History, cultural insights and tea

Jordan is a country rich in history and culture, located in the Levant region. It borders Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, and is home to 11 million people. Amman, the capital, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, dating back to 7250 BC.

During a visit to the Jordan Archaeological Museum, I learned that in 283 BC, Amman was called Philadelphia, named after the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy Philadelphus. Interestingly, Philadelphia in the USA was not named after this Egyptian pharaoh but by William Penn, who combined the Greek words for love (phileo) and brother (adelphos), hence the nickname "the City of Brotherly Love."

I had traveled to Jordan to attend a briefing for a face-to-face measurement survey and to observe fieldwork. Due to a delay, I almost missed my connecting flight to Amman in Chicago. Unfortunately, there were no official adjudicators from Guinness World Records, but I feel I came close to breaking the record for lugging a suitcase from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5 at O'Hare.

Importance of good translation

Being able to attend agency briefings is always a big plus for a project. It is great to meet everyone working on the project, but also allows you to spot and fix issues before they occur. In this briefing, we identified a translation issue: two different English words had the same translation in Arabic. Sometimes you need to translate the essence of a concept rather than a literal word for word translation.

There are exceptions to this though. For instance, when translating brand or programme names you do need precise translations.

Cultural conservatism

Jordan is a culturally conservative country where religion and family values prevail. In a study by the Northwestern University of Qatar, 72% of Jordanians self identified themselves as culturally conservative (joint highest in the region with Qatar). This has direct consequences for market research.

For survey design, there are sensitivities about which questions you can ask and how you ask them. For instance, when asking about gender, many respondents may not accept a non-binary option. ESOMAR recommends that when it is not safe or acceptable to ask a non-binary question, the options should be: Male; Female; Prefer not to answer.

For survey management, there is a preference for women to survey women as in Islamic societies men are not meant to be alone with women.

Urban fieldwork

Our first day of observing fieldwork was in Amman. The city is full of white or yellow buildings and has the nickname 'the white city'. Most buildings are built from limestone and residential districts look like lego blocks scattered on the hills.

The people we interviewed were very friendly, inviting us in to do the surveys and offering us Bedouin tea, a sweet, spice-laden drink that is a local staple. Seeing the inside of respondents' homes can really help bring the data to life. After visiting a few apartments, you start to appreciate the size, layout, and family dynamics.

In the evening we went out to eat in Rainbow street, a modern bustling street known for its eclectic and vibrant mix of shops, restaurants and cafes. We wanted to have some traditional Jordanian food, and tried Mansaf (which is considered the national dish of Jordan - it is made of lamb cooked in a sauce of fermented dried yoghurt and served with rice or bulgur)

Rural fieldwork

Our second day of observing fieldwork was in a rural area about an hour south of Amman. To get there we drove past the royal palace and wealthy suburbs, and then the scenery changed. Apartments were replaced by houses, blocks of apartments by farms and lots of open land and some of the desert. Although, the layouts were different, houses were decorated in a similar style and plenty of Bedouin tea was still served.

In Jordan only 8% of the population live in rural areas. This number is likely to shrink further as a lot of construction seemed to be happening. However there is also a sizeable Bedouin population who live in their distinctive black goat-hair tents in the South and East of the country.

The fieldwork went smoothly, with just some small tweaks to the scripting to feedback on, but we did get a surprise. One of the rural respondents had been working on the restoration of some mosaics and invited us to see them. So on a bonus excursion we saw some impressive Byzantine mosaics.

Before traveling back home I had built in some time to visit Petra. Petra is a cultural heritage site, half-built, half-carved into the rock, and is surrounded by mountains riddled with passages and gorges. It is an amazing place to visit, and has been featured in many movies, such as Lawrence of Arabia, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Dune and Aladdin.

The contrast between Petra and Amman was clear to see and embodied what I had been seeing throughout the trip in Jordan, the delicate balance between preserving rich cultural traditions and embracing modernity.