Screening Out Their Own: Muslim Gatekeepers of Jewish Spaces in Morocco

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This intriguing paper examines gatekeeping processes among Muslim and Jewish groups in Casablanca. The study offers insight into religious boundaries in an important part of the world. The paper could be improved with attention to the following considerations.

1. The paper begins in nontraditional way. The introduction inductively draws in the reader, which is good, but the statement and significance of the study are not sufficiently foregrounded in the introduction. As such, these important elements of the paper are not clearly established. The statement and significance of the research problem should featured at the end of the first section. On the question of significance, the paper should make the strongest possible argument for this particular case and what of value can be gained from its careful examination.

2. There is minimal empirical and theoretical literature reviewed. Religious boundaries have been extensively studied, and some of that work entails understanding the distinctions between two forms of social capital (bridging capital and bonding capital). This paper could meaningfully extend that work with the gatekeeping focus featured here. See work on Janus-faced social capital. There is a great deal of prior research and theory that needs to be integrated. String citations could be used to keep those new additions from getting too long. 

3. The methods are opaque. I am a committed qualitative researcher and any research should have a clearly explicated research design that addresses data collection, management, and analysis considerations. This paper needs a Materials and Methods section that clearly tackles these issues. I am especially concerned about sampling methods (strategic choices about when, where, who, etc.) and analytical techniques used to render results from field notes and related data. 

4. There are some typos in this study, so the paper could benefit from a careful proofreading.

Overall, this is an impressive study. But it needs considerable work.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

Thank you for sharing with me the reviewers’ thoughts on my manuscript and thank them on my behalf.  Their valuable comments and suggestions improved the manuscript.

Here are my responses to their useful comments.

 

The paper begins in nontraditional way. The introduction inductively draws in the reader, which is good, but the statement and significance of the study are not sufficiently foregrounded in the introduction

I sharpened my argument immediately after the opening vignette so to understand my theoretical contribution.

 

There is minimal empirical and theoretical literature reviewed. Religious boundaries have been extensively studied, and some of that work entails understanding the distinctions between two forms of social capital (bridging capital and bonding capital).  

An ethnographically oriented paper usually suffers from a tension between the need to elaborate on the theoretical background and the wish to present the reader with a refined ethnography. In this paper I wished to do the latter, particularly because such an ethnography is scarce.  Of course, I presented the discussions on gatekeeping and the main problematics it deals with.  Yet, I did not elaborate on the wider theoretical debates (whether relate to the seminal works of Frederik Barth and his claims on the dynamics of constituting ethnic boundaries or Bourdieu and his notions on difference.

 

The methods are opaque. I am a committed qualitative researcher and any research should have a clearly explicated research design that addresses data collection, management, and analysis considerations. This paper needs a Materials and Methods section that clearly tackles these issues. I am especially concerned about sampling methods (strategic choices about when, where, who, etc.) and analytical techniques used to render results from field notes and related data.

I am standing on the shoulders of giants here; Influential researchers like Clifford Geertz never detailed (for meta-methodological reasons) their research practices.  I will explain: 

The research method employed here – anthropological participant observation – is self-evident and clearly reflected in ethnography. I appear in the text; I am immersed in the field: people talk to me, react to my presence, etc. Hence, I don’t believe that I need to be more explicit about the methodology.  More importantly, following Geertz’s approach I would say that the “locus of study is not the object of study. Anthropologists don't study villages (tribes, towns, neighborhoods ...); [or, for that matter gatekeepers AL] they study in villages.”  Ethnographic materials are not recruited/invoked here to “document” a cultural reality (whatever this means), but rather to shed light on human principles/logic of actions. This means that ethnography is there to clarify a point I wish to make.  In this case – the ways in which a minority relies on a shared cultural intimacy with the majority to invite protection from the dominant majority it wishes to exclude.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The author makes a compelling and original contribution to the literature on Jewish/Muslim ethnic/religious boundaries and inter-communal relations in Morocco, building on their own work as well as that of Lawrence Rosen, Aomar Boum, and several others. The ethnographic focus on the role of Muslim gatekeepers in boundary maintenance is fascinating, with fabulous examples drawn from the author's multi-decade field research. The author makes very good use of Michael Herzfeld's model of "cultural intimacy" and extends it to a case where such intimacy can actually be at least partially shared across cultural divides, where a Muslim caretaker of a Jewish cemetery can have an even more intimate relationship with a dimension of the Jewish Moroccan world than, say, a Moroccan-Israeli tourist might. It might be valuable to write more about the different intimacies entailed in such a case vs. one where a Muslim doorman of a Jewish club remains a paid worker and never a full member.

