The Global Middle East – serie

This study presents an alternative story of the 2011 Egyptian revolution by revisiting Egypt's moment of decolonisation in the mid-twentieth century. Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt explores the country's first postcolonial project, arguing that the enduring afterlives of anticolonial politics, connected to questions of nationalism, military rule, capitalist development and violence, are central to understanding political events in Egypt today. Through an imagined conversation between Antonio Gramsci and Frantz Fanon, two foundational theorists of anti-capitalism and anticolonialism, Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt focuses on issues of resistance, revolution, mastery and liberation to show how the Nasserist project, created by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers in 1952, remains the only instance of hegemony in modern Egyptian history. In suggesting that Nasserism was made possible through local, regional and global anticolonial politics, even as it reproduced colonial ways of governing that continue to reverberate into Egypt's present, this interdisciplinary study thinks through questions of traveling theory, global politics, and resistance and revolution in the postcolonial world.

Exploring the intersections of visual culture, design and politics in Beirut from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, this compelling interdisciplinary study critically examines a global conjuncture in Lebanon's history, marked by anticolonial struggle and complicated by a Cold War order. Against a celebratory reminiscence of the 'golden years', Beirut's long 1960s is conceived of as a liminal juncture, an anxious time and space when the city held out promises at once politically radical and radically cosmopolitan. Zeina Maasri examines the transnational circuits that animated Arab modernist pursuits, shedding light on key cultural transformations that saw Beirut develop as a Mediterranean site of tourism and leisure, a nexus between modern art and pan-Arab publishing and, through the rise of the Palestinian Resistance, a node in revolutionary anti-imperialism. Drawing on uncharted archives of printed media this book expands the scope of historical analysis of the postcolonial Arab East.

News 'fixers' are translators and guides who assist foreign journalists. Sometimes key contributors to bold, original reporting and other times key facilitators of homogeneity and groupthink in the news media, they play the difficult but powerful role of broker between worlds, shaping the creation of knowledge from behind the scenes. In Fixing Stories, Noah Amir Arjomand reflects on the nature of news production and cross-cultural mediation. Based on human stories drawn from three years of field research in Turkey, this book unfolds as a series of narratives of fixers' career trajectories during a period when the international media spotlight shone on Turkey and Syria. From the Syrian Civil War, Gezi Park protest movement, rise of authoritarianism in Turkey and of ISIS in Syria, to the rekindling of conflict in both countries' Kurdish regions and Turkey's 2016 coup attempt, Arjomand brings to light vivid personal accounts and insider perspectives on world-shaking events alongside analysis of the role fixers have played in bringing news of Turkey and Syria to international audiences.

Tehran, the capital of Iran since the late eighteenth century, is now one of the largest cities in the Middle East. Exploring Tehran's development from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi paints a vibrant picture of a city undergoing rapid and dynamic social transformation. Rezvani Naraghi demonstrates that this shift was the product of a developing discourse around spatial knowledge, in which the West became the model for the social practices of the state and sections of Iranian society. As traditional social spaces, such as coffee houses, bathhouses, and mosques, were replaced by European-style cafes, theatres, and sports clubs, Tehran and its people were irreversibly altered. Using an array of archival sources, Rezvani Naraghi stresses the agency of everyday inhabitants in shaping urban change. This enlightening history not only allows us to better understand the contours of contemporary Tehran, but to develop a new way of imagining, talking about, and building 'the city'.

Tehran, the capital of Iran since the late eighteenth century, is now one of the largest cities in the Middle East. Exploring Tehran's development from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi paints a vibrant picture of a city undergoing rapid and dynamic social transformation. Rezvani Naraghi demonstrates that this shift was the product of a developing discourse around spatial knowledge, in which the West became the model for the social practices of the state and sections of Iranian society. As traditional social spaces, such as coffee houses, bathhouses, and mosques, were replaced by European-style cafes, theatres, and sports clubs, Tehran and its people were irreversibly altered. Using an array of archival sources, Rezvani Naraghi stresses the agency of everyday inhabitants in shaping urban change. This enlightening history not only allows us to better understand the contours of contemporary Tehran, but to develop a new way of imagining, talking about, and building 'the city'.

From the ninth to the nineteenth centuries, Persian was the pre-eminent language of learning far beyond Iran, stretching from the Balkans to China. In this book, Alexander Jabbari explores what became of this vast Persian literary heritage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Iran and South Asia, as nationalism took hold and the Persianate world fractured into nation-states. He shows how Iranians and South Asians drew from their shared past to produce a 'Persianate modernity', and create a modern genre, literary history. Drawing from both Persian and Urdu sources, Jabbari reveals the important role that South Asian Muslims played in developing Iranian intellectual and literary trends. Highlighting cultural exchange in the region, and the agency of Asian modernizers, Jabbari charts a new way forward for area studies and opens exciting possibilities for thinking about language and literature.

