Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East integrates the study of the social dynamics in the Middle East within history, culture, and politics. The volume transcends a purely regional perspective to investigate the global nature of these dynamics and their impact on the life of people in the region. It provides a comprehensive perspective in connecting the vexed state-society relations in the region with movements of transformation and the affirmation of rights and creativity in the public arenas.

List of contents

• Introduction


• 1. What Went Wrong?: Western Sociology and the Fiction of the Middle East


• Armando Salvatore, McGill University, and Kieko Obuse, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies and McGill University


• Part I: Legacies of Conflicts and Movements of Transformation


• 2. A Cognitive Arab Uprising?: Paradigm Shifts in Arab Social Sciences


• Sari Hanafi, American University of Beirut


• 3. Colonialism in the Region: Foundations, Legacies and Continuities


• Mark LeVine, University of California, Irvine


• 4. The End of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Nation States


• Frederick F. Anscombe, Birkbeck College, University of London


• 5. The Question of Palestine: From the Balfour Declaration to the Deal of the Century


• Honaida Ghanim, Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies MADAR, Ramallah


• 6. Political Ideologies in the Middle East and North Africa


• Michaelle Browers, Wake Forest University


• 7. The Many Faces of Zionism


• Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter


• Part II: Inflecting State-Society Relations


• 8. History and State Coercion in the Arab Spring: Against Presentism and Methodological Nationalism in the Study of the Arab State


• Atef Said, University of Illinois at Chicago


• 9. The Social Life of Non-Profit and Third Sector in the Middle East


• Benoit Challand, New School of Social Research, New York


• 10. A State of Discord: A Sociohistorical Reflection on Contested Statehood in Libya


• Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, ODI


• 11. Key Issues in the Political Economy of the Gulf Cooperation Council States


• Adam Hanieh, SOAS, University of London


• 12. Labor Migration to the Persian Gulf Monarchies


• Zahra Babar, Georgetown University in Qatar


• 13. The Politics of Education in the Middle East: Problems and Challenges


• Nadim Mirshak, The University of Manchester


• Part III: Beyond the Religio-Civilizational Puzzle: Critical Views of Secularization and Islamization


• 14. The Place of Islam in the Foundation of Modern Social Theory: Tocqueville, Marx, and Weber


• Lütfi Sunar, Istanbul Medeniyet University


• 15. Religion in the City


• Timur Hammond, Syracuse University


• 16. The Transformation of Islamic Law in Modernity


• Andrew March, University of Massachusetts Amherst


• 17. Varieties of Secularity


• Florian Zemmin, Leipzig University


• 18. Religion and Politics in Turkey


• Ates Altinordu, Sabanci University, Istanbul


• 19. The Troubled Course of Secularism in the Modern Middle East


• Paul Salem, Middle East Institute, Washington DC


• 20. The Sunni Islamic Revival


• Aaron Rock Singer, University of Wisconsin-Madison


• 21. The Idea of the "Islamic Intellectuals": A Chimera or a Lifeline?


• Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Doha Institute


• 22. Iran's Islamic Revolution: The Return of the Hunchbacked Dwarf


• Fatemeh Sadeghi Givi, University College London


• 23. Al-Nahda's Local Test: Compromise, Institutionalization and Generational Dislocation


• Olfa Lamloum, International Alert


• 24. The Battle for the Soul of Islam


• James M. Dorsey, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore


• 25. The New Islamic State: The Rise and Fall of a New Wave of Jihadism


• Farhad Khosrokhavar, CADIS, EHESS-CNRS, Paris


• Part IV: Problematizing Youth and Gender


• 26. Excluded Generations in Non-Inclusive Nations: The Demographic Roots of Political Unrest in the Arab World


• Philippe Fargues, European University Institute, Florence


• 27. Youth Unemployment and Alienation in the Middle East: A Critical View


• Françoise De Bel-Air, European University Institute, Florence


• 28. Shifting Family Patterns


• Bettina Dennerlein, University of Zürich


• 29. "When Women Change, Everything Changes": MENA Women and Making Health and Sexuality Matter


• Kristin Soraya Batmangelichi, University of Oslo


• Part V Dissecting Identities and Affirming Rights


• 30. For a Sociology of Sectarianism: Bridging the Disciplinary Gaps Beyond the "Deeply Divided Societies" Paradigm


• Rima Majed, American University of Beirut


• 31. Ethnic Identity, Memory and Spaces of Violence


• Craig Larkin, King's College London


• 32. LGBTQI Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Laws, Discourses, and Challenges


