MER Article Editor's Picks (Winter 2015) Aarts, Paul and Carolien Roelants. Saudi Arabia: A Kingdom in Peril (London: Hurst, 2015). Beinin, Joel. Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015). Bennis, Phyllis. Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Te (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Bennis, Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror Phyllis Bennis, Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror: A Primer (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2015). The amalgamation of Iraqi ex-Baathists, Iraqi and Syrian jihadis, disgruntled locals and outside recruits known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, continues to ca Chris Toensing • 2 min read
MER Article Karimi, Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran Pamela Karimi, Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran: Interior Revolutions of the Modern Era (New York: Routledge, 2013). Norma Claire Moruzzi • 4 min read
MER Article Mary Ann Tétreault Mary Ann Tétreault died peacefully in her sleep at home in Newport, Vermont on November 11, 2015. She was a spectacular human being, a gifted intellectual, and a generous mentor and friend. Mary Ann earned her undergraduate degree at Sarah Lawrence College and her masters and doctorate at Rice Univ Gwenn Okruhlik • 3 min read
MER Article Caught in the Crossfire of Climate and Politics Conscription into the army or other government service for years on end, fear of detention and torture for real or imagined transgressions with no legal recourse, no prospect of schooling or meaningful work, and no personal freedom: The reasons Afar refugees in eastern Ethiopia gave for fleeing thei Dan Connell • 12 min read
MER Article Garbage Politics In late July 2015, mounds of garbage began piling up across Beirut and the towns of Mount Lebanon to the capital’s east. While not without precedent in poorer neighborhoods, such heaps of rubbish had never appeared in more affluent areas. By mid-August, Lebanese government officials, businesspeople, Ziad Abu-Rish • 14 min read
MER Article On Failing to “Get It Together” Rain falls thick and heavy outside the window. Shadi sits in the near dark drinking sage tea, fighting the November chill, but more so the pessimistic vantage onto Syria from his refuge in neighboring Jordan. A vocal civil society activist in Homs during the early stages of the Syrian revolution, Sh Ali Nehmé Hamdan • 16 min read
MER Article Class Reshuffling Among Afghan Refugees in Iran When I was interviewing Afghan refugee writers and intellectuals in Iran in the mid-2000s, I soon realized that there was a gulf between their occupations and their aspirations. [1] The young poets who were the subjects of my research in the northeastern city of Mashhad often earned a living as manu Zuzanna Olszewska • 6 min read
MER Article Whither Iranian Petrochemical Labor? On November 4, 2012, there were two snapshots of a deeply unequal struggle between labor and capital in Iran—a struggle that had begun two years earlier with a strike of temporary workers at the Mahshahr Petrochemical Complex. In Mahshahr, at the head of the Persian Gulf, Faraveresh, one of the five Mohammad Maljoo • 13 min read
MER Article The Politics of Recognition The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential election of 2005 came as a shock to many segments of Iranian society, particularly the reformists within the Islamic Republic who believed they had pushed aside such arch-conservatives for good. Ahmadinejad prevailed thanks to the massive partic Fatemeh Sadeghi • 11 min read
MER Article The Iran Deal as Social Contract For years discussion of Iran’s nuclear program and how best to address the surrounding impasse focused on international relations—chiefly, the extent to which the United States and the Islamic Republic could and should trust each other to reach a negotiated settlement. Amidst all the conjecture, the Arang Keshavarzian • 12 min read
MER Article Talking Class in Tehroon Persian, like any other language, is laced with references to class, both blatant and subtle. With idioms and metaphors, Iranians can identify and situate others, and thus themselves, within hierarchies of social status and privilege, both real and imagined. Some class-related terms can be traced ba Rasmus Christian Elling, Khodadad Rezakhani • 9 min read
