Middle East

This work reflects on how the representation of the Arab world has evolved in three fictional works that have emerged in the second decade of the 21st century: Homeland (Showtime Networks, 2011-2020), Tyrant (FX Network-Fox, 2014-2016), and Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime Video, 2018-). The goal is to determine whether the main socio-political milestones that occurred during this period (the Arab Spring, Syrian Civil War, appearance of ISIS, etc.) have transformed the already classic theories of authors such as Edward Said, Jack Shaheen, or Evelyn Alsultany, among others. A viewing and analysis of the first season of each show demonstrates that the panorama has not improved in terms of discourse, topics, and stereotypes. It is clear, therefore, that the lens of 9/11 is still very present in the Hollywood mindset regarding Arabs, Muslims, and Islam.

While the canonical literature on oil wealth suggests that hydrocarbon windfalls encourage repressive despotism, Kuwait provides a case of an oil-rich autocracy governing instead through popular rentierism-that is, through a broad coalition of social forces, one that furnishes enduring loyalty from below while constraining abuses of state power from above. This paper provides a theoretically guided explanation for this exceptional outcome. I argue that the Kuwaiti regime's coalitional bargains originated in the pre-oil era, when domestic opposition and geopolitical constrictions compelled it to forge new social alliances at the dawn of modern statehood. This inclusionary strategy mediated the subsequent effect of oil rents, which the regime used to institutionalize its mass base with costly material and symbolic side payments. Such popular incorporation bound large constituent classes to the regime's survival, precluding the need for widespread repression. After 50 years, these coalitional bargains have also proven remarkably resilient, as social actors have continued to endorse the autocratic leadership despite economic crisis and wartime defeat.

Short of the war, the destruction, and the massive loss of life, Ukraine is in many ways similar to the Gulf crisis in which the UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, led a 3.5-year-long economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar that, like the Russian invasion, was designed to hollow out the sovereignty of a neighbouring state.

For several centuries the Middle East was socially, economically, and technologically advanced. One of the reasons for this was its people’s appreciation of and openness to knowledge creation and dissemination. This trend lasted from the 8th to the 13th centuries (Aubert and Reiffers 2003). Knowledge became the most important and determining factor for economic growth. The impact and contribution of this wealth of knowledge were felt and appreciated across different sectors and disciplines and acknowledged beyond the region and around the world. However, things changed drastically in the 18th and 19th centuries following the Industrial Revolution. In the 21st century, with oil exploration and an economic boom in some parts of the region, investment and attention was redirected to building state of the art infrastructure in various sectors, including education and health, as Middle Eastern countries prepared to engage with and integrate in the knowledge society. To date, investments allocated to sectors such as education, information infrastructure, research and development, and innovation have been insufficient in most Middle Eastern countries (Aubert and Reiffers 2003), when compared to other regions, including emerging economies. However, increasing attention is being paid to these sectors compared to past decades and more concrete achievements have been realized in recent years. Education in the Middle East has consistently faced a variety of challenges. According to the World Bank, the quality of education in the region is falling behind other regions and needs urgent intervention and reform in order to address issues associated with unemployment (Gavlak 2008). Although the knowledge ecosystem, including awareness, education, training, and lifelong learning, represents a cornerstone for development and growth in the Middle East, there is still a lot that needs to be done before the education sector becomes a catalyst for economic production and development and a driver for societal growth (Holmes 2008). Moreover, higher education plays an invaluable role within society because it creates additional opportunities for development and provides knowledge transfer for students and other stakeholders, and promotes change, creativity, innovation, and progress (Wilkens 2011). Over the last few decades successive governments in the region sought to expand enrollment to formal education and improve the quality and efficiency of education service delivery (Welmond 2006). Education and lifelong learning should be considered as the invaluable foundation upon which most economic and social strategies are based, and policies and directions are built. Therefore, education should be made a top priority if the national objective is to realize effective and sustainable economic development and growth in the long term. Building a knowledgeable society remains an integral platform for creating jobs, improving standards of living, and becoming more competitive as a nation. The impact is usually realized following years of strategic planning in which synergies are established among key stakeholders in the economy. Moreover, modern education and lifelong learning policies are increasingly being defined in terms of economic development, growth and timely global competition (Shirazi 2010). The key challenges facing the Middle East could be summarized in three main points: an increase in educational disparity within countries; a constant decrease in the quality of education, despite an ongoing increase in per capita education expenditure; and the mismatch and growing divide between market needs, in terms of capacity and skills, and what the educational system has to offer in terms of output (UNDP 2002). Moreover, there are factors that impact higher education such as, but not limited to, regional and international geopolitical challenges, student mobility and the impact of emerging technologies, in addition to socioeconomic development and growth.

