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Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan

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... European powers erected nations and set artificial borders that did not reflect the socioeconomic and political reality of the region. These fake nations were frequently governed by repressive regimes that the colonial powers established and upheld, favouring their interests and the interests of local elites while restricting popular participation in politics (Massad, 2001) [13] . Establishing these authoritarian governments was frequently portrayed as necessary for preserving peace and stability in the area. ...
... European powers erected nations and set artificial borders that did not reflect the socioeconomic and political reality of the region. These fake nations were frequently governed by repressive regimes that the colonial powers established and upheld, favouring their interests and the interests of local elites while restricting popular participation in politics (Massad, 2001) [13] . Establishing these authoritarian governments was frequently portrayed as necessary for preserving peace and stability in the area. ...
... The colonial powers' policies and practices shattered the area's social and cultural fabric as well as its economic institutions. New classes of elites were more closely connected with colonial objectives and eventually rose to power in the newly independent governments; as a result, they were frequently drawn from minority or nonindigenous communities (Massad, 2001) [13] . Additionally, colonial powers often used authoritarian governmental systems to uphold their authority over the area while attempting to quell any criticism or challenge to their reign. ...
Article
A critical analysis of the authoritarianism that has persisted in the Middle East is presented in this research article. There are a number of elements that have been identified as contributing to its existence. The remains of colonialism, the intricacies of movements, the difficulties connected with ethnic diversity, and the ramifications of military operations are all examples of these concerns. Even though there have been efforts made to advance democratic principles, these impediments continue to impede progress. Specifically, the study underlines the possibilities for women's empowerment and emphasises the significance of adopting nuanced solutions. It also advises tackling the remaining legacies of colonialism and re-evaluating the role that the military plays in landscapes. Additional suggestions are included. The purpose of this article is to strengthen our understanding of the obstacles that are preventing progress in the Middle East and to provide suggestions for a meaningful way forward. This will be accomplished by presenting these various methods.
... The centerpiece of the critique is the notion of Orientalism, which Said describes as "a style of thought based upon an ontological and ethical discriminations onto which, in the manner of our old oriental carpets, large portions of the non-European world were mapped" (Said 1978, 3). This has opened the Arab world including Palestinians to Orientalism, a prejudicial representation of Arabs as the Other, as people who are subjugated by their inherent barbarity, irrationality and powerlessness (Massad, 2000). ...
... Furthermore, much of what has been said about Orientalism can be used to understand the historical roots of the biases and prejudices that continue in mainstream Western discourses concerning Palestinians. In some ways, it is critical to pay attention to Orientalist narratives of dissent, which reinforced stereotypes of the other and problematic relationships within the conflict, thereby subverting Orientalist authorities and reconstructing discourse on a more progressive level (Massad, 2000;Khalidi, 2020). Said's work also addresses problems about the subject and subjectivity that can be reduced to discursive processes of positioning, with a focus on revoice-ment as a technique for opposing Palestinian sufferings and histories, as well as their claim to narrative autonomy. ...
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This article explores Amartya Sen's 'capacity approach', John Rawls 'theory of justice' and Edward Said's critique of 'Orientalism' to analyse the quest for justice in Palestine. This article provides an extensive analysis of the challenges faced by Palestinians and proposes potential solutions to address these issues. Sen's capability approach centers on the various forms of deprivation experienced by Palestinians living under occupation, such as restricted mobility, limited access to resources, and constrained economic opportunities. Following Rawls' theory of justice, this paper examines violations of human rights, the principles of self-government, and distribution of resources. While stressing the analysis of the Palestinian case we will pay most attention to the continuous violation of freedom and fairness. Said has critiqued Orientalism making people aware of ignoring the hegemonic discourses that erased the Palestinians, stressing the importance of speaking for oneself. The focus of the essay is the Palestinian resistance as a complex process, which is described by the human development, justice, rights, and representation. These are tangible policies that aim at the complete banning of movement restrictions, ending systemic discrimination in resource allocation, protection of Palestinians' rights, encouragement of free speech, and accord more power to Palestinian stakeholders in the decision making organs. In order for Palestinians to achieve justice and self-determination, the article argues that a comprehensive strategy is required that addresses injustice, upholds fundamental human rights and dignity, and amplifies the voices of marginalized individuals.
... They installed kings of the Hashemite dynasty in Iraq, Jordan, and Syria (though only Jordan's Hashemite monarchy would survive) and dispatched civilian and military advisers to assist in the formation of a modern state (Barr, 2011). Gender would prove to be just as crucial to the emerging regime as it would be in neighbouring countries, with the military (Massad, 2001), Sharia Courts (Hughes, 2021), and schools (Adely, 2012) serving as key arenas of struggle. British officials would intensify efforts to modernize the country that had begun under Ottoman Tanzimat reforms, including new regimes of property and personal status and what Abou-Hodeib (2011: 478), following Zaynab Çelik, has called 'the logic of the "straight line"', with its distinctive aesthetics, morality, logistics and politics. ...
