Region

Remembering Anthony Shadid

His untimely death silences one of the best Middle East reporters.  We at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, along with the global Middle East Studies community, mourn the loss of the brilliant, gifted Anthony Shadid, whose reporting of the Middle East over the past two decades enlightened all of us.  Perhaps he was not well known in Southeast Asia, except for readers of The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Boston Globe. But Shadid was a “must” for anybody seriously following the often bloody events in our region. The Middle East is a dangerous beat for journalists. Anthony, quietly fearless, braved ...

New Texts Out Now: Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao, Women's Rights, Muslim Family Law, and the Politics of Consent

Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao, editors, Women’s Rights, Muslim Family Law, and the Politics of Consent. Special issue of SOCIALDIFFERENCE-ONLINE (December 2011). [SOCIALDIFFERENCE-ONLINE is a publication of the Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference at Columbia University, an advanced study center that promotes innovative interdisciplinary scholarship on the role of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and race in global dynamics of power and inequality.] Jadaliyya (J): What made you organize the workshop that led to this special issue? Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao (LA-L and AR): The workshop grew out of a project called “Who’s Afraid of Sharia?” that we ...

What Is Cultural Terrorism?

As a well disciplined anthropologist I have learned to be weary of the word “culture.” In fact, it is difficult for me to write the word without using scare quotes. But after Lebanese boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists scored an important victory last month, the word has been everywhere in my online universe. Following BDS actions that highlighted Lara Fabian's recent Israeli Independence Day (which marks the Palestinian naqba) performance, Fabian cancelled her planned concert at the Casino du Liban. In response to her cancellation, an online group called Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon (SCTL) went into overdrive. Members of the group were convinced ...

Theses on the "Arab Spring"

The gigantic upheaval that is shaking the entire Arab world since its initial tremors started in Tunisia on 17 December 2010 was determined by a long and deep accumulation of explosive factors: the lack of economic growth, massive unemployment (the highest average rate of all world regions), widespread endemic corruption, huge social inequalities, despotic governments void of democratic legitimacy, citizens treated as servile subjects, etc. The mass of people who entered into action across the Arab region is a composite, encompassing a wide range of social layers and categories that are affected to various degrees by elements of this complex set of determining ...

Job Announcement: MENA Regional Program Director (Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO)

The Solidarity Center, founded in 1997 by the AFL-CIO to tackle the enormous challenges workers face in the global economy, now works with union and community group partners in more than 60 countries through a network of 26 field offices. This not-for-profit organization offers education, training, research, legal support, and organizing assistance to help build strong and effective trade unions and other worker organizations and more just and equitable societies. Its programs promote democratic rights and respect for workers; raise public awareness about abuses of the world’s most vulnerable workers; and, above all, help the world’s workers secure a voice in their ...

Jadaliyya Launches O.M.A.R. Page: On Media and Reporting

Jadaliyya is hereby launching its new On Media and Reporting (O.M.A.R.) page. You can access the page here. We will soon be issuing a Call for Reports/Papers/Interviews/Videos that address reporting on the region. This effort is intended to analyze critically the lenses through which the region and various related topics/parts are portrayed/represented/reported in all media, locally, regionally, and globally, with emphasis on the media in the Mlddle East, Europe, and the United States. We are accepting submissions at post@jadaliyya.com. Our first bouquet of articles addresses, among other topics, blogging in the Arab Gulf, the media in Egypt after the revolution, ...

Arab League Man

Call for Submissions: Malafat Naqdiyya

NAAS (Network of Arab Arthouse Screens), a network of independent art-house cinemas and cultural institutions in the Middle East, is launching Malafat Naqdiyya, an English/Arabic e-zine dedicated solely to writing on world cinema. NAAS was founded by ArteEast (a New York based non-profit that promotes the work of contemporary Middle Eastern artists) in collaboration with a number of art-house theaters and cine clubs in the Middle East. Its members are united by the shared desire to develop cinema culture across the Arab world by bringing the best of local, regional and world cinema to their large combined audiences. While the region has been actively producing ...

Announcing the Arab Council for the Social Sciences

A new arrival on the Arab research landscape is the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), which was recently legally established (in March 2011) as a regional, independent, non-profit organization headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon. The Council is dedicated to strengthening social science research and research capacity in the Arab world. It aims to promote a strong and vibrant social science community by facilitating and supporting networking and the collaborative production of knowledge between individuals and institutions within the region and beyond. Its structure includes a General Assembly, an elected Board of Trustees and a Secretariat headed by the Director ...

Sovereign Wealth and Ruler Loot

The mobility of capital, depending on one’s position, is a virtue or a vice. Since the onset of the Arab Spring, a lot of money has been moving in, out, and around the Middle East. In the classic liberal world, the mobility of money is governed by the market. In the real world however, politics has a say. Some of these politics have been about fear as Saudi and Emirati rulers have reportedly opened their checkbooks to assuage pressures on favored rulers and foment trouble for others. These moves did not come as much of a surprise. But somewhat more unexpected and commented upon by the media have been the responses of Western authorities essentially treating Libya’s ...