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Threading The Needle - Craft And Heritage Development In Postcolonial Morocco

by Claire Nicholas

~~38,40€~~ 34,56€ 10% OFF

 For over a century, French colonial and Moroccan postcolonial state-building efforts have tethered cultural identity to the preservation and "modernization" of artisanal craftwork. Twenty-first-century heritage development initiatives aim to turn the "traditional" know-how of skilled textile producers into "modern" knowledge, reeducating, reorganizing, and reorienting artisans with new markets in mind. But media and development discourses often obscure artisans' own perspectives on their labor, reducing makers and the iconic embroidered and woven textiles they create to romantic stereotypes about "traditional craft."Threading the Needle seeks to correct these clichés. Drawing on analysis of policy documents and archives, media and heritage representations of craft, and nearly two years of fieldwork, this historically grounded ethnography brings readers into the everyday lives of Moroccan textile artisans and other craft experts. Author Claire B. Nicholas foregrounds the diversity of artisans' voices and experiences as they practice patience (sabr) in learning their trades, managing their lives, and navigating state-led efforts to promote craft heritage. Even as artisans participate in training programs and cooperative forms that resemble those of the colonial era, they accomplish parallel objectives that sustain personal and community values. The result is the continuance of local categories of belonging, authority, and sociality, alongside the extension of state influence over the future of craft.With close attention to the practices and possibilities of living heritage in postcolonial Morocco, Threading the Needle reveals the interwoven relationships between tradition, culture, craft, and political authority.
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Dancing At The Thresholds - Music, Trance, And Feeling In Algerian Diwan Of Sidi Bilal

by Tamara Dee Turner

~~48,01€~~ 43,21€ 10% OFF

 Dancing at the Thresholds tells the story of a racialized community in Algeria that literally trance dances at the thresholds of consciousness. It also tells the story about how these communities negotiate and "dance" at thresholds of the sacred and profane, at the perceived clashes of Islam and animism or of sub-Saharan versus North African lifeworlds.Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork alongside archival sources, oral histories, and ritual analysis, author Tamara Dee Turner considers these dances through an affective, embodied lens to challenge mainstream assumptions of affect theory. The dance embodies centuries of traumatic histories haunting these communities: their ritual, diwan, coalesced over three centuries of the trans-Saharan slave trade. Embodying these tumultuous pasts, diwan rituals move painful feelings through the trancing body to the point of affective "ignition" and release. However, to accomplish this, ritual actors must cultivate specific atmospheres conducive to trance and transformation via a particular Algerian understanding of atmosphere called "hal."A much-needed ethnographic approach to the living family lineages, practices, and intimate epistemologies of diwan, Dancing at the Thresholds is a story about the nature of healing and how wellness depends on the respect of wider, affective ecologies beyond both the individual and the human.
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Sonic Relations - Devotion And Community In Turkey'S Eastern Borderlands

by Stefan Williamson Fa

~~43,21€~~ 38,89€ 10% OFF

 Sonic Relations explores how sound shapes religious life and community among Twelver Shi'i Muslims in eastern Turkey and beyond, examining the powerful role of devotional recitation in cultivating relationships not only among people, but also with the unseen. These sonic practices are central to Muslim devotional life, and through media and public ritual performance, they also shape how identity is expressed in broader social and political spheres.Attending to a range of sonic forms and events, such as public processions, ritual lamentations, and the circulation of audiovisual recordings, Stefan Williamson Fa offers a new relational perspective on Islam, foregrounding affiliations with more-than-human figures and civic life. Whether communal, devotional, or transnational, Twelvers' relationships with their communities and with the unseen enable them to cultivate the self through sounding and listening. Grounded in detailed ethnographic material collected in Turkey's eastern borderlands and via transnational networks in Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Germany, Williamson Fa tells a compelling story about the human and more-than-human relations Twelver Shias seek to cultivate amid the Republic of Turkey's changing society and politics.Through vivid ethnographic vignettes, analysis, and audiovisual examples, Sonic Relations offers an intimate look at how Twelver Shii Muslims forge bonds of love, faith, and community within Turkey and across borders. It invites readers to rethink religion, not as belief alone, but as a sensory, relational, and deeply embodied experience.
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Humor And Power In Algeria, 1920 To 2021