... His memoirs offer a rich source of historical material dramatizing how modern gender roles were forged by the emerging Jordanian state. As Joseph Massad (2001) shows in Colonial Effects, Glubb exemplified the racialized colonial rule of difference. Glubb's anthropology reckoned the Bedouin closer to the honour-loving Englishman than the supposedly servile, sedentary peasantry over which the Bedouin styled themselves a sort of aristocracy. ...
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The figure of the middle-class housewife or ‘ rabbat bayt’ emerged in the late 19th-century Arabic-language public sphere amidst the colonial encounter. This gendering of middle-classness responded to a perceived cultural ‘lag’ yet now itself increasingly signifies backwardness in relation to ideals of middle-classness emphasizing women’s education and community service over older norms of purity and propriety. Today, amidst unemployment, discrimination, lack of childcare, lack of safe and reliable public transportation and a highly suburbanized built environment catering to male breadwinners, contemporary Jordanian families must navigate multiple class and gender paradigms. Against a tendency towards salvage ethnography that misrecognizes these constraints as manifestations of deeply held ‘traditional’ values, I emphasize their historicity, arguing that it is only by recognizing housewifery itself as a state project characteristic of the 20th century that we can appreciate how state-building projects drive the gendering of class roles – and the classing of gender roles.
... The figure of the Bedouin is upheld as the most quintessentially 'Jordanian' figure, to be celebrated, but simultaneously, neoliberal economic development policies cast tribalism as backwards. This paradoxical idea has been well documented among scholars on the subject (see Massad 2001). Its influence in de-politicizing and creating a disillusioned citizenry is interesting. ...
Research
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In 2017, Jordan held its first nationwide elections for governorate council members. These elections were praised by the Western world, and seen as a true step on the way to democratization. Jordan is seen as an anomaly in the Middle East; it hasn't succumbed to the same unrest as the countries around it. However, voter turnout to the elections was a mere 31% of eligible voters. Why are so many Jordanians apathetic to politics? This study seeks to discuss perceptions of citizenship and political rights in conversation with Jordanian public opinion on voting. I discuss the increasing privatization and state cooptation of public identity and city centers as part of an explanation for low voter turnout. In addition, I suggest that a western discourse of citizenship and political participation needs to be reimagined in order to properly capture the phenomenon of Jordanian "political apathy". Using public opinion data, I demonstrate the power of political optimism and past voting habits in citizens' likelihood to vote. In conclusion, this study suggests a need for a deeper examination of political citizenship and participation in the face of increasing neoliberal economic policies.
... And finally, foundling children who were born in Jordan for an unknown mother and father. and were unable to reclaim it until they reached adulthood (Massad, 2001). ...
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Purpose: To analyze and evaluate the impact of the most recent legal reforms in the Jordanian laws aimed at protecting women’s rights. Theoretical Reference: By employing human rights and critical legal studies as theoretical frameworks, the research provide a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of women's rights in Jordanian legislation, identify key challenges, and propose strategies for sustained progress towards gender equality. Method: The research method used is Doctrinal Legal Research, analyzing laws, regulations, statutes, and legal documents to understand the structure of the law and its applicability to the intended purpose. Results and Conclusion: The research provided in-depth analysis of the progress in protecting women rights in CEDAW reservations, the Jordanian constitution, and major national laws: nationality law, personal status law, civil service law, and labor law. Beyond legal changes, it's vital for the government to view laws as protective measures and actively combat indirect discrimination against women, shifting focus from mere legal neutrality to acknowledging and supporting women's roles and responsibilities in society. Implications of research: Overall, studying the evolution of women's rights in legislation provides valuable insights into the progress, challenges, and opportunities for advancing gender equality and human rights within societies. Originality/value: Recent reforms in Jordanian legislation, notably the latest constitutional amendment, highlight the importance of assessing the status of women's rights in the country. While there are concerns about the perceived limited progress in legal protection for women, there is a critical need for comprehensive analysis of recent amendments to enrich global literature on this significant issue, emphasizing the necessity of updating existing literature with relevant, current information.
