LSE Middle East Centre Podcasts

In order to survive in a hostile environment in the Middle East, Israeli decision makers developed a regional foreign policy designed to find ways to approach states, leaders and minorities willing to cooperate with it against mutual regional challenges. Examples include the Periphery Alliance with Iran and Turkey until 1979, cooperation with the Kurds, the Maronites in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, South Sudan and more. Contacts with these potential partners were mostly covert. The aim of this lecture, which is part of a Podeh's new comprehensive book on Israel’s secret relations with its neighbours during the years 1948-2022 is two-fold: first, to offer a theoretical framework explaining the way Israel conducted its covert diplomacy; and second, to focus on several less-known episodes of such clandestine activity, such as Israel’s ties with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf more broadly. Elie Podeh is the Bamberger and Fuld Professor in the History of the Muslim Peoples in the Department of Islamic and Middle East Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He serves as the President of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Association of Israel (MEISAI) and is a board member of Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. His areas of study include Egypt, inter-Arab relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, education and culture in the Middle East, and Israeli foreign policy. He has published and edited twelve books and more than seventy academic articles in English, Hebrew and Arabic. His recent publications include Multiple Alterities: Views of Others in Middle Eastern Textbooks (edited with Samira Alayan, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); The Third Way: Protest and Revolution in the Middle East (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2017) [in Hebrew]; Chances for Peace: Missed Opportunities in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Austin: University Press of Texas, 2015); and The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Professor Martin van Bruinessen delivered a keynote lecture on the history and development of Kurdish Studies as part of a series of activities surrounding the LSE Middle East Centre's inaugural Kurdish Studies Conference on 24-25 April, 2023. The first attempts at institutionalising Kurdish Studies in European academia emerged as a result of the First World War and the British and French mandates in Iraq and Syria when there was a demand for hands-on knowledge of the Kurds. Anthropological studies of Kurdish society then began around the mid-twentieth century, with the emergence of a strong Kurdish national movement from the 1960s onwards stimulating journalist as well as academic interest in Kurdish politics. The growth and mobilization of a Kurdish diaspora, noticeable since the 1990s, has also contributed significantly to the development of Kurdish Studies with political changes in their countries of origin also having a major impact. Professor van Bruinessen assessed the trajectory and most significant developments of Kurdish Studies from its inception to present day. Martin van Bruinessen is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Studies of Modern Muslim Societies at Utrecht University. He is an anthropologist with a strong interest in politics, history and philology, and much of his work straddles the boundaries between these disciplines. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Kurdistan (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria) as well as Indonesia and Southeast Asia generally and has taught on subjects ranging from Ottoman history and sociology of religion to theories of nationalism. He carried out his first field research among the Kurds during two years in the mid-1970s when access was relatively easy and has frequently revisited the region during the following decades. Martin has published extensively on various aspects of Kurdish society, culture and history. His work was translated into Turkish, Persian, Arabic and Kurdish and is easily available in the countries concerned. Since his formal retirement in 2011, he held visiting professorships in Indonesia and Singapore as well as Turkey. His publications include Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan (London, 1992); Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir (with H. Boeschoten, Leiden, 1988), Mullas, Sufis and heretics: the role of religion in Kurdish society (Istanbul, 2000), Kurdish ethno-nationalism versus nation-building states (Istanbul, 2000), the edited volumes Islam und Politik in der Türkei (with J. Blaschke, Berlin, 1985), Islam des Kurdes (with Joyce Blau, Paris, 1998) and more. Most of his numerous published articles can be accessed at his academia.edu page. Zeynep Kaya is a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Her main research areas involve borderlands, territoriality, conflict, peace, political legitimacy and gender in the Middle East. She has recently published a monograph entitled Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism with Cambridge University Press. Zeynep is co-editor of I.B. Tauris-Bloomsbury's Kurdish Studies Series and is co-convenor of the LSE Middle East Centre's Kurdish Studies Conference.

