Human history has seen many settlements transformed or built entirely by expatriate work forces and foreigners arriving from various places. Recent migration patterns in the Gulf have led to emerging 'airport societies' on unprecedented scales. Most guest workers, both labourers and mid to high-income groups, perceive their stay as a temporary opportunity to earn suitable income or gain experience. This timely book analyses the essential characteristics of this unique urban phenomenon substantiated by concrete examples and empirical research. Both authors have lived and worked in the Gulf including Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates during various periods between 2006 and 2014. They explore Gulf cities from macro and interconnected perspectives rather than focusing solely on singular aspects within the built environment. As academic architects specialised in urbanism and the complex dynamics between people and places the authors build new bridges for understanding demographic and social changes impacting urban transformations in the Gulf.
The Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics provides a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Persian Gulf politics, history, economics, and society. The volume begins its examination of Ottoman rule in the Arabian Peninsula, exploring other dimensions of the region’s history up until and after independence in the 1960s and 1970s. Featuring scholars from a range of disciplines, the book demonstrates how the Persian Gulf’s current, complex politics is a product of interwoven dynamics rooted in historical developments and memories, profound social, cultural, and economic changes underway since the 1980s and the 1990s, and inter-state and international relations among both regional actors and between them and the rest of the world. The book comprises a total of 36 individual chapters divided into the following six sections: Historical Context Society and Culture Economic Development Domestic Politics Regional Security Dynamics The Persian Gulf and the World Examining the Persian Gulf’s increasing importance in regional politics, diplomacy, economics, and security issues, the volume is a valuable resource for scholars, students, and policy makers interested in political science, history, Gulf studies, and the Middle East.
Over the last 20 years, urbanization processes have undergone profound transformations under the growing influence of private actors, particularly in the financial sector. This has exposed the physical environment of various cities to global capital flows, which has generated an overall rise in real estate values on a global scale. This is often disconnected from the financial capacities of local actors – primarily households – which then increases the inequalities and vulnerabilities of societies regarding financial and environmental risks. This book offers the keys to understanding these new dynamics of capital accumulation in the general built-up environment of cities by taking into account the diversity of their configurations, their intensity and their urban effects according to national contexts. Beyond the cases involving the major Western countries, the initial centers of the financial industry and the theorizations on the urban, this book addresses the particular contexts of real estate production in four major regions: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and West Africa.
"Human history has seen many settlements transformed or built entirely by expatriate work forces and foreigners arriving from various places. Recent migration patterns in the Gulf have led to emerging 'airport societies' on unprecedented scales. Most guest workers, both labourers and mid to high-income groups, perceive their stay as a temporary opportunity to earn suitable income or gain experience. This timely book analyses the essential characteristics of this unique urban phenomenon substantiated by concrete examples and empirical research. Both authors have lived and worked in the Gulf including Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates during various periods between 2006 and 2014. They explore Gulf cities from macro and interconnected perspectives rather than focusing solely on singular aspects within the built environment. As academic architects specialised in urbanism and the complex dynamics between people and places the authors build new bridges for understanding demographic and social changes impacting urban transformations in the Gulf."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
In City of Strangers, Andrew M. Gardner explores the everyday experiences of workers from India who have migrated to the Bahrain and the sponsorship system, the kafala, under which they labor and upon which they depend for continued employment.
This book discusses architectural excellence in Islamic societies drawing on textual and visual materials, from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT, developed over more than three decades. At the core of the discussion are the efforts, processes, and outcomes of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA). The AKAA recognises excellence in architectural and urban interventions within cities and settlements in the Islamic world which are continuously challenged by dramatic changes in economies, societies, political systems, decision-making, and environmental requirements. Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies responds to the recurring question about the need for architectural awards, arguing that they are critical to validating the achievements of professional architects while making their contributions more widely acknowledged by the public. Through analysis and critique of over sixty awarded and shortlisted projects from over thirty-five countries, this book provides an expansive look at the history of the AKAA through a series of narratives on the enduring values of architecture, architectural and urban conservation, built environment sustainability, and architectural pluralism and multiple modernities. Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies will appeal to professionals and academics, researchers, and upper-level students in architectural history and theory and built environment related fields.
The book provides new perspectives from leading researchers accentuating and examining the central role of the built environment in conceiving and implementing multifaceted solutions for the complex challenges of climate change, revealing critical potentials for architecture and design to contribute in more informed and long-term ways to the urgent transition of our society. The book offers a compilation of peer-reviewed papers that uniquely connects knowledge broadly across practice and academia, from the newest technologies and methods to indigenous knowledge, community engagement, techniques for ecosystem regeneration, nature-based solutions, and more. The book is part of a series of six volumes that explore the agency of the built environment in relation to the SDGs through new research conducted by leading researchers. The series is led by editors Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Martin Tamke in collaboration with the theme editors: - Design for Climate Adaptation: Billie Faircloth and Maibritt Pedersen Zari - Design for Rethinking Resources: Carlo Ratti and Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (Eds.) - Design for Resilient Communities: Anna Rubbo and Juan Du (Eds.) - Design for Health: Arif Hasan and Christian Benimana (Eds.) - Design for Inclusivity: Magda Mostafa and Ruth Baumeister (Eds.) - Design for Partnerships for Change: Sandi Hilal and Merve Bedir (Eds.)
