Race and the Middle East - A Reading List
The readings and resources included here are part of a collective attempt at BRISMES to think through how black radical and abolitionist scholarship, coloniality, and race/racism operate in and with studies of the Middle East and North Africa. The list follows on from our public statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter activists last July, and is part of our internal learning and unlearning about how race and racism function within the discipline, as much as within the contexts we study. As we mentioned in our statement, “scholars of colour, and Black scholars in particular, have developed an extensive terrain of radical intellectual projects that both reveal the way race operates in global and specific contexts, and how abolition, liberation and anti-racist solidarities disrupt these structures. Following in their footsteps will transform how we teach, learn and cultivate knowledge of and with the Middle East”.
We see this collection of resources as an initial starting point in doing this work, and stems from work others are already doing to decolonise reading lists and disrupt the structures that shape teaching and research in university arenas. We have organised each of the sections below as an introduction to particular themes we feel are relevant to discussions of race, racism, coloniality, blackness, slavery, postcoloniality, decoloniality and solidarity within and with the Middle East and North Africa. We are also aware that this list will continue to evolve and is not meant to be comprehensive. Therefore, we encourage others both to add to the list and help develop further research and thinking that shapes anti-racist praxis in our classrooms, within our schools and across academia.
If you would like to add any resources to this list, please send the details to office@brismes.org.
Sections
- I. Black Radical and Abolitionist Theories
- II. Race, Slavery and Blackness in the Middle East
- III. Locating and historicising slavery in pre-modern Islamic societies
- IV. Policing and Prisons
- V. Gender and Sexuality
- VI. Activism and Solidarity in Settler-Colonial Contexts
- VII. The Anti-Racist (Middle East Studies) Classroom
I. Black Radical and Abolitionist Theories
This section offers an overview of key historical and contemporary texts in radical black and critical race scholarship, as a way to situate Middle East and North African political and social terrain in global conversations on race, coloniality and blackness. It also includes reading lists, blogs and collections developed by activists producing abolitionist and anti-racist solidarity work. Bringing this scholarship into conversation with Middle East Studies highlights the ongoing presence of race and racism in and towards the region, and their enduring (if uneven) entanglements with the global practices of empire and racial capitalism.
Online Resources
Africa is a Country - A blog collective thinking through race and colonialism, and the specific effects of coloniality in the African context as both present and past in global politics https://africasacountry.com/
Abolitionist Futures, “Introduction to Abolition: the Full Reading List” - This reading list offers an overview of abolition, policing and the criminalisation of blackness, and is mostly focused on the US; but it’s an important resource for the conversations about defunding and abolishing the police, across multiple contexts, including those we study https://abolitionistfutures.com/full-reading-list
Abusable Past Collective - A collective of scholars and activists developing resources across multiple historical and contemporary contexts on race and anti-racism https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/
The Schomburg Center, “An Essential Reading List for Black Liberation” - The Schomberg Center is a research center and archive of black radical cultures in New York City https://hyperallergic.com/570031/black-liberation-reading-list-schomburg-center/
Books
Alana Lentin, 2020. Why Race Still Matters. Polity.
Alex Anievas, Nivi Manchanda, Robbie Shilliam (eds.), 2014. Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Color Line. Routledge.
Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, Rosemary Henze, and Yolanda T. Moses, 2014. How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology. Rowman & Littlefield.
Cedric Robinson, 1983. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. University of North Carolina Press.
CLR James, 1938. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. Penguin [2001].
Eric Williams, 1944. Capitalism and Slavery. University of North Carolina Press.
Gargi Bhattacharyya, 2018. Rethinking Racial Capitalism: Questions of Reproduction and Survival. Rowman & Littlefield.
George Fredrickson, 2002. Racism: A Short History. Princeton UP.
Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, (eds.), 1982. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Feminist Press.
Hazel Carby, 2019. Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands. Verso.
Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno (eds.), 2003. Are Italians White? How race is made in America. Routledge.
Karen Brodkin, 1998. How the Jews became white folks and what that says about race in America. Rutgers UP.
Katherine McKittrick, 2006. Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. University of Minnesota Press.
Lisa Lowe, 2015. The Intimacies of Four Continents. Duke UP.
Lola Olufemi, 2020. Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power. Pluto Press.
Neda Maghbouleh, 2017. The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race. Stanford UP.
