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1. Urban Politics in the Middle East

Author:
Mona Harb, Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, Gehad Abaza, and Munqeth Othman
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Urban politics has received growing attention in the anthropology, sociology, and political science of the MENA region. In line with global trends, questions of scale, territory, flows and connectivities and materialities have come to the fore, with a wide range of creative and novel lines of inquiry connecting the global to the hyper-local and every scale in between. In February 2023, POMEPS partnered with the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut and The Policy Initiative think tank for a workshop in Beirut to bring together an interdisciplinary group of young scholars from across the region to explore questions of urban life, politics, and culture. The papers moved beyond more traditional political science topics such as municipal government, decentralization, clientelistic voting, protests, and clientelism. While those themes certainly operated in the background, the authors assembled in Beirut pushed to shift the lens towards multi-scalar ethnographic modes of inquiry, highlighting the materialities and relationalities of the hyper-local, examining sites and places which concentrate power dynamics.
Topic:
Economics, Migration, Politics, Race, Religion, Sectarianism, Culture, Syrian War, Mobility, Urban, Trade, Music, Transportation, Cities, Heritage, Resistance, Labor Market, Domestic Work, and Urbicide
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Tehran, Baghdad, Algeria, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, and Aqaba

2. Theater and Radical Politics in Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria: 1860-1914

Author:
Ilham Makdisi
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
In the last days of October 1909, a play celebrating the life and work of Francisco Ferrer was performed in Beirut. Ferrer, a Spanish social and political activist whose ideas combined elements of anarchism and socialism, had been executed three days before. Ferrer was a pedagogue who had created a modern curriculum and established modern schools in Barcelona based on the principle of “class harmony,” a project very similar to the ideas behind the Université Populaire that appeared in France at the same time. Ferrer's ideas enjoyed tremendous popularity throughout the world 3 both because of his pedagogy as well as his ideology, which combined Freemasonry, free thinking, a strong class consciousness, anarchism, and anticlericalism. He became an icon of the world's leftist movements in 1909, when he was falsely accused by the Spanish Church and condemned to death because of his alleged involvement in an anarchist “terrorist” attack. His trial and condemnation triggered demonstrations and protests throughout the world, from Italy to Mexico.
Topic:
Political Violence, Armed Struggle, Insurgency, and Culture
Political Geography:
Middle East, France, Arabia, Spain, Mexico, Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria