Dr Giovanni Bochi
Geographic Focus: Lebanon and Syria
Giovanni completed a PhD in Social Anthropology in 2007 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His doctoral thesis, which was later disseminated through publications, investigates issues of mobility, ethnicity and work in the context of the migration of a Dom community between Syria and Lebanon. Between September 2007 and December 2008 he worked as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Advanced Study for the Arab World (CASAW), at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently based in Italy.
Can you introduce yourself briefly?
My name is Giovanni Bochi and I am a social anthropologist currently based in Italy. After earning my bachelor degree in Italy, I completed my graduate studies in the UK, where I obtained a PhD in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics. After my PhD, I worked in academia as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh and then had various jobs outside academia, including as humanitarian worker. While not being currently employed in academia, I continue to pursue my research interests, which include the ethnography of Dom communities in the Middle East.
How did you decide to work with Dom communities?
During a trip in Egypt, in 2000, I stumbled across some information regarding Dom communities in the Arab region. At that time, I was interested in pursuing a career in academic anthropology; I also had some knowledge of Roma communities in Italy and Europe and, having studied Arabic, I intended to conduct research in the Arab Middle East. I found very few publications on the situation of Dom groups, which really intrigued me. Later on, when it was time to pick a topic for my doctoral dissertation, I decided to focus on Dom communities in the Middle East. At that time, social research on Dom groups, whether in Lebanon, Syria or other Arab countries, was really limited: I remember I had to ask a German friend to read and sum up the only real monograph on a Dom group, which had been written in German. I narrowed down my regional focus to Lebanon, where I had some contacts, and I did a preliminary field visit there in my first year of the PhD. I decided that the project was worth being pursued and so, in 2003, I started my fieldwork.
What did you study?
My doctoral dissertation describes the migration of a community of Syrian Dom, who moved to northern Lebanon to find employment in the informal labour market. Based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork, my research brings to the fore the interplay between the Dom’s economic activities, which were made possible by the particular political economy of the Syrian - Lebanese border, and their attempts to reproduce themselves as a distinct social group. I conducted most of my research in northern Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley, close to the border with Syria. As I wanted to have a perspective on what life was like across the border, I spent the final months of my fieldwork in Syria, specifically in Homs, where most Dom families I knew were based. In a nutshell my research, which I disseminated also through journal articles, looks at the intersection between physical mobility, social relations and work practices across what at the time was a very porous border between Lebanon and Syria.
Which methodology did you use and how did your methodology fit into Dom society?
My main method of investigation was participant observation in the community: what I did was to “hang out” with people, taking part in the various activities of their daily life. In Lebanon, the main setting of the research was the camp where Dom families lived, whereas in Syria it was the neighborhood where they were based in Homs. The methodology was dictated by the specific research context: using more structured methods of data collection (questionnaires and interviews) would have raised too many suspicions and jeopardized my role in the community. However, as people understood that I needed to learn their language. I was allowed to write down words in Domari on my notebook.
What types of challenges did you face while conducting research with the Dom community?
Gaining acceptance into the community was, by far, the biggest challenge of my research. The group I focused on, like other Dom communities in Lebanon and the Middle East, was marginalized within the wider society; for this reason, they were suspicious of strangers and, especially at the beginning, they found it difficult to understand the motives of my research. Another major challenge was the language. At the time of my fieldwork, I was fluent in Arabic, but I had to learn the Dom’s language, Domari, entirely from scratch. There was no dictionary or grammar book I could use, except for a few articles on linguistics. So, I had to create my own vocabulary and try to work out the main grammar structures I could use. Not being a linguist, it was a complex task and for this reason my knowledge of Domari remained somewhat limited. However, the very fact that I wanted to learn their language was an important entry point into the community: people were willing to help me in that respect.
Geographic Focus: Lebanon and Syria
Giovanni completed a PhD in Social Anthropology in 2007 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His doctoral thesis, which was later disseminated through publications, investigates issues of mobility, ethnicity and work in the context of the migration of a Dom community between Syria and Lebanon. Between September 2007 and December 2008 he worked as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Advanced Study for the Arab World (CASAW), at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently based in Italy.
Can you introduce yourself briefly?
My name is Giovanni Bochi and I am a social anthropologist currently based in Italy. After earning my bachelor degree in Italy, I completed my graduate studies in the UK, where I obtained a PhD in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics. After my PhD, I worked in academia as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh and then had various jobs outside academia, including as humanitarian worker. While not being currently employed in academia, I continue to pursue my research interests, which include the ethnography of Dom communities in the Middle East.
How did you decide to work with Dom communities?
During a trip in Egypt, in 2000, I stumbled across some information regarding Dom communities in the Arab region. At that time, I was interested in pursuing a career in academic anthropology; I also had some knowledge of Roma communities in Italy and Europe and, having studied Arabic, I intended to conduct research in the Arab Middle East. I found very few publications on the situation of Dom groups, which really intrigued me. Later on, when it was time to pick a topic for my doctoral dissertation, I decided to focus on Dom communities in the Middle East. At that time, social research on Dom groups, whether in Lebanon, Syria or other Arab countries, was really limited: I remember I had to ask a German friend to read and sum up the only real monograph on a Dom group, which had been written in German. I narrowed down my regional focus to Lebanon, where I had some contacts, and I did a preliminary field visit there in my first year of the PhD. I decided that the project was worth being pursued and so, in 2003, I started my fieldwork.
What did you study?
My doctoral dissertation describes the migration of a community of Syrian Dom, who moved to northern Lebanon to find employment in the informal labour market. Based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork, my research brings to the fore the interplay between the Dom’s economic activities, which were made possible by the particular political economy of the Syrian - Lebanese border, and their attempts to reproduce themselves as a distinct social group. I conducted most of my research in northern Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley, close to the border with Syria. As I wanted to have a perspective on what life was like across the border, I spent the final months of my fieldwork in Syria, specifically in Homs, where most Dom families I knew were based. In a nutshell my research, which I disseminated also through journal articles, looks at the intersection between physical mobility, social relations and work practices across what at the time was a very porous border between Lebanon and Syria.
Which methodology did you use and how did your methodology fit into Dom society?
My main method of investigation was participant observation in the community: what I did was to “hang out” with people, taking part in the various activities of their daily life. In Lebanon, the main setting of the research was the camp where Dom families lived, whereas in Syria it was the neighborhood where they were based in Homs. The methodology was dictated by the specific research context: using more structured methods of data collection (questionnaires and interviews) would have raised too many suspicions and jeopardized my role in the community. However, as people understood that I needed to learn their language. I was allowed to write down words in Domari on my notebook.
What types of challenges did you face while conducting research with the Dom community?
Gaining acceptance into the community was, by far, the biggest challenge of my research. The group I focused on, like other Dom communities in Lebanon and the Middle East, was marginalized within the wider society; for this reason, they were suspicious of strangers and, especially at the beginning, they found it difficult to understand the motives of my research. Another major challenge was the language. At the time of my fieldwork, I was fluent in Arabic, but I had to learn the Dom’s language, Domari, entirely from scratch. There was no dictionary or grammar book I could use, except for a few articles on linguistics. So, I had to create my own vocabulary and try to work out the main grammar structures I could use. Not being a linguist, it was a complex task and for this reason my knowledge of Domari remained somewhat limited. However, the very fact that I wanted to learn their language was an important entry point into the community: people were willing to help me in that respect.
