Much of Amel Ahmed’s college career was spent trying to figure out what was happening—academically, socially, culturally. Always drawn to liminal spaces and questions that required the eye of an astute ethnographer and sleuthing historian, she continued to probe in this way, even as it changed the course of her academic career. Find out how asking the fundamental question of ‘what are we really doing here?’ is often the only way to know where we are headed.
Guest Amel Ahmed ventured to college from an urban immigrant community and she spent much of her college career trying to figure out what was happening—academically, socially, culturally. She realized that she found comfort in embedding herself in the liminal spaces and really probing them, using the eye of an astute ethnographer and sleuthing historian. By the time she was ready to leave her undergraduate experience, she had a laser focus on continuing to study the Middle East and how ideals and systems of democracy could be spread there.
In her first semester of grad school, however, a professor made a comment about the very notion of democracy that took her right back to asking what was happening and how that informs the way you approach the ideas that are at your core.
In this episode, find out from Amel how asking the fundamental question of “what are we really doing here” is often the only way to know where we are headed…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Amel Ahmed is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She specializes in democratic studies—approaching the work from historical and comparative perspectives, focusing on both Europe and the United States. She is particularly interested in elections, voting systems, legislative politics, party development, and voting rights.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Amel Ahmed: My first year I was in this seminar where we were talking about democracy and democratization. I was kind of struggling with this a little and had this exchange with a professor where he finally said to me, You know what? We don't actually even know what democracy is, and that—for me as a first year student with all of these ambitions—that floored me.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Much of Amel Ahmed’s college career was spent trying to figure out what was happening—academically, socially, culturally. Always drawn to liminal spaces and questions that required the eye of an astute ethnographer and sleuthing historian, she continued to probe in this way, even as it changed the course of her academic career. Find out how asking the fundamental question of “what are we really doing here?” is often the only way to know where we are headed…on today’s Roads Taken, with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today I’m here with Amel Ahmed and we are going to talk about change in focus and where we put our energies and how that comes to be. So Amel, thank you so much for being here with me.
AA: Thank you so much, Leslie. It's great to be here.
LJR: All right. I start this the same way each time with each of our guests asking two questions and they are these: When we were in college, who were you and when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
AA: Oh boy. Okay. When we were in college…You know, we just had our reunion and reunions are great because they kind of remind you of who you were in college, who I feel is the same person, but just really transformed. So who I was in college was someone who was very confused about my surroundings, about the environment. I was in a setting that I was, that was really unfamiliar to me. You know, I'd come out of like inner city Boston, where I had a certain set of cultural references and from an immigrant community. So my understanding of what and who Americans are in itself was somewhat limited. And then I get thrown into Hanover, which is not like anywhere I had seen or been or encountered. So a lot of my time was actually trying to figure out just literally what was happening—academically, socially, culturally, just trying to map it out. And I became a little bit of an ethnographer and trying to figure out, you know, what is it that we're doing here? How is it that people are interacting? How does this relate to me? And it took me like a good four years to kind of figure that out.
LJR: And you did that by way of kind of listening and being, but immersing yourself in lots of different communities, and as you said, one side academic, one side more personal, and social. You had lots of different roles. Talk about how you were finding who you were within those domains.
AA: You know, I would say I did immerse myself in quite a bit. I consider myself kind of a boundary dweller by nature, and I think it’s part of my upbringing, part of the experience of being an immigrant, that you just kind of are exposed to different things. So I had that kind of practice already that I, you know, I like to sit in these liminal spaces and observe and, and see all of these things.
I'll say, you know, being honest, I really struggled the first couple of years even, you know, academically also, not just socially, but academically I struggled. I think at a fundamental level. I didn't actually understand what we were doing. So that took a little bit of, of catch up and I'm grateful to peers and professors who actually really helped me along with that and at least just gave me the space to figure it out. And I'll say when things really started coming together for me was junior year when I went abroad. And I don't know what it was, but something about just being in a different space, still having, you know, the academic challenges and the social challenges, but being in a different space helped things to click together for me in a way that they hadn't before. And all of a sudden I could see, okay, this is what we're doing and, and this is what these different groups mean, and this is how I can engage with them. I don't know. For me it was really junior year.