Abstract:
Dissertation Submitted to Jawaharlal Nehru University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for Award of the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY.

The root causes of the GCC's employment problems are interlocked – a system of national education that has largely not been competitive or well aligned with the needs of modern industry, a culture of citizens conditioned to a protective government, a public sector that is overstaffed and inefficient, and counterproductive policies in areas such as immigration and social welfare. It is also reflected in the highly distorted labour market in the region, founded on a socio-ethnic duality. In some respects the labour market is rigid, with pronounced differences in the wages for non-nationals and nationals. In other aspects it is flexible as current laws make it very easy to import or deport foreigners based on hiring/firing. This is also why“unemployment” is a national issue, for if and when a foreigner‟s work visa is terminated, he or she is obliged to return to the home country.
In the final analysis  –
• At the GCC level, the dissertation research disproves the hypothesis that growing numbers of GCC nationals have entered the private sector due to workforce nationalisation programmes, replacing foreign labour.
• The second hypothesis has been validated in that the growing mismatch between available local labour and the labour market requirements has undermined the success of Emiratisation.
• Finally, the failure of Emiratisation has been concluded while validating the hypothesis that Indian labour migration to the UAE has been vigorous despite Emiratisation.

This paper presents the results of ground vibration measurements carried out in Hisarcik Boron open pit mine located on the west side of central Anatolia near Kütahya province in Turkey. Within the scope of this study to predict peak particle velocity (PPV) level for this site, ground vibration components were measured for 304 shots during bench blasting. In blasting operations, ANFO (blasting agent), gelatin dynamite (priming), and delay electric detonators (firing) were used as explosives. Parameters of scaled distance (charge quantity per delay and the distance between the source and the station) were recorded carefully and the ground vibration components were measured for all blast events using two different types of vibration monitors (one White Mini-Seis and one Instantel Minimate Plus Model). The absolute distances between shot points and monitor stations were determined using GPS. The equation of square root scaled distance extensively used in the literature was taken into consideration for the prediction of PPV. Then, the data pairs of scaled distance and particle velocity obtained from the 565 event records were analyzed statistically. At the end of statistical evaluation of the data pairs, an empirical relation which gives 50% prediction line with a reasonable correlation coefficient was established between PPV and scaled distance.

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

An updated history of modern Lebanon is long overdue as the
last such attempt dates from the mid-1960s. Much has happened
since and a lot of new historical material has been uncovered and
researched. The last civil war (1975–90) was the occasion for a wealth
of intellectual production on Lebanon in a variety of fi elds. Some are
remarkable path-breaking works. Nevertheless, the modern history
of Lebanon is still full of serious gaps, especially concerning the
post-Independence period. On the other hand, researchers have
extensively drawn upon European government archives, leaving
important primary sources untapped. The Ottoman archives, for
one, have been recently organised and made accessible to the public.
Unfortunately, the results of most of the research on this vast stock
are not yet available for use. Other, more recent, untapped primary
sources have been strangely ignored, such as the US State Department
Archives. Nevertheless, a number of secondary sources in Arabic,
French and English have made precious contributions to the study of
different periods of Lebanese history and various aspects of Lebanese
life. I am referring here to the works of `Abd al-Rahim Abu Husayn,
Albert Hourani, Engin Akarli, Leila Fawaz, Irene Gendzier, Michael
Johnson, Kamal Salibi, Meir Zamir, Carolyn Gates, Theodor Hanf,
Georges Corm, Wajih Kawtharani, Selim Nasr, Ahmad Beydoun,
Samir Kassir, Marwan Buheiry, Mas`ud Dhahir, Waddah Sharara, Eyal
Zisser, and others. Their contributions have enriched the present
volume in many ways.

