Announcing JadMag Issue 7.1 (Jadaliyya in Print)

Announcing JadMag Issue 7.1 (Jadaliyya in Print)

Announcing JadMag Issue 7.1 (Jadaliyya in Print)

By : Tadween Editors

We are excited to announce the third issue of the new JadMag (Jadaliyya in Print). In just one year since its launch, we are attracting more authors and building momentum towards significantly increasing its exclusive content.

In a groundbreaking article, anthropologist Julia Elyachar poses important provocations for political economy of the Middle East. In it she traces the relationship between khans, funduqs, and caravanserai in the Levant and factories on the Malabar Coast to the rise of “the factory” in England in the sixteenth century. By “establishing a new historical geography of the factory,” Elyachar pushes us to rethink the factory and the violence of accumulation of past and present.

This issue also features a special bundle on the uprisings in Algeria and Sudan, providing incisive analysis of the movements and connecting them to other movements for change in North Africa. In the bundle’s centerpiece article, Thomas Serres illustrates how the current political economy of Algeria must be understood within a political framework that emerged in the wake of independence.

Finally, the issue includes a diverse array of articles, interviews, reviews, and archival pieces on topics ranging from electricity in Lebanon, climate change in Egypt, and Hashemite rule in Jordan to the role of law in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and nineteenth-century emigration from the Levant. 

You can order the newest issue of JadMag or subscribe at www.tadweenpublishing.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS


ARTICLES 


A Few Things Wrong with Political Economy of the Middle East (or, On Factories of the Semi-Civilized)

Julia Elyachar

Understanding the Protests in Algeria and Sudan

The Sun Sets on Algeria’s Crony Capitalists
Thomas Serres

The Laughter of Dignity: Comedy and Dissent in the Algerian Popular Protests
Hiyem Cheurfa

Algeria, Where is Your African Revolution?
Thomas Serres

Quick Thoughts: Historical Memory in Algeria’s Current Protests
Muriam Haleh Davis

The New Mobilization Dynamics of Sudan’s Popular Uprising: The Virtue of Learning from the Past
Khalid Medani

A Hirak Glossary: Terms from Algeria and Morocco
Muriam Haleh Davis, Hiyem Cheurfa, and Thomas Serres

The Orientalist Gaze in U.S. Textbooks: Representing Palestinians in History Education
Daniel Osborn

Civilian Versus Militant: Kashmir, Islam, and the Brewing IndoPak War
Zunaira Komal

Negotiating Chaldean Resettlement El Cajon, California
Brittany Dawson

Archaeologists for Human Rights in Turkey
Dies van der Linde

PEDAGOGY 


Roundtable on the Past and Present of Electricity in Lebanon

Ziad Abu-Rish, Owain Lawson, Joanne Nucho, Eric Verdeil, and Dana Abi Ghanem

Essential Readings: Emigration from the Levant, 1870–1930: A Primer in Mahjar Studies
Stacy D. Fahrenthold 

Essential Readings: Memory, Trauma, and Amazigh Activism in Contemporary Maghrebi Literature
Brahim el Guabli

Essential Readings: Hashemite Rule in Jordan
Pete Moore

ARABIC


جدي البوندي

Molly Crabapple 

ما لم يكتبه عبد الرحمن منيف
Yazan el-Haj

اليهودي والمسلم حين يتجاوران
Sinan Antoon

النفط السلاح الأهم حتى في هذا القرن
Wadood Hamad

في وداع الطيب تيزيني
Mohammed Saleh

REVIEWS 


Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (New Texts Out Now)

Noura Erakat 

For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (New Texts Out Now)
Hiba Bou Akar 

Misery in Hindsight: On Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum
Edwin Nasr

Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria (New Texts Out Now)
Donatella Della Ratta

INTERVIEWS


The Jewish Fedayeen: An Interview with William Nassar
Alexi Shalom

FROM THE ARCHIVES


The Violence of Climate Change in Egypt
Mika Minio-Paluello 

Saudi Arabia and the War of Legitimacy in Yemen
Lara Aryani

TRIBUTE


The Legacy of Asmahan Haddad and the Arab Studies Institute
Jadaliyya Editors

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Education in the Time of Virality

