{"pk":62278,"title":"Middle East Studies Beyond the Middle East Archive – Promises, Predicaments and Practices of MENA research in Western Governmental Archives","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>Building on my work on Iranian political exiles in France and on my experience conducting research in various French archival funds, I aim to offer here a practical introduction to French governmental archives for international researchers, and in particular scholars of Middle East studies. However, researching the Middle East in ‘Western’ governmental archives (WGAs) – i.e., within the (re)productive heart of past states’ hegemonic and adverse narratives on the Middle East – warrants theoretical and methodological discussion. In this article, I first establish that despite the issue of WGAs’ Western and governmental bias, these funds still constitute a unique resource for MENA research, especially on topics such as Middle Eastern diasporas, foreign relations, or history. I also contend that continuing to engage with the Middle East through sources external to the region will help reaffirm the deep relationality of the Middle Eastern construct and, crucially, stave off the risks of a ‘siloization’ of MENA studies. Heeding still the postcolonial critique of the narratives embedded in such sources, I then examine the biases likely to shape the content of WGAs, covering in turn the biases related to WGAs’ archival dimension, their governmental character, and their Western situatedness. In the third section, building on these observations, I emphasise the role of critical analysis, cross-referencing, and rigorous transparency as ways to compose with the inescapable biases embedded in WGAs. I conclude the article by proposing a practical introduction to three of France’s governmental archival institutions, emphasising the difficulties of access international researchers and MENA scholars may face, and offering practical recommendations for making the most of these archives, in a timely fashion.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0","short_name":"CC BY 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"keywords":[],"section":"Article","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8r42h324","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Chloé","middle_name":"","last_name":"Raïd","name_suffix":"","institution":"LSE","department":"International Relations"}],"date_submitted":"2026-02-03T04:24:37.754000+01:00","date_accepted":"2026-02-09T20:30:51.375525+01:00","date_published":"2026-02-09T17:23:00+01:00","render_galley":{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/melanotes/article/62278/galley/48624/download/"},"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/melanotes/article/62278/galley/48624/download/"}]}