|
|
|
Sort Order |
|
|
|
Items / Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
191800
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) played a significant role in repressing armed movements that erupted around Iran after the 1979 revolution, but little is known about how this repression campaign shaped the IRGC’s organization and logic of practice. Focusing on the most intensive of these movements, i.e. the Iranian Kurdish conflict at its height in 1979–80, this article argues that the IRGC’s involvement in the conflict ingrained a particular structure and practice within it, in two ways. On the political level, fighting for the state legitimized the IRGC’s existence as an organization independent of the regular army. On an organizational level, learning combat in a low-intensity war allowed the IRGC to adopt a flexible structure based on direct action, which was attractive to both leaders and volunteers as the ‘revolutionary’ method. I argue that post-revolutionary civil conflicts enable alternative paths of institution-building by defying the need for rapid centralization. The article uses novel in-depth interviews with veterans of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Iranian Army officers, as well as documents collected in Iran, to explore this early phase of the IRGC’s history.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
191799
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Whether for his political choices or his philanthropic activities, Gregorios IV Haddad, the Patriarch of Antioch and the Whole East 1906–1924, is still remembered as a strong supporter of Arabism. Arab nationalist historiography overwhelmingly locates Gregorios’s story within the ideological framework of Arabism nationalism. This ideological interpretation, however, simplifies the intricate political reality in the final decade of Ottoman rule in Syria, a period characterized by a multiplicity of identities including Ottomanism, Arabism and Islamism. More importantly, it downplays Gregorios’s political brilliance and pragmatic approach in running the affairs of the Greater Syrian Christians, a minority community that was subject to suspicion and censorship during critical historical junctures. This article examines some of the ways in which a leader of a religious minority navigated the political upheavals that characterized the Ottoman Empire’s last decade of power in Greater Syria. It will show that Gregorois’s sense of responsibility for his community obliged him to prioritize pragmatism over nationalist ideology in order to best respond to the political circumstances of the time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
ID:
191811
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
My research highlights the complex relationship between narrative and temporality whilst exploring the narrative configuration of the Arab revolution. My paper situates the memoirs of Libyan novelist Hisham Matar’s The Return and Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif’s Cairo: My City, Our Revolution, and their first-hand experience of the revolution in Libya and Egypt within the genre of memory and writing. The stated work is investigated to emphasize how both writers configure the immediate, historical, social, and political dimensions of the revolution. By transcribing the time of revolution into narratives, both writers attempt to preserve a watershed moment of the Arab history and portray collective as well as individual memory. I argue that through their acts of witnessing/writing/remembering, not only do these writers historicize the present but also produce narrative memory by articulating collective utterances.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
ID:
191807
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The process of intensification of authoritarianism in Turkey was characterized by the attempt to monopolize state power and marginalize the opposition. At the same time, however, the intensity of authoritarianism extended beyond the institutional level of the state and decisively affected many levels of social relations. This article analyses one of the many expressions of the relationship between authoritarianism and neoliberalism at social class level and the attempt to construct a disciplined working class committed to the state’s strategies. It focuses on the analysis of the content of ‘desired worker’ and ‘desired trade unionism’ which the AKP government tries to impose, aiming to intensify control over sections of labourers. Analysing the content of social class, but even more specifically the content the government aims to attribute to the concept of working class and trade unionism, this study contributes towards a more general understanding of the development of authoritarianism. Decoding the different perceptions and ways the Erdoğan government exploits them in order to shed them of their class content, this article aims at a better comprehension of power mechanisms and mechanisms reproducing social inequality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 5 |
ID:
191802
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Reza Shah’s attempt in the latter part of his autocracy (1935–1941) to implement formal education for the clergy continues to be one of the most understudied periods of Iran’s modern history. The primary aim of this paper is to investigate the ḥawza’s strategic response to Reza Shah’s envisaged secularism and to assess the contribution made by Ayatollah Muhammad Hojjat Kuh Kamari (1892–1952), the religious authority leading the ḥawza ʿilmīyya of Qum during this crucial phase. At a time, when the political establishment actively attempted to change the cultural identity of Iran through its promotion of modernization with Western connotations, he viewed this as a new challenge that endangered the Islamic fabric of Iranian society and placed an emphasis on a socio-cultural response by Shia clerics. By drawing on a range of primary sources not consulted before, this study aims at understanding how the institutional and intellectual development of this critical transition period led to the breathing period for ḥawza ʿilmīyya of Qum and the quasi-democratic phase of Iran (1941–1953). Additionally, this paper will analyse the approach of dynamic quietism that prioritized the engagement of the ‘ulamāʾ with education and society as the crucial factor in ensuring their socio-cultural influence in Iran.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6 |
