We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2017
Though a multidisciplinary field, Middle East studies has historically had little engagement with the theoretical and methodological contributions of the discipline of geography. In the wake of the Arab Spring, there was a turning point, as scholars of the region noted the importance of public space to the uprisings, thus sparking engaging debates about urban spatial politics. In fact, Middle East studies is not alone in its newfound affinity to geography; a shift to what many have called “the spatial turn” across the social sciences and humanities has put geography in the limelight. Geography is in fact the original “area” studies—geographers of the early 20th century saw the main rationale of their discipline as identifying and describing regions, and the region was the core geographical concept. The post–World War II area studies boom occurred much at the expense of the discipline; after Harvard University closed its geography program in 1948, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Columbia University, and other Ivy League schools soon followed and Title VI essentially led to the closing of numerous other geography programs around the country—including Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago. A growing sentiment within the ivory tower found the discipline too ambiguous and asserted that a university did not need geography to be a great institution.
1 See Johnson, Ron J, “Geography and the Social Science Tradition,” in Key Concepts in Geography, ed. Clifford, Nicholas, Holloway, Sarah L., and Rice, Stephen P. (London: Sage Publications, 2003), 51–72 Google Scholar.
2 See Smith, Neil, “‘Academic War over the Field of Geography’: The Elimination of Geography at Harvard, 1947–1951,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (1987): 155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–72; and Murphy, Alexander B., “Geography's Place in Higher Education in the United States,” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 31 (2007): 121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–41.
3 Regier, Terry and Khalidi, Muhammad Ali, “The Arab Street: Tracking a Political Metaphor,” Middle East Journal 63 (2009): 11–29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Sharp, Dean and Panetta, Claire, eds., Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (New York: Terreform/Urban Research, 2016)Google Scholar.
5 Bayat, Asef, “The ‘Street’ and the Politics of Dissent in the Arab World,” Middle East Report 226 (2003): 10–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bayat, , Street Politics: Poor People's Movements in Iran (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Bayat, , Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.
6 See Special Issue, “Security in/of the City,” ed. Mona Fawaz and Hiba Bou Akar, City & Society 24 (2012): 105–95.
7 Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 1991)Google Scholar.
8 Harb, Mona, “On Religiosity and Spatiality: Lessons from Hezbollah in Beirut,” in The Fundamentalist City, ed. Sayyad, Nezar Al and Massoumi, Megjam (New York: Routledge, 2011): 125 Google Scholar–54.
9 The “Cairo School” is one of the most influential literatures on urbanism in the region. See Singerman, Diane and Amar, Paul, Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
10 Nagel, Caroline, “Reconstructing Space, Re-Creating Memory: Sectarian Politics and Urban Development in Post-War Beirut,” Political Geography 21 (2002): 717 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–25.
11 Atia, Mona, Building a House in Heaven: Pious Neoliberalism and Islamic Charity in Egypt (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 274; Deeb, Lara and Harb, Mona, Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shi‘ite South Beirut (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 304; Karaman, Ozan, “Urban Neoliberalism with Islamic Characteristics,” Urban Studies 50 (2013): 3412 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–27; Tobin, Sarah A., Everyday Piety: Islam and Economy in Jordan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.
12 Parker, Christopher, “Tunnel-Bypasses and Minarets of Capitalism: Amman as Neoliberal Assemblage,” Political Geography 28 (2009): 110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–20.
13 Bogaert, Koenraad, “The Problem of Slums: Shifting Methods of Neoliberal Urban Government in Morocco,” Development and Change 42 (2011): 709 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–31.
14 Culcasi, Karen, “Mapping the Middle East from Within: (Counter-)Cartographies of an Imperialist Construction,” Antipode 44 (2008): 1099 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–118.
15 See http://visualizingpalestine.org/, http://harassmap.org, and http://www.tadamun.info, all accessed 4 January 2017.