It is easy to forget, given the oppositional dynamic between Iran and the United States of the last 50 years, that these two countries once shared productive partnership. Tracing US-Iran relations over two turbulent centuries, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet considers when and how this relationship went awry. With careful attention to social and cultural as well as diplomatic developments, Kashani-Sabet shows that the rift did not originate in flashpoints of crisis, like the 1953 coup or the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but was instead long in the making. Drawing from a wealth of English and Persian-language sources, many of which were previously unavailable or unacknowledged, this book considers the relationship from the vantage point of Iranian society and the experiences of an evolving Iran that strived to accommodate American and great power politics. Following these two nations through wars, decolonization, and revolution, Kashani-Sabet presents an invaluable history of a diplomatic rivalry that informs geopolitics to this day.

It is easy to forget, given the oppositional dynamic between Iran and the United States of the last 50 years, that these two countries once shared productive partnership. Tracing US-Iran relations over two turbulent centuries, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet considers when and how this relationship went awry. With careful attention to social and cultural as well as diplomatic developments, Kashani-Sabet shows that the rift did not originate in flashpoints of crisis, like the 1953 coup or the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but was instead long in the making. Drawing from a wealth of English and Persian-language sources, many of which were previously unavailable or unacknowledged, this book considers the relationship from the vantage point of Iranian society and the experiences of an evolving Iran that strived to accommodate American and great power politics. Following these two nations through wars, decolonization, and revolution, Kashani-Sabet presents an invaluable history of a diplomatic rivalry that informs geopolitics to this day.

Modernist Iranian art represents a highly diverse field of cultural production deeply involved in discussing questions of modernity and modernization as practiced in Iran. This book investigates how artistic production and art criticism reflected upon the discourse about gharbzadegi (westoxification), the most substantial critique of Iran's adaptation of Western modernity, and ultimately proved to be a laboratory for the negotiation of an anti-colonial concept of an Iranian artistic modernity, which artists and critics envisioned as a significant other to Western colonial modernity. In this book, Katrin Nahidi revisits Iranian modernist art, aiming to explore a political and contextualized interpretation of modernism. Based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and archival research, Nahidi provides a history of modernist art production since the 1950s and reveals the complex political agency underlying art historiographical processes. Offering a key contribution to postcolonial art history, Nahidi shows how Iranian artistic modernity was used to flesh out anti-colonial concepts and ideas around Iranian national identity.

Modernist Iranian art represents a highly diverse field of cultural production deeply involved in discussing questions of modernity and modernization as practiced in Iran. This book investigates how artistic production and art criticism reflected upon the discourse about gharbzadegi (westoxification), the most substantial critique of Iran's adaptation of Western modernity, and ultimately proved to be a laboratory for the negotiation of an anti-colonial concept of an Iranian artistic modernity, which artists and critics envisioned as a significant other to Western colonial modernity. In this book, Katrin Nahidi revisits Iranian modernist art, aiming to explore a political and contextualized interpretation of modernism. Based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and archival research, Nahidi provides a history of modernist art production since the 1950s and reveals the complex political agency underlying art historiographical processes. Offering a key contribution to postcolonial art history, Nahidi shows how Iranian artistic modernity was used to flesh out anti-colonial concepts and ideas around Iranian national identity.

Mandatory Madness offers a new perspective on a pivotal period in the history of modern Palestine, by putting mental illness and the psychiatric encounters it engendered at the heart of the story. Through a careful and creative reading of an eclectic mix of archival and published material, Mandatory Madness reveals how a range of actors - British colonial officials, Zionist health workers, Arab doctors and nurses, and Palestinian families - responded to mental illness in the decades before 1948. Rather than a concern of European Jewish psychiatric experts alone, questions around the causes, nature, and treatment of mental illness were negotiated across diverse and sometimes surprising sites in mandate Palestine: not only in underfunded and overcrowded government mental hospitals and private Jewish clinics, certainly, but also in family homes and neighbourhood streets, in colonial courtrooms and prisons and census offices, and in the itineraries of shaykhs and patients alike as they crossed newly drawn borders within the Levant. Bringing together histories of medicine, colonialism, and the modern Middle East, Mandatory Madness highlights how the seemingly personal and private matter of mental illness generated distinctive forms of entanglement: between colonial state and society, Arabs and Jews, and Palestine and the wider region.