ID:
191801
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article has two major aims. First, it sketches out the party model change in Turkey. Second, it highlights how the AKP’s authoritarian turn has affected its model of organization. On the former, it argues that the cadre parties of the early republic tended to turn into the mix of class-based mass parties and catch-all parties in the post-1960 period. The mass party tradition was maintained among ethnic and religion-based parties in the post-1980 period while social democrat parties, as well as centre-right parties, mixed catch-all and cartel party characteristics. On the latter, we argue that the AKP’s authoritarian drift has very well been reflected upon its organizational model which shifted from the combination of a mass party and catch-all party to a mixture of cadre and electoral-professional party models.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 7 |
ID:
191798
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores the experience of female doctors in postcolonial Egypt assigned by the government to work in rural communities through the writings of physician and feminist author Nawal El-Saadawi. Although Saadawi reflected extensively on her rural service in her books and essays, its effect on her and other female doctors’ gendered and political identity has hardly received scholarly attention. Informed by the intersectionality framework and relying mainly on Saadawi as a source for writing a social history of Egyptian women, this article sheds light on Egyptian female medical practitioners and the unintended consequences of state feminism. It finds that the linkage with the state’s socialist policies made for a novel and empowering professional experience for many women. Importantly, this novel role involved structural conditions and duties that gave female doctors social and professional autonomy and allowed them to perform according to their subjective understanding. These performances, in turn, held the potential of transforming their concepts of medicine, ideal womanhood, and gendered power relations. Most significantly, rural service empowered female doctors to transgress and resist patriarchal values and practices.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 8 |
ID:
191805
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Hope for a messianic future and the Messiah’s return emerge from everyday life negotiations of some Iranians within the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Islamic Republic has co-opted the religion, messianic hope and the Messiah to build a mode of religious governance and to maintain pro-regime families and the revolutionary youth. I will demonstrate politics of hope in Iran and argue that subscribing to the messianic hope by pro-regime families may appear as a religious expression of futurity or compliance with the Islamic Republic at first glance. However, messianic hope is a mode of world-making to endure militancy, militarization of everyday life, political Islam and the pain caused by a stream of dead bodies coming from different conflict zones. This article builds on the existing debates of hope to show how the reality of ‘the future’ becomes messianic for Shia believers and how social actors carving hope amidst precarities is not an orientation towards the future but rather a mode of making-do.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 9 |
ID:
191797
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, the YPG) has been one of the most notable groups in Syria. The group has become increasingly known especially after playing a significant role in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and, later on, declaring autonomy in northern Syria in 2014. While various political, economic, and social dimensions of the Rojava struggle and of the YPG have been examined within a wide array of fields, the group and its identity have not been adequately examined through a social-psychological lens thus far. In this study, we seek to fill this gap by examining how YPG supporters represent, understand, and express the identity and behaviour of their own group and their adversaries on social media, particularly on Twitter. In light of social identity theory, we explore YPG supporters’ (1) ingroup representations (both ingroup members and allies), (2) ingroup social norms, (3) outgroup representations, and (4) outgroup social norms. Thus, we not only present the first empirical study in this regard, but also discuss the meanings of identity content and social norms in relation to the processes of mobilization and solidarity among YPG supporters.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 10 |
ID:
191806
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In the Turkish legal system, children born within marriage receive the father’s surname. In the case of a divorce, custody of the child is usually granted to the mother. However, the child’s surname does not change after the divorce, while the woman resumes her pre-marriage surname, which means the surnames of the child and the mother will differ. Due to different surnames, the child may face various problems with school life, healthcare services and may even suffer from peer pressure. The Turkish Civil Code (TCC) does not permit the woman to change the child’s surname, even when she has been granted custody by court order. In this article we discuss the best interests of the child when the mother and child carry different surnames. We argue that there is inequality for women in the TCC regulations concerning the child’s surname despite claims to support gender equality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 11 |
ID:
191796