Under Turkey’s neoconservative government, the Directorate of Religious Affairs deploys state-employed religious functionaries to provide Sunni Muslim citizens with advice and guidance on family life. By inculcating government-sanctioned sensibilities and dispositions related to kinship, these Islamic authorities have become instrumental to extending state power into the domestic lives of the religious majority. This particular entwinement of religion with state power is no aberration. Indeed, the Turkish case reveals a contradiction that lies at the heart of secular governance: the continuing involvement of religion in the politics of the family despite the assumed separation of religion and politics. Secular states may appropriate religious discourses and authority in regulating intimacy and the family while aligning these with biopolitical rationalities, as well as with secular laws and expertise. [secularism, kinship, family, intimacy, governmentality, the state, expertise, Islam, Turkey].

Believers say he preaches a new, modern form of Islam. Critics charge he is a power hungry wolf in sheep's clothing preparing to convert secular Turkey into an Islamic republic; a conspirator who has created a state within the state and attempted this weekend to topple democratically elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a failed military coup.

That was not how past Turkish governments or for that matter Mr. Erdogan in his first eight years as prime minister saw Fethullalh Gulen, the leader of one of the world’s largest and wealthiest Islamic movements.

This paper is to describe an innovative seismological technology for the 4D survey to monitor of change in storage in CCS (Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage) and oil and gas reservoirs and aquifer. We present two fundamental technologies: an integrated interpretation method for WARRP (Wide-angle Refraction Reflection Profiling) seismic data to determine precise underground structure and the seismic ACROSS (Accurately Controlled and Routinely Operated Signal System) source to perform continuous monitor f characteristic change of seismic waves. The integrated set of 4D analysis tools gives ray-paths and travel-times and generating synthetic waveforms under given velocity structure model. By this method, we can choose the most appropriate locations for sources and receivers to watch characteristic change of CO2 storage and reservoirs. We describe a non-destructive seismic source of well controlled seismic ACROSS source, which can be used to continuously watch a target. This method, whose potential has been demonstrated in very large-scale surveys, is nevertheless flexible enough to meet the specific requirements of seismic exploration and monitoring of CO2 storage and oil, gas and aqueous fields.

Que les contours en aient été déterminés par des réformes endogènes, par la colonisation, par les conditions de la Guerre froide et/ou celles de la décolonisation, la création artistique sur le pourtour sud et est méditerranéen, et au-delà dans la Péninsule arabique et en Asie centrale, a été le produit à la fois d’interactions supranationales et d’enracinements locaux variés, qui se sont matérialisés dans toutes sortes d’innovations et d’hybridations, d’échappées particulières et de dyschronies. L’étude et la déconstruction de ce champ artistique se sont pourtant principalement occupées jusqu’à présent des stéréotypes véhiculés par le « centre » sur ses « périphéries ». L’objectif du séminaire est de renverser la focale pour placer le Maghreb et le Moyen-Orient en tant que territoires de création artistique au cœur de l’enquête. Il est aussi de transgresser les approches par médium qui segmentent et obscurcissent les problématiques communes aux arts plastiques, aux arts décoratifs et à l’architecture de cette aire géoculturelle. Dans cette exploration d’une approche plurimédiale, plus interactionniste et multipolaire des œuvres et des mondes de l’art qui y ont vu le jour, quelle importance accorder aux caractéristiques visuelles, esthétiques et techniques des œuvres ? Leur prise en compte ne doit-elle pas accompagner, voire enrichir l’analyse sociopolitique, dans l’optique de contextualiser le regard et ainsi favoriser l’engagement dans les territoires étudiés et vis-à-vis des sociétés qui les composent ? Ouvert aux masterants et doctorants, le séminaire s’adosse aux travaux, outils et ressources numériques développés par le laboratoire InVisu dans le cadre de contrats de recherche français et européens et de partenariats diversifiés.

Séminaire hebdomadaire du laboratoire InVisu organisé par Nadine Atallah (Paris I-InVisu), Juliette Hueber, Claudine Piaton et Mercedes Volait (CNRS-InVisu), du 22 janvier au 16 avril 2019.
Galerie Colbert, Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris 2e.

https://invisu.inha.fr/fr/recherche/seminaire/arts-visuels.html

The methodology of Feldstein and Horioka (Econ. J. 90 (1980) 314) is used to gauge the degree of capital mobility and accessibility to international financial markets following financial liberalisation. The sample consists of 90 developing countries divided into four regions: ...

This paper outlines the development of family medicine in seven Middle Eastern countries. Some of the first family medicine activity occurred in Turkey in 1961, in Bahrain in 1978, in Lebanon in 1979, in Jordan in 1981, and in Kuwait in 1983. Family medicine programs have also been established in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, and Iraq. In most programs, family medicine training occurs largely in hospitals, even though few Middle Eastern family physicians practice in hospitals after completion of residency training. Thus, there is a need for better outpatient training, but resistance from those responsible for traditional medical education makes it difficult to change the current model of family medicine education. There is also need for better opportunities for professional development after graduation and for establishing research activity in family medicine.