... This applies even to outwardly "westernized" individuals who, in times of crisis, will fall back on modes of behaviour and considerations that are entirely tribal (Bin Muhammad, 1999). While this tribalism has resulted in a promotion of tribal components in the process of national construction in Jordan (Massad, 2001), the notion that Jordanian society has a deeply "tribal" culture does not mean in any way "living a nomadic Bedouin lifestyle," but rather refers to "relying heavily upon family, clan and tribal ties in navigating the economic, social and political domains" (Ryan, 2010). Furthermore, while many Westerners use the term "tribe" pejoratively, to signify such ills as insularity and frontier justice, such enduring tribal structure is seen by many Jordanians as the most purely Jordanian aspect of Jordanian society (Ryan, 2010). ...
Article
This study examines how tribes in Jordan defend their members accused of corruption. The data come from three major public statements by three large tribes in response to highly publicized accusations of corruption. Using positioning theory, the analysis shows that this collectivist discourse is centered on self-glorification; stressing loyalty, belonging, and national identity; invoking religious narratives; and attacking accusers. It relies heavily on intertextuality, invoking of past events and master narratives, and recreating local traditional storylines. While Western culture focuses on defending the individual, collectivist culture focuses on defending the group/community and reflects the group’s feeling of being a victim.
... Despite the Kingdom's official recognition that advancing women in the public sphere is a crucial modernisation step, conservative voices in society demand preserving the traditional role of women as housewives (Massad, 2001). Moreover, the family, through the process of socialisation, carefully implants these traditional roles in children's mentality. ...
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This paper discussed the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Jordanian women since the implementation of the full lockdown and shelter-in-place order in March 2020. The paper's main goals are to outline the socioeconomic challenges Jordanian women faced then and investigate their coping strategies. To achieve the study's objectives, the descriptive approach-analytical and correlational-was used; the questionnaire was the tool for primary data collection. A convenient sample of 480 women was selected from various areas of Jordan. The findings imply that social impacts, most important of which was directly related to the pandemic, caused women greater suffering than economic ones. These include taking on more housework and providing care. Statistically significant differences in favor of the lower age groups, families with more children and less monthly income, women working in the government sector, and women residing in the Badia regions have been detected. The findings also indicated that the most prominent mechanisms that helped women cope with the impacts are prayers, participation in the public debate about the pandemic, and self-sufficiency. It was also found that such coping mechanisms correlate more to economic than social impacts.  The people of the Jordan Badia live in an area of 73,000 km2. There are approximately 319 settlements (villages, towns, and cities) scattered throughout the three regions of the Badia (North, Central, and South). The Bedouin are suffering from Poverty it can be largely attributed to The large family size (7 members) The high rate of illiteracy, Limited income sources. www.badiafund.gov.jo ‫للبحوث‬ ‫طالل‬ ‫بن‬ ‫احلسني‬ ‫جامعة‬ ‫جمةل‬ ‫العليا،‬ ‫اسات‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ادلّ‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫العلمي‬ ‫البحث‬ ‫عامدة‬ ‫عن‬ ‫تصدر‬ ‫ة‬ ّ ‫حممك‬ ‫علمية‬ ‫جمةل‬ ، ISSN 2519-7436 (‫اجملدل‬ 9 (‫العدد‬) 1 ‫لعام‬) 2023 ‫م‬ 692 ‫ملخص‬ ‫جائحة‬ ‫ات‬ ‫تأثير‬ ‫قة‬ ‫الور‬ ‫هذه‬ ‫ناقشت‬ COVID-19 ‫آذار‬ ‫شهر‬ ‫في‬ ‫لي‬ ‫المنز‬ ‫الحظر‬ ‫و‬ ‫الشامل‬ ‫اإلغالق‬ ‫تنفيذ‬ ‫منذ‬ ‫األردنية‬ ‫أة‬ ‫المر‬ ‫على‬ 2020 ‫ذل‬ ‫في‬ ‫األردنية‬ ‫أة‬ ‫المر‬ ‫اجهتها‬ ‫و‬ ‫التي‬ ‫االقتصادية‬ ‫و‬ ‫االجتماعية‬ ‫الضغوط‬ ‫تحديد‬ ‫في‬ ‫قة‬ ‫للور‬ ‫ئيسة‬ ‫الر‬ ‫األهداف‬ ‫تتمثل‬. ‫الوقت‬ ‫ك‬ ، ‫مع‬ ‫للتعامل‬ ‫استخدمتها‬ ‫التي‬ ‫اجهة‬ ‫المو‬ ‫آليات‬ ‫استكشاف‬ ‫و‬ ‫تلك‬ ‫اسة‬ ‫الدر‬ ‫أهداف‬ ‫ولتحقيق‬ ‫الضغوط،‬ ‫خدم‬ ُ ‫است‬ ‫بشقيه‬ ‫الوصفي‬ ‫المنهج‬ ‫التحليل‬ ‫االستبان‬ ‫كانت‬ ‫وقد‬ ‫تباطي،‬ ‫االر‬ ‫و‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ة‬ ‫أد‬ ‫من‬ ‫مالئمة‬ ‫عينة‬ ‫اختيار‬ ‫تم‬ ‫ئيسية،‬ ‫الر‬ ‫المعلومات‬ ‫جمع‬ ‫اة‬ 480 ‫مناطق‬ ‫من‬ ‫أة‬ ‫امر‬ ‫األردن.‬ ‫في‬ ‫مختلفة
... Since the establishment of the Jordanian state, gender inequality has presented itself as a major hurdle to Jordan's national advancement 1 . The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) reported that Jordanian women's social status, autonomy, educational opportunities, and professional careers are undermined due to the persistence of deep-rooted discriminatory stereotypes 2 . ...