LJR: And by that time you had already decided politics was your academic focus, and so was this the government FSP in London?
AA: Yeah, this is the government FSP. And then I ended up staying longer. I, I ended up working for the Association of Ethnicity and Nationalism at LSE. So I ended up staying for the whole year and that was amazing.
LJR: So what was it that we were doing here? What did you learn? Both in the ethnography and just in the time of it?
AA: I don't know that I can even, you know, really articulate it. But I, I would say that I became more proficient at reading culture. Right. So understanding and, and being a little bit of a chameleon and being able to integrate with, with different communities on their own terms and understand that, you know, each community has its own vibe. You know, I, I felt like it was useful for me to kind of learn that and, you know, connect with people in ways that were comfortable for me, but really just understanding those circles. So what we were doing, I guess, was growing up.
LJR: And so by the time we were getting ready to leave, did you still feel you were one of those liminal folks, or did you find your communities that then kind of informed who you thought you were gonna be as you were leaving?
AA: So a little bit of both. I think that liminality is just, for me, a state of being. I'm totally comfortable with it. I love in between spaces. They actually make a lot more sense to me. But I also found communities that I was able to settle into and became, you know, very good friends that I didn't expect to have coming out of college because I kind of, you know, I kept to myself a little. But yeah, I was able to, to have both, I guess. And by the time I was out of there, I was laser focused. So it wasn't, you know, what am I doing next? I was maybe a little too focused. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school. I knew I wanted to do all of these things, and everyone told me you can't go to grad school straight from undergrad. So then I, you know, applied to this program, which was still school but not graduate school proper. And all I wanted to do was go back to school.
LJR: And so at that point you were thinking, it sounds like focused on Middle Eastern politics at that point?
AA: Yes, And I actually went and spent the year in Jerusalem studying at the Hebrew University. So at Dartmouth I'd studied government and Middle East politics, so I don't know if it was called Near East politics there, but I did both. And then I spent the year in Jerusalem, studying at Hebrew University in preparation for grad school. And, you know, anticipating that I was going to be focused on Middle East politics.
LJR: Which you did as you first entered, and then
AA: Yes, for about five minutes.
LJR: Five minutes. Okay. So tell me about the shift, because this is a, although staying within the same ideas and same approaches, one could say a very big, bold shift.
AA: Yes. So I guess, you know, at the, at the structural level, I haven't made many shifts. I've basically been in school since we've been in school together. But there was a pretty big shift that came at the beginning of graduate school because I'd gone in gung ho thinking, here's what I'm doing: I'm gonna work on Middle East politics. And I was, you know, very focused on democratization and trying to figure out how to bring democracy to the Middle East and all of these lofty goals. And it was really, the first semester of my first year, I was in this seminar where we were talking about democracy and democratization. I, you know, was kind of struggling with this a little and had this exchange with a professor who became, you know, a great mentor, but I had this exchange where he finally said to me, “You know what? We don't actually even know what democracy is,” and that for me, as a first year student with all of these ambitions, that floored me to be totally honest. Also because, you know, we are running around the world lording over people this idea of democracy, insisting on elections and regime change and, and, and all sorts of things that it turns out we don't actually even know what this is. So for me, that was kind of like, let’s hold everything and let's go back and take a look. Because I don't wanna be going off and doing this. And so that detour has lasted most of my career trying to, you know, ask these questions about what is democracy. And for me, I realized that the way I understand things and the way I come to, you know, engage with things is historically. So I started looking back historically at the roots of democracy, which was at the time really passe. Like nobody studied this anymore. Like, we know how democracy came about. Our only job as democracy scholars is to figure out how to get it in different places. But it turns out that there's a lot we actually don’t understand about how democracy came about in the US and in in Europe and much of the West. And so that has become much of my life pursuit. And you know, the shift for me personally was no problem. I was fascinated from day one. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It kept me up at night. I wanted to research, and I discovered that I actually really love historical research, which I didn't realize. I was much more of a mathematician in my orientation. But I really discovered that I love this historical research and it's like, it's like this puzzle slash mystery that you have to solve and figure out and unearth. So for me personally, it was a really exciting shift. But I did as a result of it, encounter a lot of resistance.