Patrick Wolfe, 2016. Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race. Verso.
Saidiya Hartman, 2007. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Sarah M. Gualtieri, 2009. Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora. University of California Press.
Vijay Prashad, 2008. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. Leftword Books.
W.E.B. DuBois, 1935. Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. Oxford UP.
William C. Anderson and Zoé Samudzi, 2018. As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. AK Press.
Articles/Chapters
Angela Davis, 1972. “Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves” in The Massachusetts Review 13(1/2): 81-100.
Audre Lorde, 1980. “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” in Women in Culture: An Intersectional Anthology for Gender and Women’s Studies, Bonnie Kime Scott, Susan E. Cayleff, Anne Donadey, Irene Lara (eds.), Wiley Blackwell: 16-22.
Audre Lorde, 1981. “The Uses of Anger” in Women’s Studies Quarterly 9(3): 7-10, at https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1654&context=wsq
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, 1988. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” in Feminist Review 30(1): 61-88.
Crenshaw, Kimberle, 1990. "Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color" in Stan. L. Rev. 43: 1241-1300.
David Brion Davis, 1997. “Constructing Race: A Reflection” in The William and Mary Quarterly 54(1): 7-18.
Hortense J. Spillers, 1985. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe” in Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, Robin Warhol and Diane Price Herndl (eds.), Rutgers UP: 432-442.
Ida Danewid, 2020. “The fire this time: Grenfell, racial capitalism and the urbanisation of empire” in European Journal of International Relations 26(1): 289-313.
James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, 1984. “Revolutionary Hope: A Conversation” https://mocada-museum.tumblr.com/post/73421979421/revolutionary-hope-a-conversation-between-james
Mahmood Mamdani, 2010. “What is a tribe?” in London Review of Books 34(17): 20-22.
Paul Gilroy, Tony Sandset, Sindre Bangstad, Gard Ringen Høibjerg, 2019. “A diagnosis of contemporary forms of racism, race and nationalism: a conversation with Professor Paul Gilroy” in Cultural Studies 33(2): 173-197.
Robin D. G. Kelley, 2017. “What Did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism?” in Boston Review at https://bostonreview.net/race/robin-d-g-kelley-what-did-cedric-robinson-mean-racial-capitalism
Robbie Shilliam, 2018. “Class is Race: Brexit and the Popular Will” in International Political Sociology 12(1): 6-10, at https://robbieshilliam.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/ips-1-2.pdf
Stuart Hall, 1997. “Race: The Floating Signifier” https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Stuart-Hall-Race-the-Floating-Signifier-Transcript.pdf
Stuart Hall, 2019 [1980]. “Race, articulation and societies structured in dominance” in Essential Essays, Volume 1, David Morley (ed.), Duke UP: 172-221, at https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-1-4780-0093-8_601.pdf
Sylvia Wynter, 1995. “1492: A New World View” in Race, Discourse and the Origin of the Americas, Vera Hyatt and Rex Nettleford (eds.), Smithsonian Institution.
II. Race, Slavery and Blackness in the Middle East
This section provides an overview of several texts on race, slavery, and Blackness in the Middle East and North Africa. It captures resources from countries across the region from Morocco to Iran, showing how centrally-located these themes and discussions are and (continue to be) in the region today.
Online Resources
Gross-Wyrtzen, L. 2020. “Policing the virus: Race, Risk and the Politics of Containment in Morocco and the United States.” Roundtable on Borders and the State in Light of Covid-19. Security in Context. https://www.securityincontext.com/publications/borders-roundtable-policing-the-virus
Jadaliyya, Race in the Middle East and North Africa: Peer-Reviewed Articles 1979-2019: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41505/Race-in-the-Middle-East-and-North-Africa-Peer-Reviewed-Articles-1979-2019.
The Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University - https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/news/readings-race-and-slavery-specific-relevance-middle-east-studies
The New Arab - Essential readings: https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/society/2020/6/18/an-essential-reading-list-on-black-muslim-history
Zotero - Reading list: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2282515/decolonisingcurriculum/library
Books
Andrew Delatolla, 2021. Civilization and the Making of the Modern State in Lebanon and Syria. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Asgharzadeh Ailreza, 2007. Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Islamic Fundamentalism, Aryanist Racism and Democratic Struggle. Palgrave.
