MER Article New and Recommended Reading Summer 2018 Abboud, Samer. Syria (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018). Adalet, Begum. Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey (Stanford: Stanford University press, 2018). Abul-Magd, Zeinab. Militarizing the Nation: The Army, Business, and Revolution in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018). Ahmad, Attiya. Everyday Conversions: Islam, Domestic (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Sur Operation Sur cannot be reduced to the destruction of an old walled city. Beyond the deaths, destroyed buildings and compensation payments, what has been lost are the potentialities—the wish-images—that Kurds imbued in Sur and with which they defended it. Serra Hakyemez • 13 min read
MER Article "Mosul Will Never Be the Same" In June 2014, the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) launched an assault on the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Within days, the Iraqi army collapsed and ISIS proclaimed its sovereignty over the city. An anonymous blog named Mosul Eyebegan reporting on life under ISIS rule. With de Omar Mohammed • 13 min read
MER Article Jerusalem's Colonial Landscapes of Loss Israel’s settler-colonial project has been premised on a set of racial and spatial assumptions that require the dispossession—even the elimination—of the native Palestinians. Over the seven decades of Israeli rule in Jerusalem and throughout historic Palestine, the state has produced abiding landsca Thomas Abowd • 7 min read
MER Article Generational Dislocations Since 2011, violence in Syria has worsened the widespread displacement of people in the Middle East and destroyed several cities. The images of displaced Syrian families fleeing to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon broadcast around the world had a haunting resonance. Archival photographs of Armenian refuge Joanne Randa Nucho • 9 min read
MER Article Abadan In fall 1978, Abadan’s oil refinery workers played a decisive role in the Iranian Revolution by joining the national mass strikes. Just two years later, Abadan and the adjoining port city of Khorramshahr were shelled by the invading Iraqi army and effectively destroyed during the Iran–Iraq war (1980 Rasmus Christian Elling, Kaveh Ehsani • 10 min read
MER Article The Destructive Dreams of AKP Urbanism The Gezi Park protests were the first time that the AKP faced significant public resistance from below to their urban transformation project. The term “below” is important because the AKP’s legitimacy rests on the claim that it enjoys widespread support from below. The protests, however, revealed an Ayse Çavdar • 11 min read
MER Article Alexandria, City of Dispossession “In Egypt, provincial cities do not exist.” This statement by French geographer Eric Denis eloquently summarizes the relationship between Cairo—the capital city—and the rest of the country. Little seems to exist beyond Cairo, except perhaps Alexandria. In the late 1990s and during the 2000s, Egypt’s second largest Youssef El Chazli • 9 min read
MER Article Amman Amman has absorbed influxes of refugees for decades, each perpetuating political and cultural tensions in a country already fragmented by tribal allegiances. While these divisions provide an easy scapegoat as to why the country continues to struggle financially, politically and developmentally, stat Eliana Abu-Hamdi • 9 min read
MER Article "The Dubai of..." Over the last several decades, and particularly after upheavals in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, much of the urban center of gravity of the Middle East has shifted to the Gulf. To understand this trend and its consequences, MERIP editorial committee member Jillian Schwedler interviewed Yasser Elsh Yasser Elsheshtawy • 16 min read
MER Article Globalized Authoritarianism and the New Moroccan City The transformation of the Moroccan city tells a broader story about the transformation of the state and the economy through neoliberal reform. Economic liberalization promised to undermine the power structures of authoritarian states, but in fact authoritarianism has persisted in new globalized form Koenraad Bogaert • 12 min read
MER Article The Urbanization of Power and the Struggle for the City The Middle East is one of the most urbanized and urbanizing regions in the world. The proliferation of urban megaprojects, skyscrapers, gated communities, retail malls, airports, ports and highways continues unabated. From 2006 to 2016, cement production almost doubled in the region’s major cement producing countries, such as Saudi Deen Sharp • 12 min read
