Live with ASI: Episode 3.4 Digest — December 2022

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Dec 21, 2022

Live with ASI: Episode 3.4 Digest — December 2022

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Live with ASI is a monthly broadcast program that showcases recently published content from the Arab Studies Institute’s various branches. This content includes articles, reviews, pedagogical resources, podcasts, and more. Also featured in the broadcast are brand new interviews and discussions with authors and contributors.

This month, co-hosts MK Smith and Bassam Haddad discussed impressions in the World Cup in Qatar and the recent COP27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

They also highlighted a new podcast with episodes on the uprising in Iran and Alaa Abdelfattah’s imprisonment in Egypt, new episodes of the Connections Podcast and Transnational Times Podcast, debriefed the MESA 2022 conference, discussed the new Arab Studies Journal Fall 2022 Issue, in addition to new texts out now, pedagogy, and must-read recommendations. 

The episode also featured interviews with Peyman Jafari, Adel Iskandar, Carly Krakow, Noura Erakat, and Tania Khoury.

Flow Podcast (3:50)


Last month, Bassam debuted a new podcast, titled “Flow,” which aims to defy Youtube's algorithm by not focusing on just one thing to the exclusion of others. The show provides stimulating conversations about our world, with focus on the Middle East and the United States, including a variety of topics related to politics, culture, art, technology, wellness, and film.

In one episode, Bassam interviewed human rights defender and journalist Hossam Bahgat on the politics of Alaa Abdelfattah’s imprisonment in Egypt, the global attention which the campaign to free Alaa has received.

In another episode, Bassam interviewed Peyman Jafari, who is Assistant Professor of History and International Relations at the College of William and Mary, on the protests in Iran. They discussed why these protests are different from previous years, how the state is reacting, what role international forces play, how they compare to Iran’s 1979 revolution and the Arab revolutions of 2011, and where they might be heading to. 

Peyman Jafari discussed the progression in the Iranian state’s response to protests in recent weeks, and the implications of the Iranian team’s performance in the World Cup.
 

Connections Podcast (12:58)


Mouin Rabbani was incredibly busy last month, putting out four new episodes of the Connections Podcast. For those that don’t know, Connections combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship to offer timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. 

The episodes covered the recent Israeli elections, the recent US mid term elections, the legal campaign and torture in the US, and Elon Musk’s brilliant tenure as Twitter executive. 

Mouin Rabbani breaks down his recent interviews for Connections Podcast.
 

MESA 2022 (21:08)


In the first weekend of December, we had the pleasure of attending the Middle East Studies Association’s 56th annual meeting in Denver. ASI had a strong showing at the conference, with our team members participating in eleven panels. We won’t be able to go in depth, but here’s a quick list:

Gender, Capitalism, Law, and Empire: A Tribute to Judith Tucker

20 Years Since 'Rule of Experts': Current Paths in the Study of Technopolitics

Roundtable on Sextarianism Organized by Sherene Seikaly 

Thinking with Iraq on Climate Change

Strategies of Authoritarian Regimes

Book Roundtable on The Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States

The Maghreb Archiving Project

Officers and Entertainment: Popular Culture and the State in Egypt

The Casual Consumption of the Middle East: The Region's (Re-)Construction in Entertainment

(Re)producing Rural Life: Critical Agrarian Perspectives of Labor in the MENA

Climate, Water, and Ecology

Jadaliyya Co-Editor Adel Iskandar discusses some takeaways from the MESA conference, and reflects with MK and Bassam.
 

NEWTON (31:35)


Tadween Publishing is excited to announce the near-release of “The Search for Power,” a new book by Jadaliyya Co-Editor Ziad Abu-Rish and Tania El-Khoury, who is Distinguished Artist in Residence of Theater and Performance and Director of the Center for Human Rights & the Arts at Bard College. This book follows their journey to document the history of electricity black-outs in Lebanon as their paper trail took them across five different countries and as far back as 1906.

Bassam pre-recorded an interview with Tania, which was shown during the show.

Tania Khoury discusses her recent book, “The Search for Power,” and the story behind this book’s production.
 

Transnational Times Podcast (35:27)


We have a new episode of the Transnational Podcast. 

If you’re not familiar, Transnational Times which is co-hosted by Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat is a series that seeks to examine the activist praxis, intellectual engagements, historical continuities, and abundant possibilities of transnational solidarities today. The show features activists on the ground as well as scholars, public intellectuals, and journalists committed to the practice and/or study of transnationalism.

In the latest episode, Noura Interviews Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly about her new book, “Organize, Fight, Win.” This text brings together three decades of Black Communist women’s political writings. In doing so, it highlights the link between Communism and Black liberation. Likewise, it makes clear how Black women fundamentally shaped, and were shaped by, Communist praxis in the twentieth century. 