LJR: Resistance among your peers.
AA: Everyone. So I think something that a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, The Academy has some fairly strong identity politics that people assume doesn't exist because, you know, we're supposed to be so progressive. I say this sometimes to colleagues and they just like laugh out loud. I wanna record that laughter to share with people every time they tell me the academy's so progressive. But you know, it is changing. It is changing. But when I started grad school, they were very strong just implicit expectations that if you are a brown person and you're gonna study brown people politics; if you're a woman, you're gonna study women's politics. If you are, you know of this ilk, then that's probably what you're going to do. And there are a lot of people who genuinely want to do this. You know, a lot of people from the Middle East go in because they want to study the Middle East. But it's only when I diverge from this path that I realize that it's actually a problem, or this is, you know, a little disruptive for people that I'm not doing this. Now, keep in mind, you know, if you are a white male, you can study pretty much whatever you want, but the implicit expectation is that if you are not, then you're going to be studying, you know, or producing some kind of knowledge of the social identity category that you fall into. So I encountered the resistance from faculty mentors who essentially didn't wanna work with me because they didn't think I was gonna be successful. I encountered it among peers who really thought I was kind of betraying my people because, I wasn’t doing this.
LJR: So is it more about what people thought that you were forsaking because of an identity or that you didn't belong as a scholar of democracy per se, for whatever reason?
AA: So I think it was both from different communities. So, and, and the way it was formulated from most people was that it is your comparative advantage to study the Middle East. You've got the language knowledge, you've got access, you've got all of these things. So that's kind of a, you know, a more rationalistic, benign version of you really shouldn't be taking up, you know, elections in 19th century democracies. Of course, you know that the argument's about comparative advantage never made any sense to me because it doesn't seem like much of an advantage if I'm not interested.
But, so I think, you know, people had really kind of accepted certain identity roles that I think work for some people, but in my case, it just…it wasn't what I wanted to pursue. And I'll say also, you know, wanting to study 19th century legislatures had everything to do with the Middle East for me because what I realized is that we had, you know, adopted all of these models of how democracy's supposed to operate and we're trying to implement them in other places, but we don't actually know how they originally operated. There's so much we don't actually understand that we can only understand by going back and looking at these historical examples. In my mind, the two were connected and going to 19th century Europe was actually a more fruitful route of learning about what's happening in in democracies today. Not true for everyone, but for me, that was, that was my way of gaining access. But yeah, there was quite a bit of resistance and there still is. I mean, I think, there isn’t a conference that I go to where someone doesn't remark on it and say, You know, it’s really interesting that you, that you study Europe. You know, that's the, that's the nicer way of saying it. I suspect some of my colleagues in my department still think I study the Middle East. It's just, you know, that's just the assumption. And I, you know, I don't worry about it too much, but I am frequently reminded that what I'm doing is somewhat unusual and that there are these expectations that exist. I think it's shifted. I think as you know, people's attentions shift and as, honestly as the academy becomes itself more diverse, there is more resistance to this kind of role playing because also there, there's important stakes involved in terms of professional advancement, in terms of how central your work is viewed. So if you look at our flagship journals, for example, they're not publishing work on the Middle East because that's considered kind of, or it is changing, but for the most part, you're not gonna find work on the Middle East in our flagship journals because that's considered kind of particular knowledge, knowledge of a particular place. You also, you know, it used to be that it was very rare to find anything on race in politics, which, you know, blows your mind, right? That also is changing, but there's a lot of areas of knowledge that were deemed particular knowledge. So that means that you actually…there are professional and material consequences to the fields that you get directed into. So I'm really careful about that with my students now and with making sure to create that space for people who want to explore other interests and not send such strong signals that, you know, this is the role that you're expected to fulfill.