Bagholizadeh Beeta, 2018. Seeing Race and Erasing Slavery: Media and the Construction of Blackness in Iran, 1830-1960, PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Behnaz A. Mirzai, 2017. A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800-1929. Texas UP.
Bernard Lewis, 1992. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Oxford UP.
Bruce S. Hall, 2011. A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960. Cambridge UP.
Chouki el-Hamel, 2012. Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam. Cambridge UP.
Diane Robinson-Dunn, 2014. The harem, slavery and British imperial culture: Anglo-Muslim relations in the late nineteenth century. Manchester UP.
Gazzotti L. (Un)making illegality: Border control, racialized bodies and differential regimes of illegality in Morocco. The Sociological Review. 2021;69(2):277-295.
Jacob Wilson Chacko, 2019. For God or Empire: Sayyid Fadl and the Indian Ocean World. Stanford UP.
Laura Menin (ed.), 2020 Racial Legacies: Historical and Contemporary Dynamics in West Africa, North Africa and The Middle East, in Antropologia 7(1), at https://www.ledijournals.com/ojs/index.php/antropologia/issue/view/114/showToc
Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno, 2010. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean. The American University in Cairo Press.
Articles
Andrew Delatolla and Joanne Yao, 2019. "Racializing Religion: Constructing Colonial Identities in the Syrian Provinces in the Nineteenth Century" in International Studies Review 21(4): 640-661.
Benoît Challand, 2020. “Current Legacies of Colonial Violence and Racialization in Tunisia” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 40(2): 248–255.
Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen, 2020. “Contained and abandoned in the ‘humane’ border: Migrant immobility and survival in Moroccan urban space.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38(5): 887-904.
Martin Klein, 2016. “Review article: Global Slavery” in Journal of Global Slavery 1(2/3): 325-340.
Pedram Khosronejad, 2017. “Out of focus: photography of African slavery in Qajar Iran” in Anthropology of The Contemporary Middle East And Central Eurasia 4(1): 1-31.
III. Locating and historicising slavery in pre-modern Islamic societies
This section locates and historicises slavery in pre-modern Isalmic societies. It emphasises how misleading it is to use terms like ‘Islamic slavery’ or ‘Muslim slave trade’ because slavery existed in many cultures and faiths, including among Christians and Muslims. Those most responsible for the Atlantic slave trade were Christains but this hideous practice is not called "Christian slave trade" and neither it shall be named “Islamic”. The section also introduces various resources on Atlantic revolutions and the abolition of slavery.
Online resources
BBC Religions: Slavery - https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_1.shtml
Bibliography on race in pre-modern MENA - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xowlyaB5c3kf2v0TkfzHi7h2crWeO-qZKW0HJ9E6QhA/edit
Richard Hellie, 2019 “Slavery” in Encyclopædia Britannica, at https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology
Ware Rudolph, Lecture, 2019: The First Atlantic Revolution: Islam, Abolition, & Republic In West Africa C. 1776, University of Ohio, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0tSv_DKSNk
Books
Ali Abdullah, 2019. The “Negro” in Afro-Arabian Muslim Consciousness. Claritas Book.
Adom Getachew, 2019. Worldmaking after empire: the rise and fall of self-determination. Princeton UP.
Keith R. Bradley and Paul Cartledge (eds.), 2011. The Cambridge world history of slavery. Vol. 1. Cambridge UP.
Mana Kia, 2020. Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin Before Nationalism. Stanford UP.
Stanley L. Eltis, Seymour D. Engerman and David Richardson (eds.), 2017. The Cambridge World History of Slavery (The Cambridge World History of Slavery), Vol. 4, AD 1804–AD 2016. Cambridge UP.
Articles
Amidu Olalekan Sanni, 2012. “Review of Islam and the Abolition of Slavery by William Gervase Clarence-Smith” in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39(2): 301-303.
Craig Perry, 2017. “Historicizing Slavery in the Medieval Islamic World” in International Journal of Middle East Studies 49(1): 133–138.
Kecia Ali, 2017. “Concubinage and Consent” in International Journal of Middle East Studies 49(1): 148-152.
IV. Policing and Prisons
Given that so much of the Black Lives Matter movement is focused on police abolition and the particular racialised violence of policing, it is important to think about both in the context of the Middle East. This section brings together work on prisons and policing (much of it focused on the Middle East), recognising their roles as part of colonial pasts and presents, and as part of an international matrix of carceral politics.