Life in Abu Dhabi is centred around cars. Its urban development and open space infrastructure has impacted the walkability of the city, increasing residents' reliance on cars for mobility. This pattern of development is embedded in a social and spatial practice of not only urban life, but also urban governance and planning. This seminar explores some of the dimensions that have impacted and are emerging from a car infrastructure-led expansion in Abu Dhabi. How did historical decisions lead to car-centric development? How has the road network affected the city and its residents? What is the impact of car-centric development? This seminar is part of the Abu Dhabi (Dis)connected exhibition that was on display at the LSE in February-March 2023. Recorded on 10 March 2023. ________________________________________________________________ Alexandra Gomes is Research Fellow with LSE Cities where she is responsible for coordinating the Centre’s socio-spatial analysis across a range of projects. Her research focuses on urban studies, comparative analysis, urban inequalities, urban health, sustainable mobility and placemaking. Alex is Principal Investigator on the 'Roads as Tools for (Dis)connecting Cities and Neighbourhoods' project. Apostolos Kyriazis is Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at Abu Dhabi University. His research focus includes Architecture, Urban Design and Urban/Rural Sociology. Apostolos is co-Principal Investigator on the 'Roads as Tools for (Dis)connecting Cities and Neighbourhoods' project. Clémence Montagne is Director of Care Design Lab based at the L'École de Design, Nantes Atlantique which leads on abductive research in urbanism and social design. Clémence is a consultant for the 'Roads as Tools for (Dis)connecting Cities and Neighbourhoods' project. Peter Schwinger is a transport economist and planning expert and is a consultant for the 'Roads as Tools for (Dis)connecting Cities and Neighbourhoods' project. Philipp Rode is Executive Director of LSE Cities and Associate Professorial Lecturer at the School of Public Policy. He is Co-Director of the LSE Executive MSc in Cities and Visiting Professor at University of St Gallen’s Institute for Mobility. Philipp has been leading interdisciplinary programmes in urban development and transport, sustainable urbanism and climate change, and city policy and governance at the LSE since 2003. Across his work, he is interested in multi-dimensional aspects of global urbanisation, sustainability and urban change. Join the conversation on Twitter using #LSEMiddleEast #AbuDhabiDisconnected

This event opened the exhibition 'Ruptured Domesticity: Mapping Spaces of Refuge in Iraq' by Dr Sana Murrani, hosted at LSE until 12 May 2023. Using photographs, illustrative maps and drawings, Murrani examines the domestic and intimate spaces of refuge created by Iraqis in preparation for, and in response to, wartime and violence. This work is funded by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq. Murrani was joined by Ammar Azzouz and Dena Qaddumi in a broad-ranging discussion on the exhibition and her forthcoming book 'Rupturing architecture: spatial practices of refuge in response to war and violence in Iraq' (Bloomsbury, 2024). Sana Murrani is an Associate Professor in Spatial Practice at the University of Plymouth. She studied architecture at Baghdad University School of Architecture at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Sana completed her PhD in the UK. Sana’s main research falls within the fields of architecture, human geography and urban studies in particular, the imaginative negotiations of spatial practices and social justice. She is the founder of the Displacement Studies Research Network and co-founder of the Justice and Imagination in Global Displacement research collective. Ammar Azzouz is a Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, and a Lecturer in Heritage Studies, at the School of Philosophy and Art History, University of Essex. Dena Qaddumi is a Fellow in City Design and Social Science in the Department of Sociology at LSE. Her research spans architectural and urban studies and draws on postcolonial urban theory, political geography, and cultural studies.

