Mehdi Ayachi

My postdoctoral research can be understood as a study of intellectual life within the broader context of intensifying cultural globalization, characterized by the increasing circulation of books, ideas, and the intellectuals who act as their carriers. Grounded in ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman, it addresses two interrelated objectives. First, I investigate the social life of ideas through a materialist framework, focusing on their "exchangeability" within the market of ideas. Ideas, as dual entities embodying both commodities and meanings, are intrinsically tied to the material forms that enable their dissemination. In the specific sociopolitical context of Oman, I analyze the mechanisms that facilitate or hinder the production, circulation, diffusion, and eventual stabilization of ideas and critical theories articulated by Omani intellectuals—ideas that increasingly transcend the monitored territorial sovereignty of the nation-state. Second, I conduct an ethnographic analysis of intellectual practices and cognitive reasoning within majālis (intellectual salons). In particular, I examine what it means for certain Omani intellectuals to attain the status of what they themselves describe as "critical intellectuals." This inquiry centers on the cultivation and acquisition of critical dispositions and debating skills through processes of situated learning and legitimate participation in communities of practice composed of like-minded critical intellectuals. At a more micro-level, I examine how ideas and representations drawn from diverse intellectual or religious traditions are debated, confronted, and at times reflexively appropriated by these intellectuals. Through this dynamic engagement, they construct their ethos as critical intellectuals, employing metacognitive strategies to evaluate reflexively the epistemological status of the representations and ideas they engage with to understand and navigate the world.