Books/Articles
Angela Davis, 2016. Freedom is a Constant Struggle. Haymarket Books.
Banu Bargu, 2014. Starve and Immolate. University of Colombia Press.
Deniz Yonucu, 2022. Police, Provocation, Politics: Counterinsurgency in Istanbul. Cornell University Press.
Deniz Yonucu, 2018. "Urban vigilantism: A study of anti‐terror law, politics and policing in Istanbul." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 42(3): 408-422.
Georgina Sinclair, 2010. At the end of the line: Colonial policing and the imperial endgame 1945-80. Manchester UP.
Laleh Khalili and Jillian Schwedler (eds.), 2010. Policing and Prisons in the Middle East: Formations of Coercion. Hurst & Co.
Laleh Khalili, 2013. Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies. Stanford UP.
Malaka Shwaikh, 2020. “Engendering Hunger Strikes” in Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.
Malaka Shwaikh, 2018. “Dynamics of prison resistance: hunger strikes by Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons” in Jerusalem Quarterly.
miriam cooke, 2011. “The Cell Story: Syrian Prison Stories after Hafiz Asad” in Middle East Critique 20(2): 169-187.
Nasser Mohajer, 2020. Voices of a Massacre. Untold stories of life and death in Iran, 1988. Forwarded by Angela Davis. Oneworld.
Paul Gilroy, 2006. “Multiculture, double consciousness and the ‘war on terror’” in Patterns of Prejudice 39(4): 431-443.
Rashid Khalidi, 2014. “Israel: A Carceral State” Journal of Palestine Studies 43(4): 5-10.
Sune Haugbolle, 2008. “Imprisonment, Truth Telling and Historical Memory in Syria” in Mediterranean Politics 13(2): 261-276.
Various, 2014. Journal of Palestine Studies special issue on carcerality 43(4).
V. Gender and Sexuality
This reading list offers an overview of some of the key pieces and debates relating to gender and sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa. Debates about gender and sexuality cannot be extricated from debates about race and racism, and challenging understandings of gender and sexuality are central elements of attempts to ‘decolonise’ activism, practice, and scholarship about the Middle East and North Africa. Simultaneously, it highlights the interconnections between the politics of gender and sexuality in the region, and (resistance to) colonial legacies and presents.
Online Articles and Resources
Al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society - http://alqaws.org/siteEn/index
Centre for Transnational Development and Cooperation, 2017. “Conceptualising Sexualities in the MENA Region: Undoing LGBTQI Categories Implications for Rights Based Advocacy Approaches” at http://ctdc.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Conceptualising-Sexualities-Full-Report.pdf
“Eib” (Podcast addressing gender and sexuality in Jordan) [in Arabic] - https://www.sowt.com/en/Eib
Frances S. Hasso, 2018 “Decolonizing Middle East Men and Masculinities Scholarship: An Axiomatic Approach” in Jadaliyya at https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/38079.
Ismail Fayed, 2020. “On queerness and the jargon of authenticity” at https://mada25.appspot.com/madamasr.com/en/2020/07/22/opinion/u/on-queerness-and-the-jargon-of-authenticity/
Jasbir Pus and Maya Mikdashi, 2012. “Pinkwatching and Pinkwashing: Interpenetration and its Discontents” in Jadaliyya at https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/26818/Pinkwatching-And-Pinkwashing-Interpenetration-and-its-Discontents
Maya Mikdashi, 2012. “How Not to Study Gender in the Middle East" at https://www.academia.edu/2438873/How_not_to_study_gender_in_the_Middle_East.
Musa Al-Shadidi, 2019. “‘Israel’ and homosexuality: A history of hatred and colonial instrumentalization”, at https://www.7iber.com/politics-economics/إسرائيل-والمثلية-الجنسية/.
Musa Al-Shadidi, 2020. “A ‘gay’ life story in Masaha. [Arabic] at http://www.masaha-collective.com/قصة-حياة-المثلية-تاريخ-المثلية/
Nasrabadi Manijeh, 2020. “1979 Generation: Shahla Talebi on Political Prisoners & Proletarian Feminism” in Jadaliyya at https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41450/1979-Generation-EP-2-Shahla-Talebi-on-Political-Prisoners--Proletarian-Feminism
Nof Nasser-Eddin, 2020. “Sex and sexuality policies under the framework of settler colonialism” Masaha. [Arabic] at https://www.masaha-collective.com/sex-politics/.