Mandatory Madness offers a new perspective on a pivotal period in the history of modern Palestine, by putting mental illness and the psychiatric encounters it engendered at the heart of the story. Through a careful and creative reading of an eclectic mix of archival and published material, Mandatory Madness reveals how a range of actors - British colonial officials, Zionist health workers, Arab doctors and nurses, and Palestinian families - responded to mental illness in the decades before 1948. Rather than a concern of European Jewish psychiatric experts alone, questions around the causes, nature, and treatment of mental illness were negotiated across diverse and sometimes surprising sites in mandate Palestine: not only in underfunded and overcrowded government mental hospitals and private Jewish clinics, certainly, but also in family homes and neighbourhood streets, in colonial courtrooms and prisons and census offices, and in the itineraries of shaykhs and patients alike as they crossed newly drawn borders within the Levant. Bringing together histories of medicine, colonialism, and the modern Middle East, Mandatory Madness highlights how the seemingly personal and private matter of mental illness generated distinctive forms of entanglement: between colonial state and society, Arabs and Jews, and Palestine and the wider region.

This book shifts the analysis of economic development in Oman from the traditional focus on oil to the perspective of labour. Focusing on the experiences of workers, jobseekers, and the governance of labour markets, Crystal A. Ennis offers a fresh perspective on regional development and rentier neoliberalism in the Gulf. Highlighting Oman's position within global capitalism, Ennis makes a compelling case for de-exceptionalising the Gulf, arguing that the region's labour markets are global and subject to similar pressures as other global economies. Moving beyond oil also allows Ennis to focus on the social conditions of Oman, where over sixty four percent of the population are under the age of thirty. Ennis offers a rich analysis of historical lineages of labour governance, class formation; and, following protests after 2011 as youth unemployment soared in the region, how authoritarian states react to public pressure and social unrest around perceived economic decline.

What does it mean for a government to declare its citizens 'dead' while they still live? Following the failed 2016 coup, the Turkish AKP government implemented sweeping powers against some 152,000 of its citizens. These Kanun hükmünde kararnameli ('emergency decreed') were dismissed from their positions and banned for life from public service. With their citizenship rights revoked, Seçkin Sertdemir argues these individuals were rendered into a state of 'civic death'. This study considers how these authoritarian securitisation methods took shape, shedding light on the lived experiences of targeted people. Bringing together approaches from political philosophy, social anthropology, and sociology, Sertdemir outlines the approaches and justifications used by the Turkish government to dismiss opponents, increase surveillance, and brand citizens as 'terrorists'. At the same time, extensive archival research and in-depth interviews bring focus to the impact of these measures on the lives of women, and the disabled and LGBTQ+ communities.

The political upheavals witnessed in North Africa during the 2011 Arab uprisings brought renewed attention to the region. This book focuses on the inconspicuous yet critical role of labor unions in shaping protest success (and failure) during this period. Drawing on a comparison between Tunisia and Morocco, Ashley Anderson connects the divergent protest strategies of each country to the varying levels of institutional incorporation and organizational cohesion developed by labor unions under authoritarian rule. Using material drawn from English, Arabic, and French news sources, archives and extensive interviews, Anderson demonstrates how Tunisia's exclusionary corporatist system enabled the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) to emerge as a powerful political actor, while Moroccan unions struggled to extract minimal concessions from the incumbent regime. By highlighting the interplay between authoritarian institutions, labor activism, and political reforms, this book sheds light on the challenges that labor organizations face in transforming their countries' political and economic future.

The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 brought exiles of Hussein's tyrannical reign flooding back to their native land, bringing with them the flavours and customs from adopted homes and with it sweeping, transnational power. 'Handing over power to the Iraqis' meant handing over power to the country's most elite transplants. Meanwhile, transnational diasporic activism and networks have simultaneously challenged state policies, buttressing the state apparatus through welfare provision and solidarity networks. How did the Iraqi diaspora achieve such a powerful position and shape the Iraqi state in 2003? What kind of state did they build? And what lessons can be learnt from the Iraqi diaspora for understanding Iraqi nationhood and statehood today? This study explores these questions, drawing on interviews with a wide range of actors to offer a pertinent insight into the critical role of diaspora in shaping the evolution of homeland states under modern processes of globalisation.

How did steam transportation and print culture reshape the Ottoman Empire's centre-periphery relations in the nineteenth century? Challenging the Caliphate offers a fresh perspective on modernization in the Muslim world, exploring how these developments in infrastructure, technology, and communications impacted ideas of the Caliphate, Wahhabism, and Mahdism. Through rich archival research and microhistorical examples, Ömer Koçyiğit demonstrates how new technologies influenced political authority, religious movements, and the spread of ideas. Koçyiğit further explores how the Ottoman Empire dealt with the rise of the Wahhabi movement in the Najd and the Mahdi movement in Sudan. This study situates the Ottoman experience within global transformations, offering a deeper understanding of state, resistance, and connectivity while highlighting how emerging technologies shaped the modern Muslim world.

