Full Description
Covering a period from the late eighteenth century to today, this volume explores the phenomenon of urban violence in order to unveil general developments and historical specificities in a variety of Middle Eastern contexts. By situating incidents in particular processes and conflicts, the case studies seek to counter notions of a violent Middle East in order to foster a new understanding of violence beyond that of a meaningless and destructive social and political act. Contributions explore processes sparked by the transition from empires — Ottoman and Qajar, but also European — to the formation of nation states, and the resulting changes in cityscapes throughout the region.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Urban Violence in the Middle East: Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation State
Claudia Ghrawi, Fatemeh Masjedi, Nelida Fuccaro, Ulrike Freitag
Part I: Managing and Employing Violence
Chapter 1. Mapping and Scaling Urban Violence: The 1800 Insurrection in Cairo
Nora Lafi
Chapter 2. A Capital Challenge: Managing Violence and Disorders in Late Ottoman Istanbul
Noémi Lévy-Aksu
Chapter 3. Gendered Obscenity: Women's Tongues, Men's Phalluses and the State's Fist in the Making of Urban Norm in Interwar Egypt
Hanan Hammad
Part II: Symbolic Politics of Violence
Chapter 4. Urban Violence, the Muharram Processions and the Transformation of Iranian Urban Society: The Case of Dezful
Reza Masoudi Nejad
Chapter 5. Symbolic Politics and Urban Violence in Late Ottoman Jeddah
Ulrike Freitag
Part III: Communal Violence and its Discontents
Chapter 6. The 1850 Uprising in Aleppo: Reconsidering the Explanatory Power of Sectarian Argumentations
Feras Krimsti
Chapter 7. The City as a Stage for a Violent Spectacle: The Massacres of Armenians in Istanbul in 1895-96
Florian Riedler
Chapter 8. Transforming the Holy City: From Communal Clashes to Urban Violence, the Nebi Musa Riots in 1920
Roberto Mazza
Part IV: Oil Cities: Spatiality and Violence
Chapter 9. On Lines and Fences: Labour, Community and Violence in an Oil City
Rasmus Christian Elling
Chapter 10. Reading Oil as Urban Violence: Kirkuk and its Oil Conurbation, 1927-1958
Nelida Fuccaro
Chapter 11. Structural and Physical Violence in Saudi Arabian Oil Towns, 1953-1956
Claudia Ghrawi
Afterword: Urban Injustice, Urban Violence and the Revolution: Reflections on Cairo
Khaled Adham
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