Tracer techniques were used to study infiltration losses into a dry wadi bed. In order not to be fully dependent on rarely occurring natural flood events, an artificial flash flood was studied in a small arid stream channel, Nahal Shahmon, Israel. A reservoir was built, filled with water (550 m3) and breached artificially. Three different artificial tracers were injected at different times during the flood. At two locations downstream surface water samples were taken. The water moving within the alluvium was also sampled with the help of fluocapteurs distributed at different locations within the alluvial body. The fluocapteurs enabled the different pathways of the two dye tracers downstream to be identified and the maximum depth of infiltration to be approximated. This sampling technique is promising for future studies in arid rivers, since fluocapteurs can stay for a long time without any maintenance. Towards the end of flow, exfiltration from the channel alluvium was observed. The...

Background Alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use cause considerable morbidity and mortality, but good cross-national epidemiological data are limited. This paper describes such data from the first 17 countries participating in the World Health Organization's (WHO's) World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative.

This study explores the growing presence of emotional terminology within Israeli popular discourses on national security, as reflected in the daily talk of Israelis living on the border with the Gaza Strip. It is based on ethnography conducted in 2016-18 as part of a multi-site, multidisciplinary study on articulations of security in frontier communities. Findings reveal that the grassroots discourse of national security is saturated with emotional language, and that this, in turn, is interlaced with relationships terminology. Residents report high levels of insecurity (fear, trauma, and constant disquiet), alongside pride in their families' and communities' strong care and solidarity, which they perceive as a great source of resilience. Parenthetically, the state and the military, too, are made concrete through relational emotions. We argue that the language of emotional-relationality frames national security and resilience as mental dispositions, and that this subsequently renders the robust power apparatuses that maintain their semi-transparency. The analysis dwells on the political implications of the phenomenon. We note an association between residents' preoccupations with the conflict's emotional effects on their lives and their consistent avoidance from criticising the state's policies regarding its management or potential transformation. This transposition of the political with the emotional, we argue, offers a distinct insight into Israelis' familiar tendency to avoid criticising Israel's aggressions against the Palestinians: the embeddedness of national security in emotional relationships implicitly constructs political criticism as betrayal of intimate relations.

Under the Bush administration, the US has aggressively promoted democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.  By replacing repressive tyrants with moderate liberals and giving voice to hitherto suppressed social forces, US-backed democratization would drain the swamp of ideological extremism and reduce violent conflict, all while underscoring the role of America as a moral beacon of international enlightenment.  However, as this chapter argues, the project of encouraging Arab democracy faltered under a devastating self-contradiction. Democratization requires that autocratic incumbents surrender their monopolies over executive authority to legal opposition groups ensconced in parliaments and civic institutions. Yet, in the Arab world, this would likely bring into power Islamist groups that evoke fierce hostility toward Washington’s vital strategic interests. An Arab spring of democracy might thus result in a winter of discontent for U.S. policymakers bound by stringent imperatives, such as sponsoring Israeli policies and securing regional oil reserves. Such dissonance has exposed American democracy promotion as an ideological cloak for a darker agenda: paying lip service to gradual reform while quietly sustaining long-standing support for  autocratic allies. The theoretical lesson is stark: observers should expect not the imminent breakdown or even the slow erosion of Arab authoritarianism, but rather its renewed durability in an era of continuing patron-client ties.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is a problem world-wide. Since it was identified; Western nations have implemented extensive SIDS education campaigns to reduce SIDS risk which have resulted in dramatically decreasing SIDS death rates. In contrast, there is little information available about the impact of SIDS in Middle East (ME) countries where high infant mortality is common. STo investigate SIDS incidence rates across various ME countries, ascertain specific SIDS risk factors relevant to ME populations, categorise high risk groups and identify SIDS intervention programs in the ME. A structured literature review was performed. A total of 10,509 study were identified with 11 proving to be most relevant to the research purpose. The SIDS incidence rates data available in ME countries is extremely limited with only five studies addressing SIDS rates in the ME. For a range of reasons, many infant deaths are registered as “cause unknown” with no associated autopsy report or other details. Additionally, limitations in the study designs restrict the ability to accurately estimate incidence rates from the research projects reported. The most significant risk factor for SIDS in ME countries identified in the literature is the high incidence of smoking, resulting from less political restrictions on smoking at home and public settings. Targeted public health SIDS education programs need to be developed and promoted in high risk ME countries with a specific focus on infant care practices, lifestyle and general living conditions.

