Written by Adam Lazar

Last summer, I was awarded the opportunity to travel to Jordan to research Queer Palestinians, a topic I cared deeply about as it related to my intersectional struggle for my identity and the identity of others in my community, whom I’d discovered at university.

So, in this manner, this fieldwork was the accumulation of 3 years of self-discovery and an intense but marvellous pursuit of unravelling the complex but necessary issue of queerness in a modern, de-colonial context.

It took many months in second year to prepare this difficult piece of research; I was plagued by anxiety around the genocide in Gaza, along with the general precarity of the unstable economic climate following the COVID-19 pandemic, along with increasingly violent and visible transphobia. This put me on edge, but I persevered.

I first applied for the dissertation module in late February, which I successfully enrolled into.

Then, after initially receiving mostly negative feedback due to the timing and theme of the research, I switched from applying to research in the West Bank to Jordan after consulting Melissa, my dissertation supervisor.

The next step was to apply for the Nicola Anderson bursary, after which I received an email inviting me to the lunch event in late May, at the height of the exam season. This is where I had the opportunity to sell my research proposal in a presentation that I had prepared.

At the end of the afternoon, the award winners were announced, and everyone, including me, received a chunk of the £2000 that year.

I then bought the flight tickets to Jordan and prepared the ethics application; quite the intense procedure given the many bureaucratic steps taken to fill it out, on top of having to reapply due to mistakes I had made repeatedly.

I then finally flew to Amman and landed in the beautiful city late at night, to the views of shimmering golden lights cast in the dark horizon.

I began my fieldwork there by visiting Books@Cafe. I spoke to the owner of the cafe, who directed me to his brother Madian, a well-known gay figure in Jordan, not before having to travel to the other Books@Cafe branch on the other side of town, though!

And that’s why fieldwork can be slow and tedious, especially when doing it alone.

Madian pointed me to others in the community to whom I reached out, but with limited success, every little helps! Eventually, I was led to a prominent queer activist in the UK, who I later interviewed.

Jordan is truly gorgeous and colourful. With the many pink flowers and random gardens you encounter with every step you take, you wonder how such a chaotic paradise can have so much homophobia.

Melissa also helped me connect with her colleague, whom I met up with in Amman in a spacious art centre in a hip neighbourhood called Jabal Lweibdeh. She connected me with one of her students, a gay man, whom I interviewed online!

Speaking of, one problem encountered was that all the queers I connected with in Amman were cis gay men, which led to a skewed account of the already subdued and difficult-to-reach subsect of people in Amman.

Regardless, I persevered, and on the last day of my stay, I met up with a friend of a friend in my hotel. I interviewed him and wrote down many of his points, including why all of my participants were cisgender men. He was an ally to the LGBT community, serving as the gateway into this secretive and sidelined group in this gorgeous city.

My fieldwork in Jordan was undoubtedly a rocky but successful endeavour to capture the essence of the queer community in Amman, a feat marked by intense networking, repetitive ethics applications and strong rapport in interviews.

Due to the themes raised by the research participants, I’ve learnt a lot about myself, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel, and intersectionality as a whole.

I’d love to do more fieldwork, especially ethnographically, due to the authenticity and high validity of the data produced. I look forward to piecing together all the clues and knowledge given to me into my dissertation in my final year at Sussex!

See you next time!