In this episode of Ventures, Mandy Terc, the executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project (known as MERIP), explains how the organization tries to make the knowledge of academics digestible to a more general audience. She also discusses her own fieldwork in Syria before the civil war, and the ethical questions that arise when White western researchers write about people in the Middle East. Interview by Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven.

Views and opinions expressed in the episode are the participants’ own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Visit the MERIP website for for critical analysis and discussion on the Middle East that brings informed, academic perspectives to a broader audience.