Nour Almazidi, 2020. “Policing the Borders of Sex/Gender in Kuwait: On Transmisogyny and State-Mediated Violence” in Engenderings Blog, at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2020/07/29/policing-the-borders-of-sex-gender-in-kuwait-on-transmisogyny-and-state-mediated-violence/.
Razan Ghazzawi, 2017. “Decolonising Syria’ so-called 'queer liberation'” https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/08/decolonising-syria-called-queer-liberation-170803110403979.html
Scott Long, “Sex, Rights and the World” at https://paper-bird.net
Queer Anti Colonial Struggle from the US to Palestine at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV31L04SYSg
Books
Ghassan Moussawi, 2020. Disruptive Situations: Fractal Orientalism and Queer Strategies in Beirut. Temple University Press.
Madawi Al-Rasheed, 2013. A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia. Cambridge UP.
Maha El Said, Lina Meari and Nicola Pratt (eds), 2015. Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance: Lessons from the Arab World. Zed Books.
Nadia Yaqub and Rula Qawas (eds.), 2017. Bad Girls of the Arab World. University of Texas Press.
Sa’ed Atshan, 2020. Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique. Stanford UP.
Sahar Khamis (ed.), 2018. Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-Political Transformation. Unfinished Gender Revolutions. Palgrave.
Articles
Andrew Delatolla, 2020. "Sexuality as a Standard of Civilization: Historicizing (Homo)Colonial Intersections of Race, Gender, and Class" in International Studies Quarterly 64(1), 148-158.
Fadi Saleh, 2020. “Queer/Humanitarian Visibility: The Emergence of the Figure of The Suffering Syrian Gay Refugee” in Middle East Critique 29(1), 47-67.
Gil Hochberg, Haneen Malkey, Rima, and Samira Saraya, 2010. “No Pride in Occupation: A Roundtable Discussion” in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 16(4): 599-610.
Gráinne Charlton and Ghiwa Sayegh, 2019. “Decolonizing Knowledges as a Feminist Process” in Kohl: A Journal of Body and Gender Research 5(1) at https://kohljournal.press/decolonizing-knowledges
Leila Farsakh, Rhoda Kanaaneh and Sherene Seikaly, 2018. “Special Issue: Queering Palestine Introduction” in Journal of Palestine Studies 47(3): 7–12.
Middle East Report, 2013. Special issue: Gender Front Lines 43.
Nadje Al-Ali, 2019. “Feminist Dilemmas: How to Talk about Gender-Based Violence in Relation to the Middle East?” in Feminist Review 122(1): 16-31.
Nof Nasser-Eddin, Nour Abu-Assab and Aydan Greatrick, 2018. “Reconceptualising and contextualising sexual rights in the MENA region: beyond LGBTQI categories” in Gender and Development 26 (1): 173-189.
Nour Abu-Assab Nof Nasser-Eddin, 2019. “(Re)Centralising Palestine in Decolonial Feminist Theory” in Kohl: A Journal of Body and Gender Research 5(1) at https://kohljournal.press/recentralising-palestine
Paul Amar, 2011. “Middle East Masculinity Studies: Discourses of ‘Men in Crisis,’ Industries of Gender in Revolution” in Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 7(3): 36-70.
Sabiha Allouche, 2019. “The Reluctant Queer” in Kohl: A Journal of Body and Gender Research 5(1) at https://kohljournal.press/reluctant-queer
Walaa Alqaisiya, 2020. “Palestine and the Will to Theorise Decolonial Queering” in Middle East Critique 29(1): 87–113.
VI. Activism and Solidarity in Settler-Colonial Contexts
This reading list explores a range of perspectives on interrelated struggles in settler-colonial contexts. Alongside historical alliances between African Americans and the Palestinian liberation movements, in more recent years there has also been a conscious effort to create links between Black Lives Matter activists and indigenous rights activists in North America and the struggle for justice in Palestine. Activists in all settings have been keen to learn from and about one another’s struggles in order to work in solidarity while maintaining the place-based centrality of their particular concerns and aspirations for justice.