What is the relationship between archiving and collective visions for liberation? Where does the practice of archiving fit within contemporary subaltern struggles? This conversation, co-curated between historian Leyla Dakhli, Yasmine Kherfi (LSE Middle East Centre), and Mai Taha (LSE Human Rights), builds on the work of Dakhli, who joined us to reflect on archival projects from the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on those that emerged in the 2000s in Syria, Algeria and Lebanon. By exploring archival traces of imagined futures and the aesthetic forms they assume, Dakhli's work seeks to understand how archiving practices can be understood as gestures of a continued revolt. Leyla Dakhli is a full-time researcher in Modern History at the French Center for National Research (CNRS), and member of the Center of social history of Contemporary Worlds (CHS). Her work deals with the study of Arab intellectuals and social history of the South Mediterranean region, with a particular focus on the history of women and the question of exiled intellectuals and activists. Sara Salem is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, LSE. Her main research interests include political sociology, postcolonial studies, Marxist theory, feminist theory, and global histories of empire and imperialism. Mai Taha is an Assistant Professor in Human Rights at LSE. Previously she was a Lecturer in Law at Goldsmiths, University of London, and an Assistant Professor in International Human Rights Law and Justice at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Mai has written on international law and empire, human rights, labour movements, class and gender relations, and care work and social reproduction.

How does the political and cultural shape the linguistic? How does power seep into terminology? What vocabulary is left for a people facing accumulated traumas caused by authoritarian brutality and imperial interventions recently compounded by natural disasters? This panel focuses on Syria to explore these questions about conducting cultural studies in times of disaster. It brings together the editor of and contributors to the recent special issue in the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication “Keywords in Contemporary Syrian Media, Culture and Politics.” The panellists will address the place of keywords in their scholarly research and engagement. Emma Aubin-Boltanski is a social anthropologist and an Arabist. She is one of the principal investigators of the research programme SHAKK (From revolt to War in Syria: Conflict, displacements, uncertainties), funded by the ANR (2018-2022) where she coordinates the project of a lexicon of the revolution and the war in Syria: https://syria-lexicon.pubpub.org/. Eylaf Bader Eddin is a post-doctoral researcher at The Prison Narratives of Assad’s Syria: Voices, Texts, Publics (SYRASP) Project (851393) for his research “Musical Remains and Songs in Syrian Prisons and Exile” at the EUME Forum, Transregionale Studien in Berlin. Razan Ghazzawi is an exiled Syrian-Palestinian. Ghazzawi finished their PhD at the University of Sussex in Brighton and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at EUME, Berlin. Their thesis project is an ethnographical exploration of sexuality politics in the context of the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘refugee crisis’ in Syria and Lebanon by examining checkpoints and arrests as everyday forms of political violence against Syrian and Palestinian LGBTQ activists, artists, migrant workers, students and teachers based in Lebanon. Omar Al-Ghazzi is an Associate Professor in Media and Communications at LSE. His work focuses on the geopolitics of global communications, particularly in relation to news media and popular culture.

This panel, co-organised with Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), focused on the role that representations of femininities, masculinities, and sexualities in media and cultural productions play in maintaining or challenging stereotypes, and the gendered norms and regimes that these give rise to. Drawing on feminist approaches to media and cultural studies, speakers will discuss how different media forms, ranging from traditional print to film, advertising, and digital media have shaped gendered discourses and, relatedly, feminist thinking and praxes in the Middle East. Dalia Said Mostafa is Associate Professor on the Women, Society & Development Programme, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. On this panel she will discuss 'Women's Formidable Role and Influence in the Making of Arab Cinema'. Polly Withers is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. On this panel she will discuss 'Problematising feminist media studies from the Middle East: Gendering media in Palestine'. Amal Al-Malki is the Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation. Before that, she was the Executive Director of the Translation and Interpreting Institute, which she founded in 2011. She also was an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar where she taught courses in writing composition, postcolonial literature, theories of translation, and Islamic feminism. Marc Owen Jones is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University, where he lectures and researches on political repression and informational control strategies. His recent work has focused on the way social media has been used to spread disinformation and fake news in the Middle East. Sophie Richter-Devroe is Associate Professor in the Women, Society and Development Program at the College of Humanities and Social Science, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Sophie's broad research interests are in the field of everyday politics and women's activism in the Middle East. https://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/events/2023/feminist-media-studies-middle-east