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Studies investigating gender bias against female surgeons yielded conflicting results ranging from neutrality to a clear preference towards male surgeons. Yet, such bias remains understudied within Middle Eastern nations. We aimed to assess preferences of surgeons’ gender among Jordanians and explore reasons for possible gender bias across different surgical specialties. A total of 1708 respondents were examined using a cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire to evaluate the gender preferences of surgeons, characteristics associated with preferred surgeon’s gender, and surgeon’s preference in certain specialties. Nearly 52.0% of participants had no gender preference for surgeons. Among those with a preference, 75.7% preferred male surgeons while 24.3% preferred female surgeons. Reputation, knowledge, and experience were the most important factors when choosing a surgeon. Male surgeons were viewed as more trustworthy, knowledgeable, experienced, and communicative. Female surgeons were dominantly perceived as more compassionate, cooperative, and prone to listen. Male respondents were 5 times more likely to choose a surgeon of similar gender (OR 5.687; CI 3.791–8.531). Male surgeons were favored for cardiovascular and orthopedic surgeries. Similarly, female surgeons were favored in gynecological and obstetric surgeries, plastic surgeries, and breast surgeries. Female gender (OR 6.193; CI 4.077–9.408), living outside Amman (OR 1.517; CI 1.066–2.160), and being married (OR 2.504; CI 1.601–3.917) were all significant positive predictors of preferring female surgeons. Our findings highlight differences in gender preference and perception of surgeons among Jordanian adults.
... While no doubt some of the architects of mass land survey and registration schemes and structural adjustment programmes will often have seen their work as grand schemes for reforming people through land, such projects are also tied up in the way ordinary Jordanian residents engaged with property, wealth, inheritance, and social reproduction, as well as the moral implications of such changing engagements. 2. The complicated meanings of these labels, their orientalist and anthropological critique, and their specific discursive construction in Jordan (on which see Massad 2001) are topics of great interest but which I cannot unpack here. They are discussed at length in Layne (1994) and Shryock (1997), and more recently in my doctoral thesis (Wojnrowski 2021). ...
Article
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In this article I consider how changing legal and social conceptions of land usage and ownership in rural central Jordan offer ethnographic purchase on broad questions of historical change and political economy. Yet equally, I show how this topic shows the limitations of such broad questions, and how reducing local processes into them can obscure historically contingent but enduring practices and patterns of land relations. I consider how reforms stemming from different visions of history and of modernity, in the face of colonial, post-colonial and neoliberal processes of land registration and settlement, and of mass-migration and urban expansion, have combined and clashed, leaving partially fulfilled grand projects and palimpsest-like marks on local political economy, but also how they have been adapted, contested, resisted, and reproduced by rural Jordanians. I particularly consider how the imposition of neoliberal land reforms since the 1980s has coincided with the rise of the hijjah; the trade and sale of semi-legal deeds of protection and cessation over tracts of tribal land, left in an ambiguous state of registration by successive modernist state-building schemes. This has enabled a kind of commoditization to emerge, but one which runs against the grain of official thinking on land tenure, and which partakes instead in very different notions of authority, legitimacy and sovereignty.
... This connection of male subjectivity with the camel brings prestige to the races and to men, which in turn enhances their manhood, and unites them under a common Bedouin cultural identity within the nation-state. Male Bedouins are at the top of the pyramid of those who dominate the desert [30], and, as Gutman [19] stated, "some men are inherently or by ascription considered more manly than other men." The fact that I was allowed to watch the races up close, while the Zalabieh Bedouin girls and women were not, further displayed my positionality as an outside "other" a "free woman" not subject to the usual cultural norms. ...
