Anthropologist Karin van Nieuwkerk’s latest book-length study addresses the
phenomenon, widely discussed in Egyptian media since the 1990s, of celebrated
singers, actors, and dancers who withdraw from their professions to live
according to what they believe are Islamically sound principles. The author of
“A Trade Like Any Other”: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1995), van Nieuwkerk draws on experience and
contacts from over two decades of research. But this project, as well as its subjects
and issues, presents new challenges for the ethnographer.
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences