"This new textbook explores the societies of the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting original chapters written by the world's leading Middle East scholars, it explores the social life of the region's varied populations to uncover its organizing structures, human vulnerabilities, and dynamic forces. In so doing, it explores major events and notable developments in nearly two dozen countries, including the Arab world, Israel, Turkey, and Iran, since the early twentieth century. Linking past to present to future, it also ascertains the potential futures of these societies, including their overall stability and prosperity. The chapters are clearly structured, and contain insightful case studies, illustrative photographs, and visualized data. They also end with discussion questions and annotated bibliographies to help spark further research. Among the rich topics covered are: - Rural life - Civil society and personal identities - Economic challenges, oil legacies, environmental harm - Religious movements, women and gender, and youth politics. The Societies of the Middle East and North Africa is written in an accessible way, prioritizing social, cultural and economic dimensions. As such this textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the field and will be invaluable to students of Middle Eastern politics and society, as well as sociology and anthropology"--

This new textbook explores the societies and populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting original chapters written by the world’s leading Middle East scholars, it analyzes the social fabric of the region’s varied countries to uncover the organizing structures, human vulnerabilities, and dynamic forces that shape everyday lives. The volume can be used in conjunction with The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa textbook for a comprehensive overview of the region. Whether used as a companion text or a standalone volume, this work provides the historical and cultural context necessary for understanding the peoples inhabiting Arab world, Israel, Turkey, and Iran, since the early twentieth century. Linking past to present to future, it also ascertains the ongoing developmental trajectories of these societies, including their overall stability and prosperity. The chapters are clearly structured, and contain insightful case studies, illustrative photographs, and visualized data. They also end with discussion questions and annotated bibliographies to help spark further research. Among the rich topics covered are the following: Rural life Civil society and personal identities Economic challenges, oil legacies, environmental harm Religious movements, women and gender, and youth politics. The Societies of the Middle East and North Africa is written in an accessible way, prioritizing social, cultural and economic dimensions. As such this textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the field and will be invaluable to students of Middle Eastern politics and society, as well as sociology, history, economics and anthropology.

A volume devoted to an understanding of contemporary nomadic and pastoral societies in the Middle East and North Africa. It recognizes the variable mobile quality of the ways of life of these societies which accommodate the ‘nation-state’ but remain firmly transnational and highly adaptive.

This book investigates the power of civil society in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in the context of the post-Arab Spring era, as well as more long-standing challenges and constraints in the region. In recent years, local civil society actors have faced significant challenges from social conservatism, conflict, violence, and the absence of democracy and exclusive political systems. Over the course of the book, the authors investigate how the sector has succeeded in achieving its own objectives despite these shifting conditions, the restrictive political environment and the complexity of the socio-cultural and economic context. Structured around the three themes of peace-building, development, and change, the book also addresses challenges faced by civil society organizations linked to ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversities as well as religious salient differences that are crucial markers of social and political identity. Case studies are drawn from the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Jordan, Iran, Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, and Morocco, and particular effort has been made to showcase original research from contributors who are from the region . This book will be of particular interest to researchers working on development, peace-building, conflict resolution, civil society, and politics within the MENA region.

Moving from tourism to health propaganda, marriage to beauty contest, mass communication to music, Middle Eastern and North African Societies in the Interwar Period offers a vibrant and dynamic picture of the region which goes beyond state borders.

Before the 2011 uprisings, the Middle East and North Africa were frequently seen as a uniquely undemocratic region with little civic activism. The first edition of this volume, published at the start of the Arab Spring, challenged these views by revealing a region rich with social and political mobilizations. This fully revised second edition extends the earlier explorations of Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and adds new case studies on the uprisings in Tunisia, Syria, and Yemen. The case studies are inspired by social movement theory, but they also critique and expand the horizons of the theory's classical concepts of political opportunity structures, collective action frames, mobilization structures, and repertoires of contention based on intensive fieldwork. This strong empirical base allows for a nuanced understanding of contexts, culturally conditioned rationality, the strengths and weaknesses of local networks, and innovation in contentious action to give the reader a substantive understanding of events in the Arab world before and since 2011.

This book investigates issues of central importance in understanding the role of language in society in the Middle East and North Africa. In particular, it covers issues of collective identity and variation as they relate to Arabic, Berber, English, Persian and Turkish in the fields of gender, national affiliation, the debate over authenticity and modernity, language reforms and language legislation. In addition, the book investigates how some of these issues are realized in the diaspora at both the micro and macro levels.