Dr. Sleiman El Hajj Awarded for Autoethnographic Research

March 6, 2025

LAU Associate Professor and Al-Raida Editor Sleiman El Hajj has received the 2025 International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry Outstanding Journal Article for his work, Narrating Sexual Blackmail in Lebanon: A Present-Day Pathography.

Presented on March 2 at the annual International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative, the award honors exceptional research that promotes interdisciplinary dialogue through innovative scholarship and personal narratives.

As a part of Dr. El Hajj’s book, Lebano-Pathography: Converging Pathologies and Lived Narratives, the research explores the rise of sextortion—blackmailing someone by threatening to expose their sexual activity—in Lebanon amid ongoing economic, political and social crises by highlighting its connection to poverty, sex stigma and societal repression.

Drawing on the author’s experience and anonymous students’ accounts, it examines the perpetrators, victims and trauma of sexual blackmail as a symptom of broader systemic issues.

The award announcement stated that the committee members were unanimous in determining that this work is most deserving of recognition due to its “focus on emotion, subjectivity and the body; its contribution to the field of autoethnography; and its practical significance and contribution to social justice.”  

“I was very moved to be receiving this recognition, particularly since it comes from a professional association whose scholarship I greatly admire,” said Dr. El Hajj, who is an advocate of autoethnography as a research method in creative writing. “Pioneers in qualitative inquiry and autoethnography, such as Arthur P. Bochner and Carolyn Ellis, attended the award ceremony.”

It was a privilege to meet the scholars “whose work has helped shape my concept of Lebano-Pathography,” he added.