This book discusses the idea that Arab cultural and political identity has been suppressed by centuries of dominance by imperial outsiders and by religious and nationalist ideologies with the result that present day Arab societies are characterised by a crisis of identity where fundamentalism or chaos seem to be the only available choices. Tracing developments from pre-Islamic times through to the present, the book analyses the evolution of Arab political identity through a multi-layered lens, including memory and forgetting, social and cultural norms, local laws, poetry, dance, attitudes to women, foreigners and animals, ancient historical narratives and more. It argues that Arab societies have much to gain by recovering the "happy memory" of Arab culture as it was before being distorted.

The 2011 split of Sudan and the conflicts that have followed make it a case of ongoing significance for understanding state-building in Africa. Examining both the north-south divide and the spread of violence from Darfur, this study shows how colonial legacies have shaped state formation and charts out a path to inclusive citizenship and democracy.

Unlike most writing on Arab-Iran relations, which looks at specific episodes and specific countries, this book, taking a long term view, assesses the overall dynamics of the relationship, discussing in particular how far religion or politics drives the relationship. It argues that although Iran asserts that religion is a key factor underpinning a coherent approach to international relations, in fact what turns out to be the key factor is the politics of particular circumstances and Iran’s specific interests. The book considers Iran’s differing reactions to the Arab uprisings of 2011 onwards, showing that while Iran supported the uprisings in some countries it sided with repressive governments in other countries. The book also examines Iran’s reaction to its own outbreak of popular discontent in 2009 which was controlled by what has been considered as severe repression and explores how Iran is viewed by ordinary people in different Arab countries. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book explores the contemporary history, governance, foreign policy, political economy, culture, and society of Kuwait. It highlights the dynamics of the country, putting forward both an overview of each subject covered and new research findings. It begins by providing a historical understanding of state formation and goes on to examine state structure, including the ruling monarchy, state legitimacy, and the creation of the Constitution and the National Assembly. It considers foreign policy, including the tools of diplomacy, the state’s regional and international approach, and the factors that have formed and reformed Kuwait’s strategic policy in the global arena. It assesses the economy, including rentierism, the labour market both for locals and for migrants, the class system, and the process of Kuwaitization; and it discusses Kuwaiti society and national identity, as well as investigates issues of women, civil society, youth, and the Bidoon minority. Overall, the book provides a full and detailed analysis of contemporary Kuwait and of the factors which are bringing about new developments.

Reimagining Anti-Oppression Social Work Research explores the challenges, tensions, and possibilities of engaging with anti-oppression epistemology in social work research. Through in-depth discussion of methodologies such as phenomenology, surveys, decolonizing research principles, autoethnography, and critical arts-informed research, the authors provide insights about the application of these approaches to studies with marginalized populations and on a variety of social issues. Outlining principles for engaging with communities, research in organizational contexts, and the importance of fluidity and practices of unknowing, this edited collection invites readers to reflect critically about research frameworks. The authors explore the complexities of research on topics such as whiteness, racism, disability, and trans experiences, as well as working within feminist contexts and institutional social service settings. An ideal resource for social work students and scholars, this insightful and highly accessible volume highlights the value of anti-oppressive research for social change.

This book explores a range of key issues connected to China’s relations with countries in the Middle East and South Asia. It discusses economic and political connections, and projects which have arisen as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It covers both important countries in the Middle East, and also Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. It examines current contentious issues including Iranian sanctions and the war in Syria, and assesses the roles of other powers such as Russia, Turkey and Israel insofar as they affect China’s relationships. Overall, the book presents many new perspectives on the subject, with many of the perspectives representing the view from the countries of the Middle East and South Asia.

This book explores the decision by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1924 to abolish the caliphate. The Ottoman sultans had long borne the title of caliphs of Islam, with all the prestigious authority throughout the Muslim world that went with it, and in the aftermath of the First World War the caliphate still retained great symbolic relevance.The book considers the questions that arose with its abolition, including whether or not the caliphate should be revived, reformed or replaced by other forms of political affiliation and organization. It also assesses more general issues concerning identity and legitimate authority, and how to reconcile time-honoured religious institutions and concepts with modernity, the nation-state and affiliations of an ethnic and religious nature. The book additionally addresses the debates within the pan-Islamic congresses concerning the fate of the caliphate, and the implications of its abolition for Kurdish–Turkish relations and for the British and French Empires with their large Muslim populations.

This book examines Israel's growing interaction with Asia's sub-regions and countries since the 1990s. It shows how these interactions have increased in recent years, both at government level and for companies, entrepreneurs, academic institutions, religious groups, tourists, and NGOs. Likewise, it discusses the evolving shared interests between Israel and Asian states and demonstrates how Asian countries adopted sophisticated policies that allowed them to get closer to Israel without compromising their traditional support of the pro-Palestinian position. It also explores how Israel differentiates between different regions, circles of importance, and countries in Asia rather than sees Asia as a monolithic whole. This groundbreaking book concludes by assessing the overall state of relations at present and likely future developments.

This book examines the perplexing twists and turns in Syria-Iraq relations which since the establishment of modern Syria and Iraq after World War I have zigzagged between cooperation and hostility countless times. It questions why both countries switched regional and international alliances, but never formed one of their own, and assesses the role played by structural forces such as geopolitics, ideology, and regime survival. It also argues that a key factor was the individual personalities – the agency role – of Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussain, both of whom had a monopoly of power, similar ambitions and leadership styles, and great mistrust of each other, with the result that they clashed. It goes on to show how both were caught between commitment to pan-Arabism and the imperative for regime survival, and how this led them both to weaken pan-Arabism instead and construct sectarian polarisation to ensure regime survival. The book concludes that their ruthless fight left a heavy legacy where in both countries regime survival overshadowed state consolidation and nation-building, with both countries divided into smaller communities of faiths and ethnicities at war with each other.

While Israel has seemingly been a minor presence in Hollywood cinema, Reimagining the Promised Land argues that there is a long history of Hollywood deploying images of Israel as a means of articulating an idealized notion of American national identity. This argument is developed through readings of The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956), Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (William Wyler, 1959), Exodus (Otto Preminger, 1960), Cast a Giant Shadow (Melville Shavelson, 1966), Black Sunday (John Frankenheimer, 1977), The Delta Force (Menahem Golan, 1986), and Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The mobilization of Israel that pervades this eclectic group of films effectively demonstrates one of the more surreptitious ways in which Hollywood has historically constructed and circulated dominant notions of American national identity. Moreover, in examining the most notable Hollywood representations of the Jewish state, the book offers an informed historical overview of the cultural forces that have contributed to popular understandings within the United States of the state of Israel, Israel's Arab neighbours, and also the Arab-Israeli conflict.