This forum originates from the October 2022 workshop “Arab Encounters Across Difference: Epistemology and Ethnography” held at the Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA). Bringing together thirteen contributions by an international team of researchers, the forum shifts focus away from Euro-American perspectives to foreground epistemologies rooted in the Global South. Covering diverse settings - from Yemen and Indonesia to Cambodia, Brazil, and beyond - it explores Arab encounters as dynamic zones of difference marked by friction, entanglement, and transformation. The forum positions encounters as a central object of analysis and conceptualizes Arabness as a heuristic, performative, and relational category, in a collaborative effort that offers fresh ethnographic insights into the complexities of Arab identities and interactions across cultural and geographic boundaries.

Introduction by Leonardo Schiocchet and Marieke Brandt. With contributions by Ismail Fajrie Alatas, Martin Slama, Nathalie Peutz, Marina de Regt and Aisha Aljaedy, Alexander Weissenburger, Zoltan Pall, Sabine Bauer-Amin, Marieke Brandt, Shada Bokir, Annelies Moors, Till Mostowlansky, Paulo Pinto, and Leonardo Schiocchet.