This event was the launch of Spyros A. Sofos' latest book 'Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism' published by Edinburgh University Press. By analysing Turkish political culture and institutional architecture through archival research and a critical rereading of the historiography of the Turkish state and society, Sofos proposes key conceptual tools to study popular and populist politics and applies them to the Turkish case. Drawing on a diverse body of scholarship including sociology, cultural studies, psychosocial studies, political science and political theory, Turkish Politics and 'The People' explores the transformations of the notion of ‘the people’ from the late Ottoman to current Turkish political discourses. Spyros A. Sofos is a political scientist based at the London School of Economics Middle East Centre and is founder and lead editor of openDemocracy’s #rethinkingpopulism. His other books include Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (1996, Routledge), Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (2008, Hurst and Oxford University Press), Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks (2013, Palgrave). Bahar Baser is Associate Professor at Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs. Previously, she was Associate Professor at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University where she led the "Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation Research Group". Dimitar Bechev is a Russia and East European Studies Affiliate at the School of Global Area Studies, University of Oxford. His research interests are the politics of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey as well as Russian foreign policy.

This panel, co-organised with Hamad Bin Khalifa University, was the launch of 'Tunisia's Economic Development: Why Better than Most of the Middle East but not East Asia' co-authored by Mustapha K. Nabil and Jeffrey B. Nugent. Recently published as part of the Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa Series edited by Hassan Hakimian, 'Tunisia's Economic Development' provides useful insights into the factors that have enabled Tunisia's initial economic success, and suggests opportunities for improving the management of economic development in the country, drawing wider lessons for the MENA region. Find out more here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/events/2023/tunisia-economic-development. Mustapha K. Nabli has been Professor of Economics at the University of Tunis, Chairman of the Tunis Stock Exchange, Minister of Planning, Regional and Economic Development in the Government of Tunisia, Chief Economist and Director of the Social and Economic Development Department for the Middle East and North Africa Region at the World Bank, and Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia. Jeffrey B. Nugent is Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California, USA. He has worked on and in various countries of both the MENA and East Asian regions including for the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Leila Baghdadi is Professor of Economics at ESSECT, University of Tunis, where she holds the World Trade Organization Chair. She is an executive board member of the Central Bank of Tunisia since August 2019. Mohamed Ali Marouani is Associate Professor in Economics at the Sorbonne Institute of Development Studies and currently on leave as Resident Representative of the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in Tunisia. Hassan Hakimian is Professor of Economics and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Department (MESD) at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. During 2010-19, he was Director of the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) and Reader in the Economics Department at SOAS University of London.

This panel, co-organised with the Society for Algerian Studies, explored the relationship between sports and society in the Maghreb. Panellists from across academia and the media discussed the historical development of sport in the region, as well as the relationship between gender and sport. With Morocco and Tunisia qualifying for the 2022 Men's World Cup, and Morocco qualifying for the 2023 Women's World Cup, panellists also charted the contemporary development of football in the region, and how the societies of the Maghreb understand their politics and identities through the sport. Mahfoud Amara is Associate Professor in Sport Social sciences and Management at Qatar University. Amara has published on sport, business, culture, politics and society in the Arab region. In 2012, he published a book with Palgrave Macmillan titled Sport Politics and Society in the Arab World. Maher Mezahi is an independent football journalist based between Marseille and Algiers. He examines the relationship between sport and politics, and his research interests include North African politics and the history of colonial sport in Africa. He covers North African football extensively, and his work has been published by the BBC, The Guardian, ESPN Africa and Al Jazeera English. Aziza Nait Sibaha is a Senior TV anchor and Executive Editor at France24. She has worked as a journalist in Morocco and France for the last 25 years. Nait Sibaha is also the Founder of Taja Sport, a media platform dedicated to women’s sports in the MENA region. She has also directed the documentary Atlas Lionesses: Hear them Roar! on Morocco's women’s national football team.