City and Identity in Modern Iraq - Baghdad and Nation Building

City and Identity in Modern Iraq examines the role of Baghdad in the process of shaping collective identity and analyzing how different visions of citizenship have changed the face of the city. Since the establishment of the modern state in 1921, the capital city, was central to questions of belonging and the country's social stability. Each phase of the city's history offers insights into processes of identity and nation-building that can be found nowhere else.
The book traces Baghdad's evolution from being a "melting pot" for all Iraqis to becoming epicenter of division after 2003. The focus is on the era following the American occupation and how the city regained its role in constructing inclusive visions of nationality in recent years. Due to the lack of suitable methodologies, the new concept of "cultural capacity" is developed and implemented here. It serves as a tool to analyze the city's cultural heterogeneity, the accessibility of its spaces for social interaction and the visibility it offers to different forms of belonging on the micro, mezzo and macro levels. The spaces with the highest relevance for these processes are thoroughly documented to provide insights from the everyday perspective of life. Findings are used to anticipate Baghdad's role, especially after the end of the last wave of ethnoconfessional violence and the Tahrir uprising in October 2019.
It will be useful for readers and institutions with an interest in Iraq, "the Middle East" or the Arabic-Islamic World. Furthermore, it aims to appeal to researchers and professionals from the disciplines of geography, architecture, urban studies, sociology, political sciences, history, heritage, and cultural studies.

List of contents

Introduction 1. Cities' Role in Nation and Identity Building 2. Baghdad's Cultural Capacity: One Century of Nation Building 3. The Cultural Infrastructure: Baghdad's Spaces of Identity and Nation Building Conclusions and Future Perspectives

About the author

Mustafa Obaid earned his doctorate at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz on the role of cities in the development of ethnic and cultural identities in 2024. Since September of the same year, he has been teaching and researching at the department of urban planning at the BTU-Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany.

Product details

• Authors: Mustafa Obaid
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 28.01.2026
• EAN: 9781032947778
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3294777-8
• No. of pages: 266
• Series: Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Geography
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Sociology, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, Society & culture: general, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Middle Eastern, HISTORY / Middle East / Iraq, Middle East, Politics & government, Regional Studies, Politics and government, Middle Eastern history, Regional / International studies, Society and culture: general, Human Geography, History and Archaeology, Modern Period, C 1500 Onwards, Industrialisation & Industrial History, Industrialisation and industrial history, Iraq;Baghdad;City;Identity