Bordering the Middle East
This volume focuses on the influence that borders in the Middle East can have on actors identity building, as well as how local, national, or transnational actors re/ define borders and boundaries.
The Middle East is facing a political crisis, revealed by the Arab uprisings, that is affecting states borders in a paradoxical way: while local, communal, or tribal dissent tends to contest international borders, states are trying to affirm their control over national territory in building border fences. Focusing on borders in their materiality as well as their symbolic dimensions their representations may help with reappraising the regions own history, the local/ national specificities, as well as regional/ global constraints affecting borderlands and those who cross borders; be they workers, migrants, or jihadists. In this book, six case studies will provide insights on state- community relationships through the lens of border issues in the Levant and the Gulf. The theoretical framework provided by the border studies conceptual tools allows authors to delve into the process of bordering, de- bordering, and re- bordering which is affecting the region, raising questions on sovereignty, authority, and the political legitimacy of the regimes.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Geopolitics.
Daniel Meier is Associated Researcher at CNRS- Pacte in Grenoble, France, and teaches at Sciences Po Grenoble, France, and CaFoscari University, Venice, Italy. He conducted extensive fieldwork in the Middle East and was a former Senior Associate Member of St Antonys College at the University of Oxford, UK. His research focuses on the relationship between space and identity in the Middle East.
Bordering the Middle East
Edited by
Daniel Meier
First published 2019
by Routledge
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ISBN13: 978-0-367-21021-2
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Contents
Daniel Meier
George Joff
Valeria Ruggiu
Claire Beaugrand
Adoram Schneidleder
Marc Valeri
Richard Schofield
The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:
Introduction to the Special Issue: Bordering the Middle East
Daniel Meier
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 495504
Chapter 1
States and Caliphates
George Joff
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 505524
Chapter 2
Tribal Identity in Times of Peril
Valeria Ruggiu
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 525543
Chapter 3
Borders and Spatial Imaginaries in the Kuwaiti Identity
Claire Beaugrand
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 544564
Chapter 4
Discreet and Hegemonic Borderscapes of Galilee: Lebanese Residents of Israel and the IsraelLebanon Border
Adoram Schneidleder
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 565586
Chapter 5
So Close, So Far. National Identity and Political Legitimacy in UAE-Oman Border Cities
Marc Valeri
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 587607
Chapter 6
International Boundaries and Borderlands in the Middle East: Balancing Context, Exceptionalism and Representation
Richard Schofield
Geopolitics, volume 23, issue 3 (August 2018) pp. 608631
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Claire Beaugrand is a Lecturer in Sociology of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research interests include the politics of citizenship, diaspora, nationalism, and nation-building in the Gulf States, which she approaches through the methodological angle of the margins and alternative narratives.
George Joff is a Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies and a Senior Fellow of the Centre of International Studies, at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is also a Visiting Professor of Geography at Kings College London, UK, and a Research Associate at the London Middle East Institute at SOAS University of London, UK. He specialises in the Middle East and North Africa.
Daniel Meier is Associated Researcher at CNRS-Pacte in Grenoble, France, and teaches at Sciences Po Grenoble, France, and CaFoscari University, Venice, Italy. He conducted extensive fieldwork in the Middle East and was a former Senior Associate Member of St Antonys College at the University of Oxford, UK. His research focuses on the relationship between space and identity in the Middle East.
Valeria Ruggiu is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Middle East Studies, Canada, and she is also a Lecturer of Cultural Anthropology of the Islamic Civilisation at the University Niccol Cusano, Italy. Her research interests include tribalism, border studies, politics of identity and state-formation in the MENA region, focusing in particular on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Adoram Schneidleder is currently working on trans-border and transnational networks among Christian Arabs across Israel-Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. He obtained his PhD in Social Anthropology in 2014 from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France. His specialization on the Israeli-Lebanese border has been facilitated by his bilingual approach in Hebrew and Arabic.
Richard Schofield is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Kings College London, UK. His research interests are geography of international boundaries and territorial disputes, and Arabia and the Persian Gulf.