• Serena Tolino, Bern University


• 33. Human Rights and Domestic Work in the Contemporary Gulf: A Critical Rights Development Review


• Rima Sabban, Zayed University, Dubai


• 34. No Bread, No Freedom, No Social Justice: How EU-Egyptian Human Rights Discourse Undermines Democracy


• Andrea Teti, University of Aberdeen, and Gennaro Gervasio, Università Roma Tre


• 35. A Sociology of Knowledge on Humanitarianism and Displacement: The Case of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey


• Estella Carpi, University College London, and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, University College London


• Part VI: Urban Spaces, Media Technologies, and Creative Disciplines


• 36. Globalization and Cosmopolitanism in the Middle Eastern City


• Leïla Vignal, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France


• 37. What Satellite Television Has Done to the Public Sphere and to the Public in the Maghreb: Visibility and Plurality


• Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, York University, Toronto


• 38. Social Media and Contentious Politics: Revisiting the Debate a Decade after the Beginning of the Arab Uprisings


• Enrico De Angelis, independent scholar, and Yazan Badran, Free University, Brussels


• 39. Dismantling the Multitude: Urban Planning and the 'New Republic' in Egypt


• Heba Raouf Ezzat, Ibn Haldun University


• 40. Music and the Politics of Culture in the Middle East


• Mark LeVine, University of California, Irvine


• 41. Toward a Poetic Sociology of Iran


• Setrag Manoukian, McGill University


• Conclusion


• 42. Middle East or "Middle Earth"? "Re-Orienting" Orienta lism and Globalizing Area Studies


• Kieko Obuse, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies and McGill University, and Armando Salvatore, McGill University

About the author

Armando Salvatore is the Barbara and Patrick Keenan Chair in Interfaith Studies and Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at McGill University. He has held professorial and research positions at Humboldt University Berlin, University of Naples 'L'Orientale,' National University of Singapore, Leipzig University, and Australian National University, Canberra. His most recent single-authored book is The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility (Wiley Blackwell, 2016). Among his other recent publications is the chief editorship of the multi-authored work The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam (Wiley Blackwell, 2018).

Sari Hanafi is currently a Professor of Sociology, Director of Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and Chair of the Islamic Studies program at the American University of Beirut. He is the President of the International Sociological Association. He is as well editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology. Among his recent co-authored books is Knowledge Production in the Arab World: The Impossible Promise (with R. Arvanitis, 2015). In 2019, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the National University of San Marcos.

Kieko Obuse is a Visiting Researcher at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan and an Affiliate Member of the School of Religious Studies, McGill University. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and was formerly a Lecturer at the College of Religious Studies, Mahidol University, Thailand. Her main research interests are Buddhist-Muslim relations, Islam in Japan, and Thai Buddhism. She is currently working on a monograph titled Buddhist-Muslim Engagement: Doctrinal Negotiations in Southeast Asia and Japan. She is a co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2020-2021 online edition, 2022 print edition) and the book review editor of The Journal of Religion in Japan (Brill).

Summary

The sociology of the Middle East has been an expanding field of inquiry since the aftermath of World War II when the Middle East became central in key sociological debates on modernization theory and their critical responses.

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East connects this historical trajectory with the emergence of the sociology of Islam, inspired by Max Weber. It explores how within the global community, the Middle East has become a terrain of heightened concern within the post-Cold War context, where the promising rise of civic (and often religiously motivated) sociopolitical movements in the 1980s and 1990s has been slowly overwhelmed by the affirmation of jihadist networks, authoritarian states, and complex supranational security apparatuses. This foundational volume engages in a critical examination of the field, starting with a historical sociology of the making of the idea itself of the Middle East and linking it with the legacy of colonialism and the evolving dynamics of global power. In repurposing the sociology of the Middle East within a growing interdisciplinary multifield, the Handbook develops the critical argument that the exploration of social dynamics in the Middle East cannot be disjoined from the analysis of culture and politics.

With a diverse and international list of contributors, the Handbook provides a critical resource for academics and students in the field by offering a comprehensive, if diversified, perspective to investigate longstanding regional and new transregional dynamics impacting on the life of people in the Middle East.

Product details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.02.2023
• EAN: 9780190087470
• ISBN: 978-0-19-008747-0
• No. of pages: 944
• Series: Oxford Handbooks Series
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Social Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology of Religion, Middle East, Religious groups: social & cultural aspects, Social groups: religious groups and communities