Packing for Fieldwork, Post 2: Clothes

[ajnabieh]

Not the best photos, but here are some of the outfits I'm bringing with me to Cairo. (That mess behind me on the piano is the rest of the clothes. Although by now they've been tucked into my suitcase.) Packing for fieldwork is an interesting process; you have the constraints of a limited wardrobe, just like any trip, while also having to be prepared for multiple occasions and, usually, at least a few presentations of self. There may also be location-specific constraints. In my case, they were:

•It is going to be hot--around 90F/32C during the day, and 75F/23C at night. So I need to pack to stay cool...but also to keep from burning to a crisp (I burn fairly easily), and to go from sweltering-outside to air-conditioned-inside. (Pretty much, this is exactly like New York City at midsummer.)

•I'm going to have to look like a professional. While I don't have my whole interview schedule lined up, a part of it is going to be with professors, people involved in politics, and other people with whom I have to present myself as a similarly positioned professional.

•I can't always look like a professional. Some of my other interviews will be with activists, students, and other people who I'll be meeting in a personal, not professional capacity. You don't wear a suit to interview activists, not if you actually want them to talk to you. So both pairs of pants I brought can be worn more casually, and I'm bringing some more relaxed t-shirts as well.

•I can't bring much. I'm traveling with one suitcase of a size that it technically fits in a carryon compartment, one very small duffel-bag-ish thing that'll actually be carryon, and my purse (which probably is larger than the duffel thing, all told). So, everything I bring has to do double duty.

•Local modesty norms. I'll say more about this below, but I had to make sure that the things I brought wouldn't make me look rude or inappropriate.

After going through this mental list and my closet a million times, here is what I settled on:



1. Two "suits." I put "suits" in quotes because neither is actually two pieces which literally were made to be a suit together. But I have two blazers, and two pairs of sufficiently-formal pants, which I can wear together. The pants from these "suits" are the only ones I'm bringing; the khakis are a little more formal, and the black ones a little less formal. They are both comfortable and lightweight.

2. No jeans. I am a little sad about this, but they just aren't practical in this heat, and they take up a lot of space. The black pants are going to be my default informal pants.

3. Seven t-shirts and two short-sleeved button-up shirts. My biggest issue with packing was that I wanted to only bring shirts that would cover my shoulders (again, I'll talk more about modesty below). I don't own a lot of professional shirts that aren't sleeveless; I don't get cold easily, and my arms are hard to fit in shirts, so I tend to wear shells and other sleeveless things to teach year-round. I actually had to go out and buy new shirts to bring. I'm bringing a mix of casual t-shirts, short-sleeved knit shirts that are a little more formal or have some fashion-y elements, and two blouses, one more formal, one less. Nearly all of them can be worn under a suit (well, not the Brooklyn Industries graphic t), but all of them can also serve as more casual shirts.

4. Two skirts and one dress. The skirts both come below the knee, are casual but look "nice," and are lightweight and comfortable. The dress is a short-sleeved maxi dress that is gorgeous and about as much work as pulling on a t-shirt. Since I haven't been to Cairo before, I don't know the nuances of who wears skirts when (at least among people analogous to me--I'll talk about that below), but these are all workhorse pieces of clothing, and none of them take up too much space.

5. One long-sleeved button-down and one lightweight cardigan. Both are flexible enough for layering, compress down small to fit into my purse, and would serve either to cover my arms or to keep me warm in arctic air-conditioning.



When I tell people I'm traveling to the Middle East for work, I always, always get questions about what I "can" wear. This is an interesting balance, because I do take the location into account when I pack, but it's also not quite like what my interlocutors mean.