by Elizabeth M. Perego

33,60€ + 10% CARD

 In times of peace as well as conflict, humor has served Algerians as a tool of both unification and division. Humor has also assisted Algerians of various backgrounds and ideological leanings with engaging critically in power struggles throughout the country's contemporary history. By analyzing comedic discourse in various forms (including plays, jokes, and cartoons), Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021 demonstrates the globally informed and creative ways that civilians have made sense of moments of victory and loss through humor. Using oral interviews and media archives in Arabic, French, and Tamazight, Elizabeth M. Perego expands on theoretical debates about humor as a tool of resistance and explores the importance of humor as an instrument of war, peace, and social memory, as well as a source for retracing volatile, contested pasts. Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021 reveals how Algerians have harnessed humor to express competing visions for unity in a divided colonial society, to channel and process emotions surrounding a brutal war of decolonization and the forging of a new nation, and to demonstrate resilience in the face of a terrifying civil conflict.
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Scandal Of Continuity In Middle East Anthropology - Form, Duration, Difference

19,86€ + 10% CARD

 Despite a rich history of ethnographic research in Middle Eastern societies, the region is frequently portrayed as marginal to anthropology. The contributors to this volume reject this view and show how the Middle East is in fact vital to the discipline.
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Pearl Of Dari - Poetry And Personhood Among Young Afghans In Iran

by Zuzanna Olszewska

14,83€ + 10% CARD

 <DIV>An ethnographic study of poetry and its place among young Afghan refugees living in urban regions of Iran. The Pearl of Dari takes us into the heart of Afghan refugee life in the Islamic Republic of Iran through a rich ethnographic portrait of the circle of poets and intellectuals who make up the "Pearl of Dari" cultural organization. Dari is the name by which the Persian language is known in Afghanistan. Afghan immigrants in Iran, refugees from the Soviet war in Afghanistan, are marginalized and restricted to menial jobs and lower-income neighborhoods. Ambitious and creative refugee youth have taken to writing poetry to tell their story as a group and to improve their prospects for a better life. At the same time, they are altering the ancient tradition of Persian love poetry by promoting greater individualism in realms such as gender and marriage. Zuzanna Olszewska offers compelling insights into the social life of poetry in an urban, Middle Eastern setting largely unknown in the West. Praise for The Pearl of Dari "The Pearl of Dari offers the reader the precious pearl of a genuine reading and learning experience. Zuzanna Olszewska combines solid scholarship with uplifting sensitivity to create a lively narrative replete with joyful discoveries of genuine personhood, agency, and humanity in the midst of multiple marginalities, an account of growing up amid layer upon layer of tension, bravely defying overwhelming odds." —Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland "Olszewska’s virtuoso study explores how young progressive Afghan intellectuals use the writing and performance of poetry as a prestigious discourse, to sustain community and claim dignity in exile. Her work makes an essential new contribution in Persian literary studies, ethnolinguistics, and refugee cultural studies worldwide." —Margaret A. Mills, Professor Emerita of Persian and Folklore, Ohio State University</DIV>
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Politics Of Suffering - Syria''S Palestinian Refugee Camps

by Nell Gabiam

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 <DIV>With a focus on the residents of three refugee camps, "Gabiam’s nuanced study of Syria’s Palestinian community is an engaging and informative read" (Journal of Palestine Studies). The Politics of Suffering examines the confluence of international aid, humanitarian relief, and economic development within the space of the Palestinian refugee camp. Nell Gabiam describes the interactions between UNRWA, the United Nations agency charged with providing assistance to Palestinians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and residents of three camps in Syria. Over time, UNRWA’s management of the camps reveals a shift from an emphasis on humanitarian aid to promotion of self-sufficiency and integration of refugees within their host society. Gabiam’s analysis captures two forces in tension within the camps: politics of suffering that serves to keep alive the discourse around the Palestinian right of return; and politics of citizenship expressed through development projects that seek to close the divide between the camp and the city. Gabiam also offers compelling insights into the plight of Palestinians before and during the Syrian war, which has led to devastation in the camps and massive displacement of their populations.</DIV>
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Music And The Armenian Diaspora - Searching For Home In Exile

by Sylvia Angelique Alajaji

9,59€ + 10% CARD

 Survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915 and their descendants have used music to adjust to a life in exile and counter fears of obscurity. In this nuanced and richly detailed study, Sylvia Angelique Alajaji shows how the boundaries of Armenian music and identity have been continually redrawn: from the identification of folk music with an emergent Armenian nationalism under Ottoman rule to the early postgenocide diaspora community of Armenian musicians in New York, a more self-consciously nationalist musical tradition that emerged in Armenian communities in Lebanon, and more recent clashes over music and politics in California. Alajaji offers a critical look at the complex and multilayered forces that shape identity within communities in exile, demonstrating that music is deeply enmeshed in these processes. Multimedia components available online include video and audio recordings to accompany each case study.
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Performing Al-Andalus - Music And Nostalgia Across The Mediterranean

