2023 AD HOC COMMITTEE  FOR ASOR LANGUAGE AND GUIDELINES FOR WORK IN CONTESTED TERRITORIES

Charge for the Ad Hoc Committee on Language and Guidelines for Work in Contested Territories

Members of ASOR conduct fieldwork and research in volatile areas of the world, where political and ethnic boundaries are fluid and contested. The “facts” on the ground and in the minds of the peoples involved change regularly in these regions. ASOR’s top concerns in these matters are to support the work of its members and facilitate their activities in all the countries where they work. At the same time, we must be careful not to promulgate misleading or unsubstantiated claims to the territories involved. Beyond this, ASOR’s overarching mission, as stated in its Policy on Professional Conduct, includes maintaining the highest ethical standards of scholarship and public discourse wherever we work.

Difficulties arise with some regularity for ASOR’s Program Committee and Committee on Publications over how to handle the presentation of work in contested territories, and they are asking for guidance. Other committees –Honors and Awards, CAP, CH, DEI, and the Committee on the ASOR Policy on Professional Conduct –also wrestle with these issues. The charge to this Ad Hoc Committee is to examine the language we use to deal with such work (section E 7 in ASOR’s Policy on Professional Conduct, first published in 2014 and amended in 2019) and to determine if there is a clearer way to serve the needs of ASOR’s members in these situations, while at the same time maintaining our commitment to the highest ethical standards of scholarship.

Members

• Geoff Emberling, Chair
• Andrea Berlin
• Petra Creamer
• Scott Moore
• Yorke Rowan