LJR: Right. And I mean that, I'm sure this is not lost on you, but that is so in keeping with your being comfortable in liminal spaces and the gray areas and all of that, both from that professional mentorship that you have of the next generation, but also even in choosing something that we think we know what we're doing here, as you put it before, and we don't really know what we're doing here. Democracy is, as we've heard it called, an experiment and it's not done and you're trying to figure out this thing of what, what was it meant for? What are we using it for? What pieces are… I find that so in keeping with who you said you were back in the day. Does that resonate with you at all?
AA: A hundred percent, yeah. There's, there's definitely a thread there and that's, those are the, the moments that make my brain light up when, when we have these moments of uncertainty. So if we look around, democratic politics today, as you know, terrifying and gut-wrenching as it is in some moments, for me it's actually super exciting also. I often start my class on democracy by asking my students, Do you think we live in a democracy? And that's it. You know, that's the question. And through the course of that discussion, you know, the initial impulse is of course we do. And then through the course of the discussion, without me even really prompting very much, they kind of talk themselves into the state of confusion. Well, if it's about equality, is there equality in this country? And if it's about, you know, equal opportunity or if it's about you know, all of these things, you realize that these exist in incomplete forms. And they don't exist for all communities and what do we make of that and what are our expectations of democracy and what is the ideal versus the reality? So yeah, that is really, it's just kind of how my brain operates at this point, and I enjoy it. Not for everyone. But
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. Though I think all of us, at least here in the states, are thinking about those questions of what is democracy and you know, what was its intent and what are we looking for out of it? Has the way that you've approached things or the types of details that you've been thinking of shifted in this last few years period where, you know, democracy seems to be on the witness stand?
AA: I think. I tend to draw a lot on the research that I do, not directly, because I don't think you can make wholesale transference from 19th century Europe or the US even to the current context. It has shifted a little bit because, you know, I am a social scientist, so I'm trained to use the tools of social science to analyze any situation: Make comparisons, figure out, you know, what, what can we anticipate in this? And I've had to dial that instinct back a little as I observe what's happening and really soberly reflect on it to say I'm not sure that those tools are appropriate. I'm not sure that we actually have the tools currently to understand. Now that's a frightening realization for all of us, but I think it's even more frightening if we assume we have the tools and it turns out we actually don't know what this means. So when we talk about political violence, we have certain understandings of what kind…you know, democracies can withstand political violence, but does that mean that January 6th is totally okay? You know, so we have to bring these tools in. But I think this is a moment that calls for judgment more than anything. And that's scary, you know, that we are required to under…you know, navigate our situation in real time with the, the faculties that we have available to us. We can't just rest on this body of knowledge. We can't rest on these tools that we've developed. I think it, you know, it is a challenging thing, but also my embrace of liminality, that's where I jump in and I wanna just wrestle with it and luxuriate in the confusion and in whatever sense we can make out of it. But it is both scary and, and I think for me, that realization was really helpful. Because I kept finding, you know, I'm trying to apply these tools from other countries, from other times, and it’s not the right fit. So once you let go of that and, and, you know, accept this idea that we really just need to embrace judgment and trust ourselves, that we can navigate as democratic citizens, as scholars, as you know, humans.
LJR: There seems to be hope in that I hear a little bit of hope, which is good to have. So how has this fit into the rest of the world for you, who you think you are when you don't put on the social identity of professor and academic and researcher.
AA: Wait, there's the rest of the world. What?
LJR: Yeah, that's right. I think you have family life and all that.
