Professor John Chalcraft Receives BRISMES Award for Services to Middle Eastern Studies
We are very pleased to announce that Professor John Chalcraft is the recipient of the 2025 Award for Services to Middle Eastern Studies, presented at our 2026 Annual Conference in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the field.
John Chalcraft is Professor of Politics in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. Yet his intellectual journey began as a historian of the modern Middle East, and throughout his career he has remained committed to recovering the histories, experiences and political agency of those too often overlooked. His scholarship has consistently illuminated popular movements and subaltern histories, revealing how ordinary people shape extraordinary historical transformations.
The range and depth of his work are remarkable. Through books such as The Invisible Cage: Syrian Migrant Workers in Lebanon, The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 1863–1914, and Popular Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, John has uncovered untold stories through meticulous research while developing path-breaking theoretical insights. More recently, in From Subordination to Revolution, he has drawn together decades of reflection on popular mobilisation, producing not only a powerful Gramscian explanation of how collective political action emerges and transforms societies, but also a theory of praxis. At a time marked by deep political, social and ecological crises, the book asks how people might move from subordination to collective agency, and how transformative political projects can be built in the world we inhabit today.
But John’s contribution to Middle Eastern Studies extends far beyond his publications. He is not only a leading intellectual and first-rate scholar; he is someone who embodies the values that animate his work. He has never treated scholarship and political commitment as separate spheres. Whether supporting Palestinian rights, participating in trade union organising, or engaging in broader struggles for justice and equality, John has consistently brought his intellectual rigour and moral conviction to the political questions of our time.
He has enriched our understanding of the Middle East, strengthened our scholarly community, and inspired generations of students and colleagues.