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This article presents an ethnographic study based on the 22 month research conducted with the ZalabiehBedouins of Wadi Rum (Jordan); herein focuses on the conceptualization of the identity of the malepopulation in multidimentional ways. In the first placediscusses the concept of "Bedouinism" as constructed through interactions with the state both by consent and by rupture; and then analyzes "manhood" as self-identification as understood via interactions with the outside "other." Describes how the Zalabieh Bedouins of Wadi Rum desert, selected for their integrity, loyalty and trustworthy character, manned the army and the police, thereby maintaining and strengthening state institutions. It also shows, paradoxically, how the confidence to do so gives them the courage and audacity to oppose the State and its bureaucrats around certain issues. In addition discusses how manhood is related to Bedouinism and which cultural practices highlight manhood. Camel races and tourism-essential activities of these people-are examined as hegemonic power parameters that display "us" and construct "otherness." Presents a comparative analysis of camel races with "Balinese cockfights" as described and interpreted by Clifford Geertz in order to highlight certain important elements of Zalabieh Bedouin culture via cross-cultural comparison. Examines the dimensions of "space" and "place"-the desert as a physical environment-in the construction of the discrete Bedouin identity and argues that the dynamics of localityare encapsulated in the integration of the biological, the environmental, and the social as existential spaces. Within this overarching framework analyzes the relationships among male Zalabieh Bedouins within their vast desert territory to capture their dual identities as men of the desert and servants of the government, which exist in a state calledbalanced opposition.
... Although the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the resulting 'statebuilding' shaped the social contract of today, it also must be situated within other historical developments. In several Middle East and North African (MENA) countries, including Iraq, the social contract defining state-society relations is embedded in the colonial statebuilding project, which shaped processes of state formation and the construction of national collective identities and notions of citizenship (Massad 2001;Salame 2013). The establishment of states was hence negotiated alongside pre-existing social structures characterised by tribal and ethnosectarian affiliations, which often resulted in the institution of social contracts based on a network of patronage and kin relations (Khoury and Kostiner 1991). ...
... The tribes, with their culture based on ethics of Arabism, chivalry, and originality, were a deterrent to all forms of violence and encroachment. However, the inclusion of tribes, sects and social groups in the interactions of political and parliamentary life, and their use in the search for political, social and economic gains in the absence of strong political parties constituted a great distortion of their true role, which prompted the Jordanian citizen to withdraw from broad national affiliations such as loyalty to the nation and the homeland to being confined to the narrow circle of loyalties, especially in light of the failure of Jordanian political parties to take their role in leading political life in Jordan (Massad, 2001). ...
... также, например : Herskovits 1962;Wallerstein 1966;Balandier 1970;Gledhill 1994: 94-122;Herbst 2000;Mbembe 2005;Akol 2006;Bhambra 2007a;Mamdani 2018;Njoku C.I., Bondarenko 2018;Oyeniyi 2022). Большинство из них начало складываться в колониальный период, а потому воспроизводило форму политических институтов и правовые нормы Запада Нового време-ни (см., например, детальное исследование становления нации в связи с утверждением в колониальный период и развитием в эпоху независимости европейских институтов в Иордании: Massad 2001). «Непосредственным следствием колониализма был его вклад в универсализацию европейской концепции государства» (Osterhammel 2010: 67). ...
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The book is in Russian. Here is the English Summary: In the present monograph, its author makes an attempt to fit nation-building in post-colonial countries of Asia and Africa into the world historical and cultural process. In the context of this process, the nature of the nation and its future in the Afro-Asian and global scales are discussed. The author argues that in the post-colonial period that began after World War II, the fundamental characteristic of the nation as a culturally homogeneous (monocultural) community is changing. This feature had become a cornerstone of the concept of nation at its formation in the West by the last decades of the 18th century, but migration flows from the Global South to the Global North provoked by decolonization change nations as realities, as well as the concept of nation, in countries of the North making them polycultural. Liberated states of Asia and Africa are polycultural from the very beginning, because they inherited the colonial borders in which, as a rule, many peoples were united. The author raises the question if Asian and African countries’ initial polyculturalism can become their advantage rather than an obstacle in the path of their development in the present-day world if they stop trying to build nations on the outdated Western model of the late 18th – mid-20th centuries and go to building them as polycultural communities. The monograph is based on a combination of historical analysis with analysis of field anthropological evidence collected by the author.
... In GS crafts declined sharply between 1948 and 1967 and agriculture became dominated by export-oriented capitalist citrus plantations which employed a sizable section of the working class. Transfers from family members abroadwhich doubled between 1961 and 1966-and the welfare assistance provided by UNRWA helped a large percentage of the population in the Strip to survive [17]. ...
... Tradition is therefore more manufactured than authentically original. 9 The creation of a shared past is crucial to the process of forging a patchwork of people into a cohesive nation. 10 Historically, Islam has been a major component of Egyptian national identity. ...