Widespread access to the internet has facilitated means of acquiring news and information at rates unseen in earlier eras. As individuals, we have the ability to post and spread political information, social commentary, and other thoughts at will. This has caused an information overload for users of social networking sites. In a fight for views, reposts, and clicks, creators, both corporate and not, have been forced to develop new tactics to inform their audiences. This response to a new mode of information consumption also forces a reconsideration of how we understand knowledge production. Much of the information put forth into the world is absorbed passively, such as through characters’ storylines in books, films, and television - and this information accumulates over a lifetime. What, then, happens when knowledge is actively consumed (as is done when reading, watching, or listening to news stories), but the manner through which the information is presented still conforms to the brevity generally associated with more passive knowledge intake?

Pew Research estimates that over 70% of Americans use their phone to read the news. This is nearly a 25% increase since 2013. The constant barrage of advertisements in online articles does not make consuming news easy to do on a phone, thereby forcing media outlets and their competitors to change and adopt new tactics. Applications such as Flipboard have tried to mitigate these frustrations by simply providing the full article without the ads on their own platform, but many people still turn to sources like The Skimm. In attempting to distill a day’s worth of news coverage on domestic affairs, foreign affairs, pop culture, and sports into a few quips, undeniably both texture and nuance are lost. To compete with these services, CNN, the New York Times, and other mainstream news sources are doing the same and producing articles that give the, “Top 5 News Moments to Start Your Day,” or a, “Daily Brief.” Of course, looking at the language differences between the New York Times daily summary versus The Skimm’s, one can tell which is a more comprehensive news source. Even so, slashing the word count still takes a toll on clearly informing the public. The question then becomes, after quickly skimming through these summaries, are people doing more readings to cover what was lost? Or has “the brief” become the new standard for knowledge production and awareness?

It is more than likely that a significant portion of The Skimm’s subscribers do go on to read the full article linked in the email, but the growing popularity of similarly quick and fast news sources has had an impact on how much information viewers and readers actually understand. Between 2011 and 2014, The Skimm was founded, along with AJ+, Now This, Upworthy, and BuzzFeed News’ more serious journalism section. Undeniably, all of these sources produce and publish very important information, and make this information accessible to a larger audience. However, their production and marketing strategies hinge upon condensing very nuanced topics into videos that are, on average, only seven minutes long, as well as optimizing their materials for social media audiences. Now, it is ridiculous to expect highly textured and complicated issues to be thoroughly represented in these videos or posts. Even research based texts do not touch upon all of the complexities of a topic. The problems arise when looking at how viewers perceive themselves and their level of knowledge after actively searching out the products of, for example, AJ+ and Buzzfeed, for information. Carefully refining their materials to fit the shortened attention span of people scrolling through Facebook, social media news organizations have found their niche audience. Their products provide a simple way to deliver information to those who want gather knowledge on the “hot topics of today,” but do not what to do the leg work to be truly informed. These videos are spread throughout Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms in a manner that says, “Watch this, and you will know what is going on in the world.”

Understanding how information is being pushed out into the world is almost as important as the content of the information. None of these outlets claim to provide comprehensive knowledge, but in being popular sites for information, the question becomes: do they have a responsibility to encourage their viewers to continue to inform themselves about these issues? Having a well-informed society is phenomenal, but if in informing society we are also forever altering how we consume knowledge to favor brevity over nuance, what consequences could come with this change? We must ensure that the consumption of these videos does not become a license for people to see themselves as truly informed and thus appropriate for them to take the microphones at protests and speak over those who have a solid and textured understanding of the issues. Information content is incredibly important, as is spreading knowledge, and AJ+, Now This, and the like have become important role models in showing how issues should be accessible to everyone and not clouted in jargon. But we must simultaneously consider the unintended side effects that these styles of videos have on knowledge production. Ultimately, it is a mutual effort. Just as producers must be watchful of their content and method of dissemination, we as consumers must be mindful of how we digest and understand the news we take in.


[This article was published originally Tadween`s Al-Diwan blog by Diwan`s editor, Mekarem Eljamal.]