Rethinking the “Middle East” After the Oceanic Turn

Abstract

Models of geographical space are empowered by a hard rhetoric that, in suggesting the concrete stability of the longue durée, lends the aura of geological fixity. But while places might themselves be sheer facts, our conceptions of them both in themselves and in relation to other places are cultural constructions born in particular moments in time. A coinage of the early twentieth century to demarcate a strategic middle ground between the “Near” and “Far” East, the “Middle East” is itself a relatively new category whose history has been far less stable than its hard rhetoric might suggest. In pointing to the mutability of geographical models, Green aims not so much to historicize but to question the continued usefulness of the more formal, closed model of the Middle East. For all such geographical models are ultimately analytical categories that are meant to enable us to trace forms of connectivity and commonality. And like any other analytical categories, geographical ones deserve no special treatment once they have outlived their usefulness. This seems particularly the case when we look to the geographical frameworks that have actually enabled original scholarship over the past decade or so, particularly the shift toward maritime conceptions of space (Mediterranean, Indian Ocean), which though by no means new have breathed new life into the study of the premodern and colonial/modern history of the Middle East. The rise of global and connected history has similar implications for the closedness and fixity of the traditional area studies paradigm, which, Green contends, doesn’t help us meet the challenge and possibilities provided by the emergence of these new forms of history writing.

Not a Silk Road: trading networks between China and the Middle East as a dynamic interaction of competing Eurasian geographies

“…Viewed from below from Yiwu, too, the ongoing formation of Eurasian geographies was a contested and political process (Green 2014;Hann 2016). It is the contention of this article that Yiwu's Arab traders mediated these relations of competition and competition between different Eurasian geographies and political imaginations.…”

Heritage and the Middle East: Cities, power, and memory

“…Finally, are there regions other than the Middle East that might be more productive analytical frameworks? Within both geography and Middle East area studies, critiques of the nation (Agnew, ) and region (Culcasi, ) as categories of analysis have helped generate new conceptualizations of the local, the global, the transimperial, the transnational, and the oceanic (Clancy‐Smith, ; Green, ; Lewis & Wigen, ; Mikhail & Philliou, ; Struck, Ferris, & Revel, ; Subrahmanyam, ). In particular, the Mediterranean has come to provide an alternative to the division between Europe and the Middle East, and serve as an important site in which to examine the ongoing practices of boundary‐making at work (Ben‐Yahoyada, ; Braudel, ; Giglioli, ; Horden & Purcell, ; Mountz & Loyd, ).…”

Everyday Diplomacy

“…Cull raises interesting issues about the potential diplomatic roles to be played by migrant communities. Yet there are also clear ethical issues that arise from treating migrant communities and diasporic groups in such a strategic manner, and these have been widely recognized by ethnographic work on Muslims migrant communities in the context of the so-called 'war on terror' (Howell and Shryock 2003;Soares and Otayek 2007;Werbner 2010;Buggenhagen 2012;Green 2014;Rytter and Pedersen 2014). Indeed, the ethical issues of involvement in such morally problematic aspects of foreign policy have no doubt been a further factor in encouraging anthropologists to steer clear from seeking to engage in a dialogue with students of diplomacy.…”