First off, I'm not traveling to a country that has a mandatory veiling law; pretty much that's Iran and Saudi Arabia (I can't think of any others off the top of my head). So, no matter what customs were, I could wear my clothes from home and be fine. (I'd take this opportunity to remind you that it's legal for women to be topless in New York City--but when's the last time you saw evidence of that NOT in the context either of a breastfeeding protest or the Dyke March?) Second, a woman who doesn't cover her hair or arms isn't an anomaly on the streets of Cairo; plenty of Egyptian Muslim, Coptic Christian, or nonreligious women don't cover, and Cairo has plenty of expats from the West and elsewhere. (Want proof? Check out the party posts on Cairo Gossip. I think you could tell anybody that those photos were taken in Miami and they'd believe you.) Third, and very, very importantly: I am never going to pass for Egyptian. Never, ever, ever, in a million years, not if I got as tan as is possible for me (answer: not very, mostly I get pink and then get freckles), not if I spoke perfect Egyptian 'ammiya, not ever. There are straight haired and blue eyed and fair skinned Arabs, but I don't look like one of them. I look like a person of mixed British Isles ancestry, which I am. Cairo is a cosmopolitan city, full of diverse people from all over the world. Nobody is going to look at me and think I'm an Egyptian Muslim who is dressed inappropriately. I'm so clearly ajnabieh--or, well, in this case, aganiba. I'm a foreigner.

But that doesn't mean it's a good idea for me to dress exactly as I would here. I don't want to offend anyone with my dress; while they'll certainly know I'm aganiba, they won't necessarily feel positive towards me. I'm not worried about being sexually harassed because of what I'm wearing--Cairo's sexual harassment situation is shitty enough that I'm planning on that happening no matter what--but I don't want to offend the people I'm interacting with. This is particularly important in contexts where I'm asking those people for something--their opinions, their thoughts, their perspectives on politics. My goal in going to Egypt isn't just to have an awesome time, see some mummies, and eat as many fried legumes as is humanly possible (well, those aren't my only goals). It's to connect with Egyptians and understand more about their views on contemporary politics. If they think I'm rude or impolite, they're less likely to do that. So, in choosing not to wear skirts above the knee, not to bring shorts, and not to wear tank-tops, I'm choosing to look polite and respectful of my potential interlocutors.

Of course, Egyptian women who wear short skirts or tank tops or otherwise dress "immodestly" have to deal with this static, too. Why am I altering my dress, then, instead of not-altering it in solidarity with them? Well, first, my 'solidarity' here would be pretty meaningless--because I'm not Egyptian, it'll be understood as me dressing this way because I'm "foreign." When Egyptian women choose not to cover, they get pushback because they're Egyptian, and that's not a category I can assume. "Solidarity" of this nature is only meaningful when you actually can share the conditions of the other, not when you can merely pretend you are. Second, even if my solidarity would be marginally meaningful, it would still prevent me from getting some data that I might want to get. (I'd potentially get other data, but I'm not looking for that data.) If I thought my solidarity would actually be effective, I'd be happy to make that sacrifice. But since I don't think it would be, I'm not bothering.

For most of my time, in middle/upper-class professional Cairo, I can wear anything I brought. There are contexts where I might need to cover beyond short sleeves and long pants: visiting religious tourist spots, for instance. (Last time I travelled in the Middle East, I was in Jerusalem--I kept a long-sleeved shirt and scarf in my purse at all times.) I also might end up going to a place within Cairo or outside of it where women of my age universally or nearly-universally cover; not covering is generally a practice of the educated upper or middle class, more usually practiced by single women then by married women (and I'm both actually married and well beyond the age at which most working or lower class women are married in the Middle East). Under those circumstances, I'd want to be able to cover, again, in order to be polite. In addition to my suits (which might not be appropriate), I can throw the button-down or the cardigan over almost any of my shirts; I also have packed two scarves long enough for me to fully cover my hair. (I have noticed, however, that short hair is substantially harder to cover than long hair; if I really needed to have all hair invisible, I'd need to buy a cap that holds my bangs back, or at minimum a wide hairband, but those things are more easily available in Cairo, where lots of women cover, than Geneva, New York, where I don't think I've ever seen a hijabi.)

So, yes, I had to buy new clothes to go wear in Egypt. But, no, it's not like you're necessarily thinking it is.



Well, I'm off to the airport in a few hours--wish me three on-time flights and no line at customs!