Online Resources
Anti-Blackness Roundtable. 2015. “Roundtable on Anti-Blackness and Black-Palestinian Solidarity” in Jadaliyya. 3 June, at https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32145
George Yancy and Judith Butler, 2015. “What’s wrong with ‘All Lives Matter” in New York Times. 12 January, at https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/whats-wrong-with-all-lives-matter/
Harsha Walia, 2011 “Decolonizing together: Moving beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization” in Briarpatch Magazine at http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/decolonizing-together
Kehinde Andrews - A range of articles on Black Lives Matter and Race can be found on his Guardian profile at https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kehinde-andrews
NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective. (2016). “#StandingRockSyllabus.” https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/
Riya Al'sanahand and Rafeef Ziadah, 2020. “Of Course Israel Exports Arms and Policing Practices – It Has Spent Decades ‘Battle-Testing’ Them on Palestinians” in Novara Media. 7 July, at https://novaramedia.com/2020/07/07/of-course-israel-exports-arms-and-policing-practices-it-has-spent-decades-battle-testing-them-on-palestinians/
Scott Lauria Morgensen, 2014. “White Settlers and Indigenous Solidarity: Confronting White Supremacy, Answering Decolonial Alliances” in Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. https://decolonization.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/white-settlers-andindigenous-solidarity-confronting-white-supremacy-answering-decolonialalliances/
Books
Alex Lubin, 2014. Geographies of Liberation: the making of an Afro-Arab political imaginary. University of North Carolina Press.
Christopher J. Lebron, 2017. The making of Black Lives Matter: A brief history of an idea. Oxford UP.
Clare Land, 2015. Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles. Zed Books.
John M. Collins, 2011. Global Palestine. Hurst and Company.
Jonathan Benthall, 2016. Islamic charities and Islamic humanism in troubled times. Manchester UP.
Juliet Hooker, 2009. Race and the Politics of Solidarity. Oxford UP.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, 2016. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Haymarket Books.
Meir Hatina, 2020. Arab liberal thought in the modern age. Manchester UP.
Nick Estes, 2019. Our History is the Future. Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the long tradition of indigenous resistance. Verso.
Simon Mabon, 2021. Houses built on sand: Violence, sectarianism and revolution in the Middle East. Manchester UP.
Steven Salaita, 2016. Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine. University of Minnesota Press.
Articles
Adam Barker, 2012. “Already Occupied: Indigenous Peoples, Settler Colonialism and the Occupy Movements in North America” in Social Movement Studies 11(3-4): 327-334.
Audra Simpson, 2017. “The ruse of consent and the anatomy of ‘refusal’: cases from indigenous North America and Australia” in Postcolonial Studies 20(1): 18-33.
Barbara Ransby, 2015. “The Class Politics of Black Lives Matter” in Dissent 62(4): 31-34, at https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/class-politics-black-lives-matter
Cathy Cohen and Sarah Jackson, 2016. “Ask a Feminist: A Conversation with Cathy J. Cohen on Black Lives Matter, Feminism, and Contemporary Activism” in Signs: Journal of Women, Culture and Society 41(4): 775-792.
David Goldber, 2017. “Lessons from Standing Rock: Of Water, Racism and Solidarity” in New England Journal of Medicine 376(15): 1403-1405 at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58f8f164440243f2b8c206be/t/59054c9fe3df2899b17dd7bf/1493519523625/standingrock.pdf
Erich Steinman, 2018. “Why was Standing Rock and the #NoDAPL campaign so historic? Factors affecting American Indian participation in social movement collaborations and coalitions” in Ethnic and Racial Studies 42(7): 1070-1090.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, 2012. “Decolonization is not a metaphor” in Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1(1): 1-40.
Hedi Viterbo, 2017. "Ties of Separation: Analogy and Generational Segregation in North America, Australia, and Israel/Palestine" in Brooklyn Journal of International Law (42)2: 686-749 at https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/59624/Viterbo%20Ties%20of%20Separation%3a%20Analogy%20and%20Generational%20Segregation%20in%20North%20America%2c%20Australia%2c%20and%20Israel/Palestine%202017%20Published.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
Iyko Day, 2015. “Being or Nothingness: Indigeneity, Antiblackness, and Settler Colonial Critique” in Critical Ethnic Studies 1(2): 102-121.
Johanna Fernandez, 2017. “Structures of settler colonial domination in Israel and in the United States” in Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 6(1): 29-44.
Juliet Hooker, 2016. “Black Lives Matter and the Paradoxes of U.S. Black Politics: From Democratic Sacrifice to Democratic Repair” in Political Theory 44(4): 448-469.
