Middle East

The Ottoman Gulf

This 1997 book was written by a professor based in Bulgaria. It seeks to answer the question of why the Ottoman rule rose and fell in the Arabian Gulf. “The Ottoman Gulf – The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar”, published by Columbia University Press, is a unique contribution in that its sources are […]

Tags: #History #Kuwait #Middle East #Ottoman #Qatar

Thought Provokers
Arabia Felix

Arabia Felix

There was a time when basic science research projects took years to prepare for, even more years to undertake, and with high risks of injury of death. “Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767” by Thorkild Hansen (1962 Danish, 1964 English) documents one such journey, apparently Europe’s first to the south of Arabia. The journey […]

Tags: #Academia #Arabia Felix #Arabian Gulf #Danish #Middle East

Uncategorized
God’s Unruly Friends

God’s Unruly Friends

I discovered “God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Middle Period 1200-1550” (2006) by Ahmet Karamustafa largely by accident (it was a footnote in another book I had read). The title got me, but it sat on the shelf for a while until I got to it. The book itself is quite short, the […]

Tags: #Dervish #Deviant #History #Middle East #Social Norms

Thought Provokers
Arab Development Denied

Arab Development Denied

I have covered many critical assessments of development on this blog. However, comparatively few have covered the Middle East and North Africa region. Was pleased to come across “Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment” by Ali Kadri (2015). The region has had diverse historical and contemporary experiences and I found several […]

Tags: #Ali Kadri #Arab Development Denied #Arab World #Middle East #North Africa

Thought Provokers
Sustainable Qatar

Sustainable Qatar

New OPEN ACCESS book Sustainable Qatar: Social, Political and Environmental Perspectives Available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-7398-7   Abstract: This open access book provides a topical overview of the key sustainability issues in Qatar, focusing on environmental sustainability from a socio-political perspective. The transition to a sustainable Qatar requires engagement with diverse areas of social-political, human, and environmental development. On the […]

Tags: #Middle East #Qatar #Sustainability #Sustainable Qatar #Transition

Research
Social Dictatorships

Social Dictatorships

What do some non-democratic governments have stronger social protection systems than others? That is the main questions attempted in the book “Social Dictatorships: The Political Economy of the Welfare State in the Middle East and North Africa” (2020) by Ferdinand Eibl (published by Oxford University Press). This book is largely an elaboration of a 2016 […]

Tags: #Authoritarian welfare states #Middle East #North Africa #Social Dictatorships #Welfare States

Thought Provokers

New Publication: Gulf Cooperation Council Countries andthe Global Land Grab

Cochrane, L. and Amery, H. (2017) Gulf Cooperation Council Countries and the Global Land Grab. Arab World Geographer 20(1): 17-41. Abstract: A rapid increase in large-scale land acquisitions associated with the food-commodity price spike in 2008 resulted in a flurry of journalistic, non-governmental organization, and academic publications. One of the primary narratives that emerged was that oil-rich […]

Tags: #Global land rush #Gulf cooperation council #Land Grab #Land grabbing #Middle East

Research

Post-doc: State and Disintegration in the Middle East

The CEU Center for Religious Studies and the Institute for Advanced Study at CEU announce the launch of “Striking from the Margins: Religion, State and Disintegration in the Middle East,” a two-year research project commencing in September 2016 with a major grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The research program will host host […]

Tags: #Marginality #Middle East #Politics #Religion #State

Jobs

PhD Studentship: Public History of the Middle East

The Public History program and the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at NC State University are looking for a Doctoral Candidate in the Public History of the Middle East to start in fall 2017 for a period of three years. Acceptance into the program includes a competitive stipend, full tuition waiver, and health coverage. […]

Tags: #Anthropology #Culture #Ethnography #History #Middle East

Jobs

Funding: Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in the Middle East

The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at the Georgetown University School ‎of Foreign Service in Qatar invites proposals from scholars and researchers interested in ‎conducting original research on the topic of “Mobility, Displacement and Forced Migration in the Middle East.”‎ CIRS will award research grants to support fieldwork, original empirical research, and analysis on […]

Tags: #Displacement #Forced Migration #Middle East #Migration #Mobility

Jobs