by Jonathan Holt Shannon

9,59€ + 10% CARD

 Performing al-Andalus explores three musical cultures that claim a connection to the music of medieval Iberia, the Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus, known for its complex mix of Arab, North African, Christian, and Jewish influences. Jonathan Holt Shannon shows that the idea of a shared Andalusian heritage animates performers and aficionados in modern-day Syria, Morocco, and Spain, but with varying and sometimes contradictory meanings in different social and political contexts. As he traces the movements of musicians, songs, histories, and memories circulating around the Mediterranean, he argues that attention to such flows offers new insights into the complexities of culture and the nuances of selfhood.
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Middle East And Brazil - Perspectives On The New Global South

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 With its new political and cultural affiliations with the Middle East and the renewed visibility of the country's millions of practicing Muslims and those with Middle Eastern roots, Brazil may offer useful lessons for countries transformed by the "Arab Spring." This collection reveals the historical links between these two world regions.
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Calls Of Islam - Sufis, Islamists, And Mass Mediation In Urban Morocco

by Emilio Spadola

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 Offers new ethnographic perspectives on ritual, performance, and media in the Muslim world.
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Arab Revolts - Dispatches On Militant Democracy In The Middle East

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 Reveals the underlying causes of the revolts by identifying key trends during the last two decades leading up to the recent insurrections
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Threading The Needle - Craft And Heritage Development In Postcolonial Morocco

by Claire Nicholas

~~41,91€~~ 37,72€ 10% OFF

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ENGLISH

Threading The Needle - Craft And Heritage Development In Postcolonial Morocco

by Claire Nicholas

~~97,34€~~ 87,61€ 10% OFF

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Dancing At The Thresholds - Music, Trance, And Feeling In Algerian Diwan Of Sidi Bilal

by Tamara Dee Turner

~~51,37€~~ 46,23€ 10% OFF

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Dancing At The Thresholds - Music, Trance, And Feeling In Algerian Diwan Of Sidi Bilal

by Tamara Dee Turner

~~118,97€~~ 107,07€ 10% OFF

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Sonic Relations - Devotion And Community In Turkey'S Eastern Borderlands

by Stefan Williamson Fa

~~47,32€~~ 42,59€ 10% OFF

free shipping
ENGLISH

Sonic Relations - Devotion And Community In Turkey'S Eastern Borderlands

by Stefan Williamson Fa

~~108,15€~~ 97,34€ 10% OFF

free shipping
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Staging Cultural Encounters - Algerian Actors Tour The United States

by Jane E. Goodman

30,46€ + 10% CARD

 Jane E. Goodman follows Algerian theater troupe Istijmam as they prepare for and then tour the U.S.Questioning notions such as directionality, Goodman offer a frank account of the encounters with American audiences and the successes and disappointments of the experience of exchange.
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The Scandal Of Continuity In Middle East Anthropology - Form, Duration, Difference

19,86€ + 10% CARD

 Despite a rich history of ethnographic research in Middle Eastern societies, the region is frequently portrayed as marginal to anthropology. The contributors to this volume reject this view and show how the Middle East is in fact vital to the discipline.
ENGLISH

Music And The Armenian Diaspora - Searching For Home In Exile

by Sylvia Angelique Alajaji

OUT OF STOCK OR NOT AVAILABLE
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Egypt In The Future Tense - Hope, Frustration, And Ambivalence Before And After 2011

by Samuli Schielke

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 Against the backdrop of the revolutionary uprisings of 2011-2013, Samuli Schielke asks how ordinary Egyptians confront the great promises and grand schemes of religious commitment, middle class respectability, romantic love, and political ideologies in their daily lives, and how they make sense of the existential anxieties and stalled expectations that inevitably accompany such hopes. Drawing on many years of study in Egypt and the life stories of rural, lower-middle-class men before and after the revolution, Schielke views recent events in ways that are both historically deep and personal. Schielke challenges prevailing views of Muslim piety, showing that religious lives are part of a much more complex lived experience.
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Palestinian Music And Song - Expression And Resistance Since 1900

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 Examines the many ways in which music has been a force of representation, nation building, and social action.
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Encountering Morocco - Fieldwork And Cultural Understanding

10,59€ + 10% CARD

 Introduces readers to life in this North African country through vivid accounts of fieldwork as personal experience and intellectual journey
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