Noura Erakat discusses key takeaways from her conversation with Dr. CBS, including the limitations and strengths of the frameworks of intersectionality, racial capitalism, and other political projects, and much more. 
 

COP27 (46:15)


Last month, Egypt hosted the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, for COP27 for short. According to their website, this conference is a “golden opportunity for all stakeholders to rise to the occasion and tackle effectively the global challenge of climate change facilitated by Egypt on the African continent.” 

Carly Krakow, who is the Managing Editor for Special Projects and Environment Page Co-Editor at Jadaliyya, attended this conference in all its contradictions and glory, and in a moment we’ll have her on to share some of her key takeaways.

Carly Krakow returned to the show to share her experience and insights gained from attending the recent COP27 conference in Egypt, and discussed implications moving forward for environmentalism.
 

Arab Studies Journal Fall 2022 Issue (57:27)


The Editors of the Arab Studies Journal are proud to present the Fall 2022 Issue, available now. This issue consists of a collection of articles, essays, and reviews that provide new perspectives on vital questions of capitalism, nationalism, and the environment.

This issue also features the Arab Studies Journal’s second essays section, titled “titled “Critical Environmental Perspectives in Middle East Studies,” which explores how climate and environmental crises shape the conditions of possibility for research and analysis on and in the Middle East and North Africa.

As always, the issue concludes with an insightful and robust reviews section. The works under review explore critical works on empire, disability, and modernity, representing the breadth of contemporary studies of a dynamically changing region.

Pedagogy (59:19)


It was a busy month for the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative. They put out the final two installments of the of the six-part Arab Uprisings in Peer-Reviewed Articles series, which presents peer-reviewed articles concerned with the Arab uprisings published in 2010-2020 from our peer-reviewed articles database. The first of the final two installments covers Geopolitical Implications & Foreign Interests, and the final installment covers Regional/International Networks & Systems.

MESPI also published a new installment of the Engaging Books Series. For those that don’t know, Engaging Books is a monthly series featuring new and forthcoming books in Middle East Studies from publishers around the globe. Each installment highlights a trending topic in the MENA publishing world and includes excerpts from the selected volumes.This installment involves a selection of fiction from Archipelago Books. Other publishers’ books will follow on a monthly basis.

Also last month, MESPI put out a new Peer-Reviewed Articles Review, which is a series that presents a collection of journals and their articles concerned with the Middle East and Arab world. This installment is the first part covering Summer 2021, with more to follow.

Finally, we have a new Essential Readings collection compiled by Aya Nassar, titled “Cities and Materiality: The Making and Unmaking of Urban Space in the Middle East and North Africa.”

World Cup Qatar 2022 (1:01:01)


We recently put out a new episode of the Real Football Podcast, where we took one last glance under the microscope before the World Cup began. We tried to predict dark horse success, as well as crushing failure under the weight of expectations. We also discussed the injuries that will crush the dreams of nations before a ball is kicked, why a November World Cup should never happen again, and the latest FIFA politics controversy, as well as the plight of workers in Doha.

To be honest, though, this has been an amazing world cup. Our colleague and fellow Jadaliyya Co-Editor Abdullah Al-Arian wrote a piece for the New York Times detailing some of the hypocrisies present in much of the discourse criticizing this World Cup, and he’s discussed this and the ways in which orientalist perceptions have colored this discourse in a number of interviews, such as Democracy Now a few days ago.

NADYA: He would have joined us on the show but he’s attending the Andalusian showdown between Morocco and Spain. 

Jadaliyya Co-Editor Abdullah Al-Arian made a surprise, last-minute appearance on the show, having just witnessed Morocco’s round-of-16 victory against Spain live in Doha, to share immediate reactions and reflections on the World Cup thus far.
 

Must-Reads (1:16:05)


In a piece titled “Resolving UNRWA’s Financial Crisis is Possible with a Fundamental Change in Approach in Vision,” co-authored by Francesca Albanese, Jalal Al Husseini, Diana Buttu, Michael Dumper, Ardi Imseis, Damiam Lilly, and Lex Tekkenberg, and myself, we argue for a much-needed shift in UNRWA’s work. 

We advocate that this shift should be “from providing support for humanitarian needs and basic human development, to a comprehensive response on all aspects of the Palestinian refugee question, including a more expanded focus on protection and the pursuit of durable solutions.”

In a piece titled “Growing Utopian Crack,” Jan Yasin Sunca offers reflections on the decade since the Rojava Revolution in the Kurdish areas of northern and northeastern Syria. Sunca argues that the utopianism of the revolution results from historical exigency which, in turn, bridges the gap between the realness of the revolution and the utopian freedoms that it promises.

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Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412