In contrast, framing the Jewish community's boundary maintenance as one of passivity/inaction seems over-stated. They are definitely engaging in verbal and physical work in trying to protect the social space. In the case of claims of Muslim magic (sḥur) used against Jewish women, this may involve claims to innocence and a refusal of responsibility/agency for violating community norms. But those claims are agentive. Indeed, much of what is described, particularly in the early ethnographic vignettes, resonates with how Mary Douglas, in Purity and Danger, describes how societies respond to anomalous and ambiguous cases (which could here include mixed unions), including through efforts at avoidance or expulsion. The author could make productive use of Douglas in the article, as they could of Frederik Barth's work on Ethnic Groups and Boundaries and the various works that draw from it, some of which focus on inter-communal tensions/conflict and the social work that goes into avoidance. (Not all the scholarly literature on ethnicity focuses on cases of immigration -- there are many works, including the Comaroffs' and Appadurai, which take up multi-ethnic settings in Africa or South Asia or elsewhere). And, at the end of the day, the essay is less about the "well-documented sociological truth" about minorities being vulnerable, than about the discourse of vulnerability and the concomitant practices which the author ethnographcially describes that it calls forth.

A few smaller points:

• The discussion of homophily feels too general. There is a lot going on in the ethnographic case described than simply a desire to be among one's own, however described. Among other things, the borders of community and selfhood (who is in and who is out, what defines the group, etc.) need to be continually redefined and reproduced. Much of the work of border maintenance is not simply keeping "outsiders" out but in establishing who constitutes an "insider" and keeping them in. The work is directed internally at ostensible members of the community who might identify otherwise and/or simply exit. Borders keep people in as well as keeping others out—and for some this can feel like a prison.

• The return to an older literature on patron-client relations is interesting and could be productively elaborated. While it is tempting to see the present as an extension of an older dhimmi pattern of clientage, given the socioeconomic status/class difference of Moroccan Jews and their association with French power, in some cases the author describes they become the patrons to the Muslim workers they employ. That is implicit in the essay but could be brought out more.

• The citations/bibliography need close attention, as a number of works cited in the paper are missing from the bibliography which contains a number of errors.

• The transliterations are sometimes off. It should be sḥur, not sh'chur which seems more of a Hebrew transliteration system than the standard Arabic one. It's possible the Arabic term was pronounced in a Judaic/Hebraic form and the transliteration is trying to reflect that. If so, the author should specify that to be the case.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

Thank you for sharing with me the reviewers’ thoughts on my manuscript and thank them on my behalf.  Their valuable comments and suggestions improved the manuscript.

Here are my responses to their useful comments.

 

It might be valuable to write more about the different intimacies entailed in such a case vs. one where a Muslim doorman of a Jewish club remains a paid worker and never a full member.

 

I agree that one needs to clarify this point more and indeed, I have elaborated on it in the section “Intimacy of gatekeeping”.  Unfortunately, words limits do not allow me to present a more refined ethnography on this point.

 

framing the Jewish community's boundary maintenance as one of passivity/inaction seems over-stated

 

True, I agree that passivity is more of a rhetorical move than attesting to a sociological situation.  Hence, I have refined my comments on that alleged passivity in the paragraphs that follow the opening vignette.

 

The author could make productive use of Douglas in the article, as they could of Frederik Barth's work on Ethnic Groups and Boundaries and the various works that draw from it, some of which focus on inter-communal tensions/conflict and the social work that goes into avoidance

I find the return to those giants too regressive.  Much of the post Douglas/Barth literature (albeit the huge theoretical differences between them) has introduced nuances to their broad claims regarding “boundary work”.  This paper is inspired by Barth’s insights (and not Douglas’ structural approach) who sees the manipulations on symbols as a boundary work, rather than an attestation on “real” cultural differences.  The story on the demand to have a sip of wine exemplifies this clearly.

Gatekeeping is a good example for an elaboration on Barth’s work (yet it goes beyond him as it relates to aspects of power relationships in manipulating symbols). The paper follows (and comments on) the works on gatekeeping by focusing on what, on face value, seems contradictory to that literature (recruiting the excluded to do the exclusion).