AA: Yes. Well, I am blessed with a family, an ex…a very large extended family who does not care at all what I do. They have no interest in any of this. I mean, they, they're happy for me that I am doing all these things, but. They really just don't care, and I love that because I just get to kind of do it. Every once in a while something pops up and you know, I will, I will be on an interview or write an article that they notice and care about, or I serve as like kind of a hotline for them when they have any questions. I get asked about many things that I know nothing about. Because again, my specialty is 19th century legislatures. But I do love having that separation and having a vast extended family that I'm very close to both here and back home in Egypt that I can just, you know, relax and have fun with. And this academic persona is there, but it's kind of, you know, moot. I also have two little kids who are amazing and also don't care what I do. And that is terrific, honestly. You know, it's just a different sense of purpose when you are caring for people and, and, and engaging in that way. And I think given the sometimes all-consuming nature of academic life, it is critical to have those things that just pull you out and, you know, and when you’ve got two little kids coming home from school at two o'clock, like, okay, well that was my work day and now I have two children staring me down waiting for activities and dinner. So that's terrific. And I mean that's been really the biggest shift cuz you know, up until I had kids it was really all work all the time, weekends, nights, whenever, whatever it takes, just keep going. And after kids, number one, I became very efficient at using very small chunks of time. It used to be that to work on something I needed like a whole day and I would, you know, have to luxuriate in my thoughts for an hour before I could even write anything. And now I've got 20 minutes, I'm gonna sit down and write. Whatever comes out of my head is what's going in there. So I've become much more efficient and been able to compartmentalize work a lot better as a result of this. And it's been an absolute blessing.
LJR: Yeah. So Amel, kind of thinking about all the fullness of life as it is and has transpired to be not the laser focus getting ready to leave college version of you, but the younger version who was still trying to figure out what we're doing and who you are. If someone had come and told that Amel, Here's where your future lies, here's the path and here's where you are. What would she say?
AA: Absolutely. So I don't think that younger version didn't have hope or didn't have faith. I think, you know, one of my, what I consider my superpowers is being able to go into a situation and assess it very completely, very quickly. And I think I've had that from very early on. And so I think that younger version was really assessing, and knew, didn't know that everything would turn out great, but that this was, you know, and this is something that I faced at different points of life because I had that same confusion when I got into grad school and I had that same confusion when I became an assistant professor and had to navigate all this new stuff. And at each stage I could look back and tell myself, I've actually been here before and I figured it out. You know, it's scary and nerve-wracking, but having done that once you can keep looking back and saying this, you know, gut wrenching, scary feeling that I'm kind of flailing and I don't know what's going—I've been here before. I can just pull out your tools and figure it out and stay the course. So, you know, I think I'd had, even in college, I'd had that experience before being thrown into elementary school with no English skills and having to kind of figure that out. So I've had lots of points where you're kind of thrown in with limited resources and you need to read the situation very quickly and navigate and being able to draw on that, you know, something that was a little bit of a superpower.
LJR: Yeah, well, I think you've used it well throughout your life and it seems like this is, although maybe some would say unconventional, it is where you're supposed to be. And I'm just really thrilled that you were able to share that with us. And thank you so much. We can't wait to see what the next chapter will bring both for our own democracy and your work.
AA: Thanks so much, Leslie. It was a treat to be able to reflect on all this, not many occasions for that.
LJR: That was Amel Ahmed who is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She specializes in democratic studies—approaching the work from historical and comparative perspectives, focusing on both Europe and the United States. She is particularly interested in elections, voting systems, legislative politics, party development, and voting rights. As this episode is originally airing the day before the 2022 mid-term elections in the U.S., I’m sure Amel would join me in imploring those of you in the U.S. to exercise your right to vote in tomorrow’s election.
Of course, that is one of the most important ways for you to have your voice heard. Another is to rate, review, and tell a friend about the Roads Taken podcast. It really does help introduce new listeners to our always fascinating, always thought-provoking guests. Thanks for your help and for continuing to join me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on Roads Taken.