An intimate portrait of Egyptian migrants' lives and hopes, and their return home A vivid ethnography of Egyptian migrants to the Arab Gulf states, Migrant Dreams is about the imagination which migration thrives on, and the hopes and ambitions generated by the repeated experience of leaving and returning home. What kind of dreams for a good or better life drives labor migrants? What does being a migrant worker do to one’s hopes and ambitions? How does the experience of migration to the Gulf, with its attendant economic and legal precarities, shape migrants’ particular dreams of a better life? What do those dreams—be they realistic and productive, or fantastic and unlikely—do to the social worlds of the people who pursue them, and to their families and communities back home upon their return? Based on ten years of ethnographic fieldwork and conversations with Egyptian men from mostly low-income rural backgrounds who migrated as workers to the Gulf, returned home, and migrated again over a period of about a decade, this fine-grained study explores and engages with these questions and more, as the men reflect on their strivings and the dreams they hope to fulfill. Throughout the book, Samuli Schielke highlights the story of one man, Tawfiq, who is particularly gifted at analyzing his own situation and struggles, resulting in a richly nuanced account that will appeal not only to Middle East scholars, but to anyone interested in the lived lives of labor migrants and what their experiences ultimately mean to them.
A rich examination of the securitization of the everyday lives of the citizens of Cairo and how to build a more equitable urban order Until the year 2000, Cairo had been a model megacity, relatively crime free, safe, and public facing. It featured a thriving public culture and vibrant street life. In recent decades, however, the Egyptian state has accelerated a wholesale dismantlement of public education and public sector jobs and reversed the modest land reforms of the Nasser era. As a result, the vast majority of Cairo’s people have been forcibly deprived of their social rights, social goods, and educational capital. Eschewing the traditional focus on top-down regime and state security, the contributors to this volume, who represent a wide array of academics, activists, artists, and journalists, explore how repressive policies affect the everyday lives of citizens. They show the ways in which urban security crises are politically fashioned and do not emanate from the urban social fabric on their own: city crime, violence, and fear are created by specific means of extraction, production, and control. Another kind of city can live again. But how? By tackling a range of issues, including public health, transportation, labor safety, and housing and property distribution, Cairo Securitized unsettles simplistic binaries of thug and police, public versus private, and slum versus enclave, and proposes compelling new ways in which securitizing processes can be reversed, reengineered, and replaced with a participatory and equitable urban order. Contributors: Sara Soumaya Abed African Leadership Centre, Kings College London Zeinab Abul-Magd Oberlin College, USA Mohamed Ahmed Political Scientist and historian, Cairo Egypt Rania Ahmed Independent Researcher, Cairo Egypt Nicholas Simcik Arese University of Cambridge, UK Ahmed Awadalla activist, blogger at Rebel With A Cause, Berlin Germany Ahmad Borham The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt Miguel A. Fuentes Carreño University of California, Santa Barbara, USA Roberta Duffield Scholar on urbanism, public space, Cairo Egypt Momen El-Husseiny The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt Mohamed Elmeshad SOAS, London UK Ifdal Elsaket Netherlands-Flemish Institute, Cairo Egypt Mohamed Elshahed Independent Writer and Curator, Mexico City Amy Fallas University of California Santa Barbara, USA Tina Guirguis University of California, Santa Barbara, USA Elena Habersky The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt Hanan Hammad Texas Christian University, USA Hatem Hassan Impact Justice, Pittsburgh, USA Amira Hetaba Federal Government of Lower Austria, Austria Deena Khalil The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt Omnia Khalil City University of New York, USA Sabrina Lilleby University of Texas, Austin, USA Paul Miranda Nonviolent Peaceforce, South Mosul, Iraq Mostafa Mohie American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt Laura Monfleur University François-Rabelais, Tours, France Aya Nassar Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Nora Noralla human rights researcher, Berlin, Germany Aly El Reggal Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence Italy Afsaneh Rigot Harvard University, Cambridge USA Yahia Saleh Malmö University, Sweden Bassem al-Samragy political analyst at the International Criminal Court, The Hague, The Netherlands Yahia Shawkat Technische Universität Berlin, Germany Maïa Sinno Géographie Cités Lab, CNRS / Sorbonne University, Paris France Mark Westmoreland Leiden University, The Netherlands
This book is an effort towards an in-depth understanding of the architectural discourse in Egypt developed over more than eight decades. It offers a distinctive theoretical interpretation of the forces shaping the kaleidoscopic shifts in Egyptian architecture through the analysis of the micro space of architectural representation of twentieth century Egyptian architecture. Predicated on historical contextualization, theoretical integration, and global conceptualization, Edward Said’s analytical method of contrapuntal reading and the spatial discourse analysis posited by C. Greig Crysler are lucidly assimilated to generate insights into various voices within the architectural discourse in Egypt. The analysis and critique of two important professional magazines, al-‘Imarah (1939–1959) and ‘Alam al-Bena’a (1980–2000), which shaped the collective psyche of both the academic and professional communities in Egypt and the wider region, coupled with the exploration of two other short-lived magazines, M‘imaryah (1982–1989) Medina (1998–2002), and other less-influential professional magazines, discloses the structure of attitude and reference or the exclusions and inclusions that defined the boundaries of the space of the discourse. Influence and Resistance in Post-Independence Egyptian Architecture paves the way to genuinely debate a yet to mature twenty-first century’s architectural discourse in Egypt. This book is a key resource for architects, architectural historians, and critical theorists and will appeal to academics and to both graduate and advanced undergraduate students in architectural history and theory and Middle East and Global South studies.
