Minorities and State-Building in the Middle East: The Case of Jordan

by Paolo Maggiolini (Editor), Idir Ouahes (Editor)

Overview

This book offers fresh insights to enhance and diversify our understanding of the modern history of the state and societies in today’s Jordan, while also providing examples of why and how scholars can challenge the static and discursively government-minded approaches to minorities and minoritisation – especially the traditional emphasis on demographic balances. Despite its small size and initial appearance of homogeneity, Jordan provides an excellent case of a dynamic, relational, historically contingent and fluid approach to ethnic, political and religious minorities in the context of the imposition of a modern state system on complex and varied traditional societies. The editors and contributors present dynamic and relational perspectives on the status of and historical processes involved in the creation and absorption of minority groups within Jordan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030544010
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	10/19/2020
Series:	Minorities in West Asia and North Africa
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	295
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paolo Maggiolini is a Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy.

Idir Ouahes is a researcher of the colonial Middle East and North Africa based at Marbella International University Centre (MIUC), Spain.

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction.- Chapter 1. Introduction: Minorities, Minoritisation and (Trans-)Jordan.- Part II. Religious, Ethno-Linguistic, Cultural Groups.- Chapter 2. Christians of the Emirate: the Citizenship Process, Confessionalisation and Minoritisation.- Chapter 3. Minoritisation and the State-Societal Balance of Forces in Transjordan (1920-46): British, Bedouin, Hashemite and Circassian Relations.- Chapter 4. Transnational Identity and Circassians in Contemporary Jordan (1991-2018).- Part III. A “Liminal Minority”: Palestinians in Jordan.- Chapter 5. The Invisible Citizens of Jordan.- Chapter 6. Stateless as Minority in Jordan.- Chapter 7. The deep play: ethnicity, the Hashemite Monarchy and the Arab Spring in Jordan.- Part IV. Political Minorities.- Chapter 8. Foreign policy as Protection: The Muslim Brotherhood as a Political Minority during the Cold War.- Chapter 9. The Making of a Minority: Subalternity and Minoritisation of Jordanian Salafism.- Chapter 10. Gender Inclusivity and Class Struggle Narratives in the Resistance of Al-Ḥirāk Al-Shabābī Al-Urdunī (The Jordanian Youth Movement).- Chapter 11. “A Village that Harbours the Oppressed”? Amman and the Jordanian Novel (1980-2000).- Chapter 12. Conclusion. The Field and Process of Minoritisation in Jordan.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Maggiolini and Ouahes have brought together an innovative group of scholars to examine Jordan’s other minorities and challenge official views of a unified and harmonious ‘Hashemite family.’ The book will be a standard reference on Jordan, providing a welcome antidote to a conventional wisdom that views Jordan as a fractured polity divided between ‘tribal’ East Bankers and a homogeneous block of Palestinian refugees.” (Tariq Tell, American University of Beirut, Lebanon)

“This volume presents cutting-edge research on the ethnic, religious and ideological diversity in Jordan, covering a century of Hashemite state-minority relations. At the same time, it is much more than a study of Jordan. With its focus on minoritisation, rather than fixed minority categories, it provides broader lessons for debates in Anthropology, History, Literary Studies, Political Science as well as Citizenship and Migration Studies.” (André Bank, GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies, Hamburg, Germany)

“This book explores in great detail state-making in (Trans)Jordan through a theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded approach, outlining the way in which the state both excludes and incorporates religious, ethnic and political minorities. It is a must-read for anyone interested in minority studies in the region.” (Francesco Cavatorta, Laval University, Québec, Canada)