Thesis
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Eurasianism blends European and Asian geographies, transcending spatial concepts to include cultural and ethnic elements. As an ideology, Eurasianism assigns meaning to national identity beyond the Western scope, adapting to various political contexts in the region. In Türkiye, it has evolved through nationalist, Kemalist, and socialist lenses, shifting its geopolitical focus from “the century of Turks” to “the century of Türkiye,” particularly during crises such as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts, which underscore the importance of territorial integrity for the sovereign existence of Azerbaijan and Armenia. This study examines the portrayal and evolution of Eurasianist identity in Turkish media during the geopolitical upheavals of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 and Azerbaijan’s military operation in 2023. Utilizing a critical geopolitical framework, the research reveals the fluidity of Eurasianist discourse and the media’s role in constructing and influencing national identity. Analyzing two state-backed outlets (TRT Haber and Sputnik Türkiye) and a bilingual Armenian weekly (Agos), this study demonstrates how diverse media platforms contribute to Türkiye’s geopolitical imagination. The findings indicate that media outlets shape their narratives according to political agendas: TRT Haber promotes nationalist narratives to bolster regional power, Sputnik Türkiye challenges Western dominance and advocates for multipolarity, and Agos offers a humanitarian counter-narrative. This research contributes to scholarly discussions on Eurasianism in Türkiye and highlights its implications for understanding media influence on geopolitical conflicts, emphasizing the shift from national to regional identity formation.
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This paper explores young Jordanian women’s desire to migrate, uncovering often-unacknowledged factors influencing their decision to leave their home country. By delving into their dreams, aspirations, and expectations, this research uncovers why they firmly aspire and creatively plan to migrate, shedding light on the intricate interplay of agency and gender in shaping their migration choices. It theorizes that these women employ a co-optation strategy, whereby they reinterpret and leverage the inner meaning(s) of gendered expectations regarding education, to facilitate their journey abroad and enact more desired life trajectories. This paper argues that young Jordanian women’s desire to migrate stems from shifting sociocultural values and norms, mirroring evolving understandings of femininity, gender roles, and social hierarchies. Within this framework, migration emerges as a consequence of the country’s inability to address its young population’s aspirations for change. By addressing these dynamics, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the underlying drivers behind the migration aspirations of a significant segment of Jordan’s youth—a pressing issue the country is facing. Ultimately, the insights offer a valuable perspective on migration as a lens through which ongoing sociocultural transformations can be comprehended.
Chapter
The present research is an introductory text to the subject of Western Muslim’s debates, discussions, and practices on the concept of Shari’a vis-à-vis real-life application of Shari’a-driven laws and practices, with a particular focus on the daily lives of Muslims, functioning as a comprehensive reader and handbook. In addition to analysing scholarly discussions on secularism and the importance of comprehending religion in socio-political contexts, it provides a range of viewpoints regarding the workings of Shari’a in Western cultures, touching on topics like gender equality, citizenship rights, political participation, jihad, belonging, grassroots movements, and legal pluralism. Although most of the research that is now available concentrates on Islamic family law, there is an increasing amount of interest in investigating the domestic application of Shari’a in a variety of fields. Nonetheless, there are still a lot of unanswered questions in this field, which emphasizes the necessity for more study to have a deeper understanding of Muslims’ legal experiences and practices in the West.
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During Iran's 2022–2023 countrywide uprising, the intensity of popular protests in Kurdistan and Baluchistan drew attention to the question of national oppression. Some scholars then revisited a debate, originally articulated in Marxist circles, on whether Iran's culturally and politically oppressed communities, like Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis or Arabs, are ethnic or national minorities. This article approaches the debate within the frame of national oppression as a historical construction. It argues that in Iran, as in almost all modern nation-states, nationhood was established through the forcible creation of minoritized communities whose potential claims to nationhood, or an equal place in a politically democratic and culturally pluralist nation, have been denied.
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Despite the prevalence of ambiguous citizenship policies that say one thing in law and another in implementing regulations, few studies have focused on systematically studying this type of implementation gap, particularly in contexts beyond North America and Europe. This largely has remained the case despite research on discursive policy gaps, which occur between a policy’s stated objectives and its laws, efficacy gaps, which describe when a policy’s outcomes fail to meet its goals, and compliance gaps, which reflect disparities between a state’s commitments to international law and its corresponding domestic policies. How can we advance conceptualizations of law-regulation implementation gaps? This paper proposes one approach by focusing on the content of domestic laws, on the one hand, and the content of related implementing regulations, on the other. When law-regulation discrepancies occur, they illustrate the agency of senior officials in writing this intentional ambiguity into different levels of legislation, challenging assumptions about institutional weakness and lower-level bureaucratic discretion as chief drivers of implementation gaps. The paper illustrates this concept by analyzing discrepancies between Jordan’s nationality and passports laws and their related implementing regulations, particularly regarding Gaza refugees’ access to passports, investors’ access to nationality, and Palestinian-Jordanians’ subjection to nationality withdrawals. These diverse cases of intentional ambiguity demonstrate that such gaps can serve to partially exclude or include a group and can occur with noncitizen and citizen as well as more or less vulnerable groups.