Jyotsna Singh, 2019. “Power, settler colonialism, and the role of external actors” in Contemporary Political Theory 18(3): 468-471.
Katie Boudreau Morris, 2017. “Decolonizing Solidarity: Cultivating Relationships of Discomfort” in Settler Colonial Studies 7(4): 456–473.
Linda Tabar and Chandni Desai, 2017. “Decolonization is a global project: From Palestine to the Americas” in Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 6(1): i-xix.
Linda Tabar, 2017. “From Third World Internationalism to ‘the internationals’: the transformation of solidarity with Palestine” in Third World Quarterly 38(2): 414-435.
Marcia Chatelain and Kaavya Asoka, 2015. “Women and Black Lives Matter” in Dissent 63(3): 54-61 at https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/women-black-lives-matter-interview-marcia-chatelain
Mike Krebs and Dana Olwan, 2012. “‘From Jerusalem to the Grand River, Our Struggles are One’: Challenging Canadian and Israeli Settler Colonialism” in Settler Colonial Studies 2(2): 138-164.
Nikita Carney, 2016. “All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media” in Humanity and Society 40(2): 180-199.
Rania Jawad, 2011. “Staging Resistance in Bil’in: The Performance of Violence in a Palestinian Village” in The Drama Review 55(4): 128–143.
Scott Lauria Morgensen, 2012. “Queer Settler Colonialism in Canada and Israel: Articulating Two-Spirit and Palestinian Queer Critiques” in Settler Colonial Studies 2(2): 167-189.
Simona Sharoni, Rabab Abdulhadi, Nadje Al-Ali, Felicia Eaves, Ronit Lentin, and Dina Saddiqi, 2015. “Transnational Feminist Solidarity in Times of Crisis” in International Feminist Journal of Politics 17(4): 654-670.
Steven Salaita, 2017. “American Indian studies and Palestine Solidarity: The importance of impetuous definitions” in Decolonization: Indegeneity, Education & Society 6(1): 1-28.
Waziyatawin, 2012. “Malice Enough in Their Hearts and Courage Enough in Ours: Reflections on US Indigenous and Palestinian Experiences under Occupation” in Settler Colonial Studies 2(1): 172–18.
VII. The Anti-Racist (Middle East Studies) Classroom
This section brings together resources and syllabi already being developed to rethink classroom spaces as transgressive, anti-racist and empowering sites of learning and praxis. They offer ideas for how to engage with race in our classrooms, as part of our teaching on the Middle East; and to develop radical pedagogies aimed at solidarity, allyship and abolitionist futures.
Online sources
Aawsat, [in Arabic] https://aawsat.com/home/article/1638576/العبودية-في-ثلاث-روايات-عربية
An Indigenous Abolitionist Study Guide by ‘the ‘Toronto Abolition Convergence’ https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/08/10/an-indigenous-abolitionist-study-group-guide/?s=08
Black Lives Matter Syllabus http://www.blacklivesmattersyllabus.com/
Black Lives Matter Syllabus Project https://anthropoliteia.net/category/pedagogy/black-lives-matter-syllabus-project/
#BlackIslam Syllabus - This project is curated by Dr. Kayla Renée Wheeler and was inspired by Prof. Najeeba Syeed, #BlackInMSA, and Muslim ARC. The goal of this project is to provide teachers, professors, researchers, journalists, and people interested in learning more about Islam with resources on Black Muslims to promote a more inclusive approach to the study of Islam: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1avhgPrW30AFjegzV9X5aPqkZUA3uGd0-BZr9_zhArtQ/edit
Educating for BLM resources by Routledge https://educatingforblacklives.routledge.com/
Islamophobia is racism - A reading list https://islamophobiaisracism.wordpress.com
Michael Mason, Muna Dajani, Munir Fakher Eldin and Omar Tesdell ‘The occupied Jawlan: an online open curriculum’ LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series, No. 58, December 2021 http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/112792
- The Occupied Jawlan/Golan as a Unique Political, Cultural and Geographic Formation, December 2021: English version of curriculum
- The Occupied Jawlan/Golan as a Unique Political, Cultural and Geographic Formation, December 2021: Arabic version of curriculum
Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Laura Connelly, 2021. Anti-racist scholar-activism. Manchester UP.
#StandingRockSyllabus https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/