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Resilience has become a central notion in the discourse of international foreign aid and development institutions and actors. Although it was often used metaphorically in political realms, extensive theorization of resilience and its appropriation by hegemonic international actors contributes to its conceptual stabilization. Despite the wealth of literature on resilience, the interrogation of the discursive projections and power plays that underpins the concept when it is applied at the local level have been rarely considered. Julian Reid, for example, demonstrated how colonial discourses—in the American, Canadian and Nordic contexts—projected resilience as a trait that is inherent to indigenous peoples’ being and way of life.Footnote1 The aim here, as he observed, is to dominate indigenous imagination and facilitate colonial and neoliberal intrusions. This was echoed by another study that highlighted how resilience is used as part of the settler-colonial and neoliberal structured attack on the resource rights of indigenous people of Australia.Footnote2 These few critical studies reveal a curious process in which power relations are projected under the guise of building and supporting local resilience. It is therefore vital to empirically and critically examine this process to further understand its implications in different contexts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 12 |
ID:
191810
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines oral traditions in the discourse of Kurdish intellectuals between 1920s and 1940s. Through a critical and textual analysis of three main publications, namely Hawar [cry for help] (1932–1943), Ronahî [light] (1941–1943), and Roja Nû [new day] (1943 − 1946), it discusses the different ways in which oral traditions were seen as instrumental for crafting national selves, advancing literacy, and disseminating local histories. The article identifies the endeavours of Kurdish intellectuals as a form of romantic nationalism and approaches it within the theoretical framework of John Hutchinson’s cultural nationalism. It shows that Kurdish intellectuals’ interests in oral traditions were the outcome of complex, ideological positions and conditions, and that the cultural and the political were closely intertwined in their pursuits. Exploring those pursuits also informs us of the symbolic and political significance of expressive traditions in the contemporary cultural politics of Kurds in Turkey.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 13 |
ID:
191809
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
From the actor-centric perspective of party politics, it is widely held that the two transitional outcomes observed in Tunisia and Egypt are the result of the different degree of polarization across the two party systems. Through a quantitative text analysis of the party manifestos of the main transitional parties in Tunisia and Egypt, this contribution shows that the end result of the two transitional experiences has actually little to do with polarization and it is rather due to the way political parties structured political competition during the founding elections.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 14 |
ID:
191804
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Through centuries many Arabic expressions have been integrated into Persian. Islamic Arabic exclamations also made their way into everyday Persian and social life of Iranians, to the extent that today few might even note their origin and distinction. The current study was purposed to investigate the illocutionary meanings religious exclamations have acquired in the modern society of Iranian Shiites. It also aimed at examining how different functions are served by the same exclamations but with various articulatory suprasegmental features. Adopting an inductively micro-analytic qualitative approach to the study of talks-in-interaction, naturally occurring conversations in vernacular Persian were observed and recorded. A sample of thirty actual conversations were systematically transcribed and analysed using Jefferson’s guidelines. The results indicated that the religious exclamations are noticeably context-bound, and Iranian Shiites regularly yet variously employed them to perform different speech acts and communicative functions, which are essentially different from the original religious purposes of the exclamations. In addition, it was revealed that the exclamations with different illocutionary meanings are clearly marked in terms of suprasegmental features. The findings are showcased and discussed pointing to illustrative conversations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 15 |
ID:
191808
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This paper examines how the pre-1980 works of Saudi female novelists were received by male critics in Saudi Arabia in their critical studies. It seeks to explain why many Saudi and Arab male literary critics either ignored or decried these pioneering novels, by highlighting the essential criteria they adopted in their evaluation and criticism of such texts. The paper determines that these novels were poorly received—and unjustly so—in comparison with those written by men in the same period, male critics having subconsciously dismissed or disregarded them on the grounds that they were of limited literary quality, did not belong to what was accepted as the Saudi social and cultural environment, or did not represent the reality of Saudi women’s lives. Had these core evaluative criteria been adopted in criticism of the early novels of Saudi men, many of these would also have been excluded as having no artistic value or as failing to represent Saudi social reality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 16 |
ID:
191803
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses the political significance of the protests that have arisen in Tunisia since the ‘revolution’ and the establishment of a parliamentary regime. This is what the protests studied have in common: they belong to neglected regions in the country’s hinterland; that they mobilize young local populations; they claim rights over their territories’ soil and subsoil resources exploitation; they occupy a strategic location for a relatively long period of time; and they set up democratic mechanisms for these locations’ self-management, in the form of ‘coordinations’. The description of social logics and the way populations resist, as well as the authoritarian rationality of government action and the inability of elected officials to mediate conflicts, reveal differences between protesters who seek autonomy from state control, while others refer to a rent-centred understanding of the claim. It also shows the emergence of a ‘protest democracy’, itself an expression of a crisis of ‘governmentality’. These two phenomena are symptomatic of a demand for integrating populations and new ways of governing that break with the reeks of past authoritarianism and current representative democracy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|