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Historically, Islamic sharia courts across the Ottoman empire used a document called a hujja for registering property transactions. In present-day Jordan hujaj are illegal, yet in Palestinian refugee camps hujaj continue to be used for inheritance, buying and selling houses, and demonstrating occupancy. This is particularly true in camps unrecognized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and deemed “squatter settlements” by Jordanian host authorities. This article contributes to the emerging study of property rights in Palestinian camps by focusing on the links between Ottoman property regimes, contemporary territorial claims, and legal pluralism. Using the case of a Palestinian camp built on land owned by the descendants of Ottoman Circassian refugees, the article illustrates how, on the one hand, Palestinians use hujaj to facilitate inhabitation of the camp; and how, on the other hand, private property rights intersect with the competing claims of refugees and the state, whose overriding power changed after the events of Black September in 1970. By historicizing the material processes of refugee land tenure and property creation, the article challenges the assumption that contested camps are part of the “informal” growth of Middle Eastern cities, thus, bringing so-called squatter settlements back into refugee studies, Palestine studies, and Ottoman studies.
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The idea of the museum as a space committed to dialogue and inclusive representation which is paramount to museology in the Global North has had trouble finding ground in the Middle East and North Africa where museums remain—and have mostly been depicted as—the carriers of homogenous national identities, at the expense of cultural and social difference. Research recently undertaken by anthropologists, museum specialists and historians reveal that this monolithic museographic conception of culture is in the process of being challenged. Whilst some public museums in the region have engaged in the reconsideration of the narratives underpinning their collections, the past two decades have also seen a boom in private museum initiatives led by social and cultural minority groups whose experiences have until now been marginalised within, or absent from, state-led exhibitionary practices. This volume discusses the contradictions and opportunities museums have created for minority groups across the Mediterranean basin, from the early twentieth century to the contemporary period. It explores whether museums can provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice, what kind of narratives is articulated, and whether these can challenge cultural and social stereotypes and deploy new kinds of identities.
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La ville jordanienne a historiquement peu contribué à la construction nationale, l’élément décisif ayant été l’allégeance directe à la monarchie hachémite. L’urbain serait en Jordanie un espace peu favorable à l’expression d’une citoyenneté détachée des appartenances primaires.. Pourtant, au sein de la capitale, des citadins parviennent à lancer des initiatives de participation citoyenne au service de la collectivité, manifestant leur appartenance à une élite urbaine post-moderne et faisant même participer la ville à une « citoyenneté mondiale ». Ce livre aborde par la ville la question abondamment étudiée de l’identité nationale et de la citoyenneté en Jordanie, en montrant les formes d’intégration et de démarcation des différentes composantes de la population dans l’espace urbain. Il adopte une approche diachronique qui présente le rôle des villes dans la construction nationale jordanienne, puis les modes de gestion des espaces urbains et enfin les pratiques individuelles de l’urbain détachées des affiliations primaires.
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La ville jordanienne a historiquement peu contribué à la construction nationale, l’élément décisif ayant été l’allégeance directe à la monarchie hachémite. L’urbain serait en Jordanie un espace peu favorable à l’expression d’une citoyenneté détachée des appartenances primaires.. Pourtant, au sein de la capitale, des citadins parviennent à lancer des initiatives de participation citoyenne au service de la collectivité, manifestant leur appartenance à une élite urbaine post-moderne et faisant même participer la ville à une « citoyenneté mondiale ». Ce livre aborde par la ville la question abondamment étudiée de l’identité nationale et de la citoyenneté en Jordanie, en montrant les formes d’intégration et de démarcation des différentes composantes de la population dans l’espace urbain. Il adopte une approche diachronique qui présente le rôle des villes dans la construction nationale jordanienne, puis les modes de gestion des espaces urbains et enfin les pratiques individuelles de l’urbain détachées des affiliations primaires.