Olga Tufnell’s ‘Perfect Journey’

By Jack Green and Ros Henry

Blog published on TrowelBlazers, April 26, 2021.

https://trowelblazers.com/olga-tufnells-perfect-journey/

Excerpt:  Olga Tufnell (1905‒1985) was a British archaeologist who mainly worked in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s, whose archive of letters and photographs are housed at the Palestine Exploration Fund, London. She is best known for her scholarly publications on the excavations of Tell ed-Duweir (ancient Lachish), as well scarabs and stamp seals from the East Mediterranean. You can read her full TrowelBlazers bio here. Tufnell’s reminiscences and letters provide insights into dig life during the so-called “golden age” of archaeology in the Holy Land, and the wider cultural, political, and gendered context of fieldwork within Mandate Palestine.

In our new open access book entitled Olga Tufnell’s “Perfect Journey.” Letters and Photographs of an Archaeologist in the Levant and Mediterranean (UCL Press), we present her letters from this period for the first time. They provide a personal account of her experiences, shedding light on travel and dig life during extraordinary times.

The letters offer insights into social and professional networks and the history of archaeology. They provide a contemporary view of the role of foreign archaeologists, relationships with local workers and their families, and the colonial frameworks within which they operated. The letters are important because they give Olga Tufnell’s viewpoint as an individual at times and places which saw significant social and political change. The letters reflect the attitudes of the day: some static and resistant to change; others indicating the growing acceptance of women in a man’s world.

Diviso tra Turchia, Siria, Iraq e Iran, il Kurdistan rappresenta probabilmente uno degli scenari geopolitici più caldi del Medio Oriente. È il territorio di un popolo, i curdi, che vanta più di trenta milioni di persone la più grande "nazione" senza Stato - e che si sta rivelando un attore cruciale della regione. Nelle recenti crisi mediorientali, infatti, il "fattore curdo" si è rivelato una costante fondamentale: dalle guerre in Iraq sotto Saddam Hussein alla lotta contro il cosiddetto Stato Islamico, dal ruolo nei delicati equilibri politici turchi al conflitto siriano. Senza dimenticare che il Kurdistan è una delle regioni più ricche di petrolio. Conoscere i curdi, distinguere le loro istanze autonomiste o indipendentiste, le priorità che ne guidano l'operato nei diversi contesti statali in cui si trovano a vivere, è quindi fondamentale per comprendere cosa stia avvenendo oggi. In questo volume si offre un primo approccio globale alla "questione curda" grazie all'apporto di studiosi internazionali e alla curatela dell'lSPl, uno dei più importanti istituti di ricerca europei.

The emergence of Islamic banks and other financial institutions since the 1970s has stimulated a modern literature that has identified itself as addressing “Islamic accounting”. Much of this literature is prescriptive, though studies of actual practice, and of attitudes to proposed alternatives, are beginning to emerge. Historical research into Islamic accounting is still in a process of development, with a range of studies based on both primary archives and manuals of accounting providing growing insight into accounting in state and private contexts in the Middle East. Other parts of the Muslim world are also the focus of historical accounting research. There is still much to discover, however, before historians can determine the influence of Middle Eastern accounting ideas and practices in other parts of the world. Moreover, the term “Islamic accounting” may simply be a convenient label to group together quite disparate accounting practices and ideas across time and space.

Affective disorders, particularly depression, are the commonest and probably the most important psychopathological complication of end stage renal disease (ESRD). Depression has the potential to alter adversely the medical outcome of ESRD patients and the psychological stress can affect patient's adherence to medication regimen. In Iraq as well as many other Arab countries, the true prevalence of depression among ESRD patients is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression among a cohort of Iraqi hemodialysis (HD) patients and relate it to their socio-demographic characteristics. We recruited patients from two HD centers in Baghdad, excluding patients with history of depression or other psychiatric disorders prior to the initiation of HD. The Arabic version of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders fourth edition (DSM-IV) was used to diagnose depression. Beck's Depression Inventory was used to grade its severity. Clinical...