Why does the state matter to its people? How do people know and experience the state? And how did the state come to be both desired and dreaded by its subjects? This study offers a historically grounded social theoretical account of state consolidation in Iraq, from the foundation of the country as a League of Nations British Mandate in 1921 through to the post-2003 era. Through analysis of key historical episodes of state consolidation (and fragmentation) during the past century, Nida Alahmad argues that consolidation rests on two sequential and interdependent factors. First, domination: the state's capacity to dominate land and population. Second, legitimation: whereby the state is accepted and expected by the population to be the final arbitrator of collective life based on common principles. Moving between intellectual traditions and disciplines, Alahmad demonstrates that a theorization of state consolidation is a theorization of the modern state.

Why does the state matter to its people? How do people know and experience the state? And how did the state come to be both desired and dreaded by its subjects? This study offers a historically grounded social theoretical account of state consolidation in Iraq, from the foundation of the country as a League of Nations British Mandate in 1921 through to the post-2003 era. Through analysis of key historical episodes of state consolidation (and fragmentation) during the past century, Nida Alahmad argues that consolidation rests on two sequential and interdependent factors. First, domination: the state's capacity to dominate land and population. Second, legitimation: whereby the state is accepted and expected by the population to be the final arbitrator of collective life based on common principles. Moving between intellectual traditions and disciplines, Alahmad demonstrates that a theorization of state consolidation is a theorization of the modern state.

In the wake of the 2011 uprising in Syria, a number of Syrian intellectuals were forced into exile. Many of these intellectuals played a crucial role in mobilising people in the early days of the movement, but once in exile an irreconcilable tension emerged between their revolutionary narratives and the violent reality on the ground. Zeina Al Azmeh explores this tension, shedding light on whether and how exile influenced narratives, strategies, and political agency. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Paris and Berlin, Al Azmeh examines how writers and artists work to reconcile revolutionary ideals with the realities of war and displacement. Bringing together insights from cultural sociology, postcolonial thought, and migration studies, Syrian Intellectuals in Exile provides new analytical tools for understanding the intersection of intellectual work and social movements. This study blends empirical research with personal narratives, offering a timely reflection on exile, memory, and the limits of intellectual activism.

In a region known for its export of oil, Monarchies of Extraction explores how the Gulf states are simultaneously defined by the importation of food. Charting the economics and politics of the Gulf through an examination of its food system, Christian Henderson demonstrates how these states constitute a distinct social metabolism. Starting with the pre-oil phase, this book examines the politics of agrarian change in the Gulf. In the contemporary period, Henderson considers the way that the Gulf states represent 'inverted farms', where the import of prodigious quantities of agricultural commodities has enabled these economies to overcome their lack of arable land. As a result of this trade, states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have developed their own agribusiness sectors. Henderson further shows how food and consumption in the Gulf states constitute political questions of diet, sustainability, and boycott.

In a region known for its export of oil, Monarchies of Extraction explores how the Gulf states are simultaneously defined by the importation of food. Charting the economics and politics of the Gulf through an examination of its food system, Christian Henderson demonstrates how these states constitute a distinct social metabolism. Starting with the pre-oil phase, this book examines the politics of agrarian change in the Gulf. In the contemporary period, Henderson considers the way that the Gulf states represent 'inverted farms', where the import of prodigious quantities of agricultural commodities has enabled these economies to overcome their lack of arable land. As a result of this trade, states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have developed their own agribusiness sectors. Henderson further shows how food and consumption in the Gulf states constitute political questions of diet, sustainability, and boycott.

In the wake of independence from French colonialism, a generation of North African nationalist leaders and progressive thinkers reimagined their futures through essays, periodicals, and publishing networks. Leaping Decolonization explores how these debates unfolded from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, when intellectuals across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia challenged colonial legacies, questioned the meaning of progress, and redefined the role of tradition in their societies. Idriss Jebari constructs a transnational intellectual history grounded in the lived experience of the region's post-colonial transformations. It is organized in a series of 'debates' on the meaning of decolonization, ranging from national culture to social emancipation. This study further sheds light on how radical thought was produced under authoritarianism, seeking to capture the aspirations of youth movements, and how North Africa's decolonization connects with other historical experiences. In doing so, Jebari addresses ongoing questions about the meaning of global history and the voices of intellectual peripheries from the Global South on the world stage.

