’s political, it’s personal, and it has real-world implications. Whether it’s influencing how policies are shaped or simply giving someone the dignity of being seen and heard on their own terms, the way we approach displacement studies has to evolve.

Ingrid Martin

And with that, I’ll leave us with this: Abu-Lughod’s central message isn’t just about anthropology or feminist theory—it’s about rethinking how we, as a global society, engage with difference and displacement. Her challenge is clear: We must do better, not just as researchers, but as humans sharing this interconnected world. On that note, thanks for joining me today. It’s been a privilege to explore these ideas with you, and I hope it’s left you thinking just as much as it’s left me. Until next time, take care.