Featured Research
Transregional Agency and Politics in Defining the ‘Middle East’: Unpacking Critique and Cartography Through Syrian–Turkish Borderlands (Jonas Nabbe & Ward Vloeberghs)
The term ‘Middle East’ has been contested ever since its emergence in 1902. Although it has acquired a fairly mainstream delimitation, this conception of the region has largely been shaped by outside (Western) powers. This is problematic because the area thus defined comes with three theoretical flaws that influence our understanding of the region until today.
Laughing right: Jordanian political humour and right-wing ideologies in social media spaces (Yousef Barahmeh)
This article examines how Jordanian political humour has been strategically employed in social media spaces since the 2011 Arab uprisings. It explores how right-wing ideologies have given rise to Jordanian political humour, particularly of a populist nature in social media spaces, both to reflect and contest dominant political dynamics, social tensions, and public discourse in post-Arab Spring Jordan.
Archiving Gaza in the Present: Memory, Culture and Erasure (Dina Matar & Venetia Porter, Eds.)
Conflict does more than destroy physical spaces. It extinguishes lives, erases histories and disrupts the collective memory of entire communities. In Gaza, where genocide has wrought catastrophic loss, the destruction of heritage adds another dimension of devastation. Yet amid the rubble, acts of archiving, art-making and storytelling persist. Archiving Gaza in the Present brings together voices from Palestine and beyond to document the cultural erasure and to explore how creative and archival practices resist it.
Academic freedom challenged: Comparing France, Germany and the UK (Donatella della Porta & Sevgi Doğan)
Focusing on France, Germany and the United Kingdom (UK), our research has addressed the different mechanisms of repression of academic freedom with particular attention paid to the movements in solidarity with Palestine that spread globally after 7 October 2023. The empirical research triangulates quantitative and qualitative analysis. Using various sources, we have constructed a database that we use to map episodes of repression in the three countries, specifying their targets and mechanisms.
From language shift to linguistic hybridity: The status and perceptions of Tamazight in the Algerian higher education system (Imene Medfouni & Yousef Barahmeh)
This article examines how Tamazight, the indigenous language of Algeria and the wider North African region, is perceived, used, and hybridised within the Algerian higher education system. It considers how Tamazight intersects with the concepts of indigeneity and linguistic hybridity, particularly among the Imazighen in the Chaoui region, an Amazigh-populated area in eastern Algeria.
How the Jewish Chronicle weaponises 'antisemitism' to fuel a moral panic (Neve Gordon)
Antisemitism is alive and well in the UK and across Europe. This must be vigorously clamped down on. But, instead of focusing on this very real problem, major Jewish groups have instead followed the Israeli government by instrumentalising antisemitism in an effort to criminalise and silence Palestinians and their supporters in the struggle for liberation and self-determination. The cruel irony is that, in effect, these organisations are dramatically weakening the real fight against antisemitism.
Crime and Dystopia in Three Egyptian Novels: Dissecting Cityscapes and the Body as a Terrain for Political Critique (Dalia Said Mostafa)
This article comparatively analyses three prominent novels that have acquired a large readership and significant critical attention since being published: al-Singa (The Knife) by Ahmed Khalid Tawfiq (2012); al-Tabur (The Queue) by Basma ‘Abdel ‘Aziz (2013); and Nisa’ al-Karantina (Women of Karantina) by Nael Eltoukhy (2013). Two key questions guide the analysis: in what ways do crime and dystopia intersect in these fictional works? What does their dystopian vision tell us about contemporary Egyptian society?
The Piruzai of Afghanistan: A Visual Ethnography (Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Richard Tapper)
In the early 1970s Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Richard Tapper spent a year living with the Piruzai, pastoralists and farmers in northern Afghanistan. They joined the Piruzai in the spring pastures, trekked with Piruzai families, their camels, horses, sheep, goats and dogs, to the high mountains of the Hazarajat in the summer and returned with them to their farmlands in the autumn. And they took hundreds of photographs. This book reproduces 380 of those photos, most in colour. It is a visual ethnography of the beauty of the people they met and the landscape in which they lived and travelled.
State and Peasants in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt: Some Archival Sources for the Study of Egyptian Rural History (Maha Ghalwash)
This article identifies some of the sources that are helpful for the study of peasant society in mid-nineteenth-century Egypt. In describing each of these sources, which involves specifying the nature of the data documented by a source, it highlights the potential use of each source and its limitations. It concludes that the examination of a combination of archival sources, rather than just one, enables the researcher to address some of the limitations of a particular source, and moreover to avoid developing distorted interpretations.
Scholasticide in Gaza: Settler Colonial Elimination, Genocide, and the Crisis of Academic Responsibility (Nicola Pratt)
In early October 2025, a fragile ceasefire allowed some semblance of education to resume in the Gaza Strip. At Al-Aqsa University, students celebrated becoming the first cohort to graduate since October 2023, a moment of joy amidst devastation. Across Gaza, children returned to learning in buildings with shattered walls, missing desks and chairs, and classrooms still crowded with families displaced by Israel’s two-year-long assault. Amid these scenes of improvisation and resilience, the enormity of what has been lost for Palestinian education is impossible to ignore.
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The Database of Expertise in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies provides a publicly available list of MENA experts with their research and areas of expertise.
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