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La ville jordanienne a historiquement peu contribué à la construction nationale, l’élément décisif ayant été l’allégeance directe à la monarchie hachémite. L’urbain serait en Jordanie un espace peu favorable à l’expression d’une citoyenneté détachée des appartenances primaires.. Pourtant, au sein de la capitale, des citadins parviennent à lancer des initiatives de participation citoyenne au service de la collectivité, manifestant leur appartenance à une élite urbaine post-moderne et faisant même participer la ville à une « citoyenneté mondiale ». Ce livre aborde par la ville la question abondamment étudiée de l’identité nationale et de la citoyenneté en Jordanie, en montrant les formes d’intégration et de démarcation des différentes composantes de la population dans l’espace urbain. Il adopte une approche diachronique qui présente le rôle des villes dans la construction nationale jordanienne, puis les modes de gestion des espaces urbains et enfin les pratiques individuelles de l’urbain détachées des affiliations primaires.
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There is limited understanding of cruelty in critical security studies. While cruelty tends to be conceptualized within the context of large-scale, violent conflicts and situations, it is helpful to consider cruelty through the lens of everyday forms of violence and subjugation. Understanding cruelty and its complex entanglements with overlapping frameworks of necropolitics, structural violence, and necrogeopolitics, and drawing on research from Nigeria, Jordan, and Myanmar, this article discusses the normalization of cruel, everyday “living death” and violence experienced by many in Global South. Overlapping marginalities of localized conflicts, political repression, gendered violence, marginalized livelihoods and precarity, climate change, and migration illustrate this entangled conceptualization of cruelty. This complex and entangled understanding of cruelty helps to better understand the lived experiences and situations of peoples and communities in the Global South. Further, everyday necropolitical violence and cruelty provide an understanding of the suffering, pain, and state of unease that many experience in the Global South and beyond, and this understanding of shared human vulnerabilities informs our common humanity. The main contribution of this analysis is to provide dialectical insights into the potential of radical empathy and compassion, rooted in decolonial humanism, as a means to ignite political consciousness, dismantle oppressive structures, and support emancipatory agency of peoples and communities globally.
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With its diachronic focus on socio-historical processes and life and family histories, sociological biographical research can analyse the emergence of new spatial figurations. It does so from the perspective of the experiences of individuals in their changing belonging to different groupings at different times. In this article, I investigate changing (meanings of) spaces in the Bilad ash-Sham region (roughly today's Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and parts of Jordan and Syria). I discuss how the process of the formation of nation-state borders and citizenship in the twentieth century transformed translocal relations into transnational networks, combined spatial diffusion with (forced) emplacement in nation-states, and initiated accelerating national closure processes. At the family level, the growing relevance of citizenship and borders in the region came about with knowledge of, and family dialogue about, border crossing, and the increasing spatial diffusion of the family, as well as intrafamilial discussions on the "value" of different nation-states. These processes affected all families in the Bilad ash-Sham region to a varying extent. They constitute a type of figuration of space that influenced the gradual formation of societies within the framework of nation-states defined by colonial rulers. As an example, I will discuss the regional family history of a Syrian refugee in Amman, Jordan.
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The state has always been difficult to define. Its boundary with society appears elusive, porous, and mobile. I argue that this elusiveness should not be overcome by sharper definitions, but explored as a clue to the state's nature. Analysis of the literature shows that neither rejecting the state in favor of such concepts as the political system, nor “bringing it back in,” has dealt with this boundary problem. The former approach founders on it, the latter avoids it by a narrow idealism that construes the state-society distinction as an external relation between subjective and objective entities. A third approach, presented here, can account for both the salience of the state and its elusiveness. Reanalyzing evidence presented by recent theorists, state-society boundaries are shown to be distinctions erected internally, as an aspect of more complex power relations. Their appearance can be historically traced to technical innovations of the modern social order, whereby methods of organization and control internal to the social processes they govern create the effect of a state structure external to those processes.
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This report explores changes in Jordan in the post-Hussein era. A review of developments in the first year of King Abdallah's rule shows an acceleration in steps to incorporate the country into the global market, an eagerness to become part of a regional "Pax Americana," and an erosion of the democratization process of the early 1990s.
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Most concepts of ethnicity are unsuitable for political analysis because they ignore either subjective or objective aspects, and because they ignore the fluid and situational nature of ethnicity. The approach flowing from the concept proposed here permits the observer to examine empirical variations that tend to be treated as rigid assumptions by modernization analysts on the one hand and class analysts on the other. The concept is applied to a study of the Nubians of Uganda because of the intermixture of class and ethnic features involved in their fall from status at the beginning of the colonial period and their subsequent sudden rise following the 1071 coup d'état of Idi Amin. The fairly recent creation of the Nubians as an ethnic category and the relative ease with which others can become members illustrate other features of the proposed concept of ethnicity. Finally, this concept is used to examine and criticize overly restrictive notions of ethnicity found in theories based upon both cultural pluralism and consociationalism.