The presence of Shiʿite communities in Western Europe dates to the late nineteenth century, with Britain as the primary destination for immigration, as well as notable communities developing in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Exploring selected encounters of Twelver Shiʿite Muslims with the European West, this study examines local and transnational religious organization to assess socio-political integration. Its central thesis defines European Shiʿism through peripheral engagement and religious retention. Building on a range of language sources, interviews with Shiʿite spokesmen and fieldwork in Iran, Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany, Matthijs van den Bos identifies European Shiʿism with a religious mode of engagement involving hierarchization of collective self and other identities. Shiʿite parties with greater distance to high politico-religious authorities abroad are seen more likely to engage in cultural exchange with their European milieu. On one side stand ethnically varied Shiʿite organizations with limited engagement of others in Europe. The other shows civic outreach, ritual transformation, and integrationist theology.

The presence of Shiʿite communities in Western Europe dates to the late nineteenth century, with Britain as the primary destination for immigration, as well as notable communities developing in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Exploring selected encounters of Twelver Shiʿite Muslims with the European West, this study examines local and transnational religious organization to assess socio-political integration. Its central thesis defines European Shiʿism through peripheral engagement and religious retention. Building on a range of language sources, interviews with Shiʿite spokesmen and fieldwork in Iran, Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany, Matthijs van den Bos identifies European Shiʿism with a religious mode of engagement involving hierarchization of collective self and other identities. Shiʿite parties with greater distance to high politico-religious authorities abroad are seen more likely to engage in cultural exchange with their European milieu. On one side stand ethnically varied Shiʿite organizations with limited engagement of others in Europe. The other shows civic outreach, ritual transformation, and integrationist theology.

In the years surrounding the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, major non-Muslim communities of Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, and Bahaʾis negotiated identities, rights, and power structures. Using primary documents from Iranian, British, and French archives, Saghar Sadeghian sheds light on an underexplored aspect of Iranian and Middle Eastern history and offers a comparative view of these communities during the late Qajar era. This study draws on theories from Foucault, Agamben, and Lefebvre, providing an interdisciplinary analysis that connects history and sociology. The position of non-Muslims in Iranian society created heterotopias for the Muslim majority, yet the fluid identities blurred boundaries and bent regulations. Sadeghian explores the roles of non-Muslims in the revolution, demonstrating the impacts on these groups at the intersection of religion, economy, and politics.

In the years surrounding the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, major non-Muslim communities of Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, and Bahaʾis negotiated identities, rights, and power structures. Using primary documents from Iranian, British, and French archives, Saghar Sadeghian sheds light on an underexplored aspect of Iranian and Middle Eastern history and offers a comparative view of these communities during the late Qajar era. This study draws on theories from Foucault, Agamben, and Lefebvre, providing an interdisciplinary analysis that connects history and sociology. The position of non-Muslims in Iranian society created heterotopias for the Muslim majority, yet the fluid identities blurred boundaries and bent regulations. Sadeghian explores the roles of non-Muslims in the revolution, demonstrating the impacts on these groups at the intersection of religion, economy, and politics.

After the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian state became an ideological project promoted by national cultural and media institutions. Focusing particularly on the years under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954-1970), Chihab El Khachab uses official written and visual sources produced by different governmental departments to show how low- and mid-ranking bureaucrats represented and embodied the Egyptian state through a praxis of 'achievement' (ingāz, pl. ingazāt). This study demonstrates how a successful anti-colonial nationalist movement built its own state apparatus. El Khachab argues that the state's 'achievements' are neither the tangible outcome of governmental work nor the self-evident metrics needed to evaluate national progress, but an ideological category deployed by bureaucrats. Conceiving achievements in this way allows us to understand how everyday bureaucratic work represents and embodies 'the state', and why this idea remains an important force in contemporary Egypt.

After the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian state became an ideological project promoted by national cultural and media institutions. Focusing particularly on the years under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954-1970), Chihab El Khachab uses official written and visual sources produced by different governmental departments to show how low- and mid-ranking bureaucrats represented and embodied the Egyptian state through a praxis of 'achievement' (ingāz, pl. ingazāt). This study demonstrates how a successful anti-colonial nationalist movement built its own state apparatus. El Khachab argues that the state's 'achievements' are neither the tangible outcome of governmental work nor the self-evident metrics needed to evaluate national progress, but an ideological category deployed by bureaucrats. Conceiving achievements in this way allows us to understand how everyday bureaucratic work represents and embodies 'the state', and why this idea remains an important force in contemporary Egypt.