MER Article

Big Village Interactive Documentary Tells Small Stories of a Rebel Kurdish Village

After the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iranian Kurds fighting for autonomy moved to the village Gewredê in Iraq. The online, interactive documentary Big Village reconstructs life in Gewredê in the mid-1980s, as remembered by the residents. The viewer can click on interviews, pictures, videos and texts,

Peyman Jafari • 3 min read

Agrarian Politics and the Slow Revolution Yet to Come

Almost a decade after the 2011 uprisings, we now have an excellent synthetic text by Habib Ayeb and Ray Bush, long-time activists and researchers of (North) African agrarian questions as they relate to food sovereignty, social equality, and the ecology.

Max Ajl • 6 min read

The Post-Oslo Neoliberal Laboratory

A review of Toufic Haddad, Palestine LTD. Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Occupied Territories (London: I.B. Taurus, 2016), 368pp. [su_dropcap style="simple" size="5"]T[/su_dropcap]oufic Haddad begins his sharply critical examination of the international donor and financial community’s role in

Ibrahim K. Shikaki • 13 min read

Current Analysis

Speculating on Climate Change in the UAE

Why did Abu Dhabi build an ambitious eco-utopian planned city called Masdar City and what does it all mean?

Matan Kaminer • 12 min read

Current Analysis

Occupying Palestinian Space

Peteet’s main theoretical contribution is to show how the violent territorial expansion of Israeli settler-colonialism has developed mobility regimes that govern and restrict Palestinian movement through space.

Haim Jacoby • 7 min read

Current Analysis

Memoir of a Jewish Arab

Hayoun identifies himself as a Jewish Arab and traces his family history to show how Jewish Arabs were maliciously separated from their societies and how their identities were used in a game of colonial domination.

Dana El Kurd • 11 min read

MER Article

Countering the Surveillance State

While investigating the harmful impact of government surveillance on an Arab-American community a filmmaker turns the tables by offering a primer on counter-surveillance research.

Andy Clarno • 6 min read

Current Analysis

The Imperious Rise of Gulf Capitalism

Hanieh’s book is valuable for anyone interested in understanding the growing power of Gulf monarchies across the Middle East.

Rohan Advani • 16 min read

MER Article

Helen Lackner, Yemen in Crisis: The Road to War

Few people from the West know Yemen better than Helen Lackner. Her experience and insights make this book essential for understanding the multiple dimensions of Yemen’s crisis.

Joe Stork • 5 min read

MER Article

Ziad Doueiri's The Insult and the Return of the Lebanese Civil War

A minor incident between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee brings up issues at the heart of the Lebanese conflict.

Max Weiss • 15 min read

MER Article

Pennock, The Rise of the Arab American Left

Pamela Pennock positions her new book, The Rise of the Arab American Left, as a corrective to what she characterizes as a near omission of Arab American activism in histories of the left in the United States.

Jennifer Kelly • 5 min read

MER Article

Talhami, American Presidents and Jerusalem

Jerusalem has been the focus of an increasing number of academic publications in the past several years. Most of these publications focus mainly on the city’s history, identity and changing architectural features since Israel occupied its eastern section after the June 1967 War. Few serious attempts

Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud • 3 min read