 

Not all the scholarly literature on ethnicity focuses on cases of immigration -- there are many works, including the Comaroffs' and Appadurai…

I refer briefly to the Commaroffs (and Crapanzano) to illustrate how the socio-political context of Moroccan Jews is compared to these scholars’ fields (in the section “Political vulnerability and the constitution of cultural boundaries”). Simply put: the case I present results from a recent emigration (unlike long-term colonialism in the case of the Commaroffs).

the essay is less about the "well documented sociological truth" about minorities being vulnerable, than about the discourse of vulnerability

Indeed, (and as stated above) I have refined the argument by claiming that I present more rhetorical gestures and less actual sociological practices.

There is a lot going on in the ethnographic case described than simply a desire to be among one's own

I agree, of course. The argument and ethnography of this paper exemplify how a claim regarding homophily does not encompass the implications of the desire to do the work of selection (as it ignores its politics).  The whole paper is dedicated to demonstrating just that.

 

Much of the work of border maintenance is not simply keeping 2 "outsiders" out but in establishing who constitutes an "insider" and keeping them in

True, but this is a point that will deviate from my main argument and could be developed in another paper.  I only hint at this direction when quoting an informant that attests that he feels that he lives in a ghetto (“We live here like a ghetto! We have no place for recreation; no place to have fun. We live on a deserted island”).

 

The return to older literature on patron-client relations is interesting and could be productively elaborated. While it is tempting to see the present as an extension of an older dhimmi pattern of clientage…

I have clarified it by stating that: “However, gatekeeping is not a simple continuation of a past tradition; after all, it is the Jews who employ gatekeepers, hence turning the Muslim dependent (in his income) on the Jew.”

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper does a good job of revealing the social processes of exclusion related to Moroccan Jews. It would be improved with attention to the following.

1. Consider the theoretical perspective of "boundary work" found in the research of Michele Lamont. It seems very appropriate. Some scholarship has used this perspective to examine religious boundary work. This work could be a nice frame for the current study. 

2. To what degree does the concept of intersectionality work here? There are a range of social categories that are woven together into everyday life. It seems appropriate to use intersectionality to make sense of the connections and distinctions studied here.

3. I strongly prefer a Materials and Methods section as found in the template for this journal. I want to know how the research was conducted, what data were analyzed and how, etc. so the "findings" don't simply "appear" to the reader. Pull back the curtain and reveal the methods and data decisions to enhance this paper. It can even be an appendix as far as I am concerned, but it is needed. I am a qualitative researcher and qualitative research suffers for lack of attention to methods.

Good luck on this intriguing paper.

Author Response

I would like to thank the reviewer's patience and his/her scholarly comments. They helped me a lot to refine and clarify my text.

I will refer below to the three sections that the reviewer formulated.

Regarding the first section, the reviewer is indeed right that I need to place the discussion of gatekeepers in the broader theoretical context – that of boundaries and their modes of operation. Clearly, gatekeepers constitute only one of various cultural mechanisms that operate in the border and maintain it. Therefore, I have added a paragraph in which I place the concept of gatekeepers in the broader context of boundary work.

As to the second section, I would like to emphasize that my approach is opposite to the one proposed by the reviewer.  I would like to show in my paper the paradox of entrusting gatekeeping to those who are supposed to be excluded from the (Jewish) spaces.  That is, I show how cultural categories are important and rigid, and even if when they encounter situations in which categories are supposed to be undermined, Jews fiercely defend their “validity”.  In this article, I try to show that these efforts are part of a deeper view of the relationship between Jews and Muslims, which share the same "cultural intimacy."

Regarding the third section, I adopt a meta-methodological position opposite to the proposed one, which seeks to use ethnography as an expression of the integration of three vertices in anthropological practice: methodology (fieldwork), theory and writing.  The relationships between these three vertices are dynamic and influence each other and are influenced by each other.  They are not in hierarchical relationships.  As such, the proposal to dedicate a separate section to the methodology contradicts this understanding.  It is clear to me, of course, that some will disagree with this approach, but I assume that disagreement and criticism are deeply rooted in the very heart of academic research, and these only enhance and enrich it.

 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

I commend the authors on a solid revision.