The Cultural Politics and Political Culture of MERIP and Beyond

In this essay, we examine how MERIP has navigated the frictions between the political economic critique of extraction and domination in the region, and more semiotic models which center “culture,” variously understood, in their analyses of power and inequality. Broadly speaking, MERIP authors have a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of Middle East studies (Tucson, Ariz.) Ariz.), 2021-12, Vol.55 (2), p.259-275
Main Authors: Silverstein, Paul A., Swedenburg, Ted
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activists
Aesthetics
Cultural studies
Culture
Dominance
Editorials
Essays
Ethnic identity
Ethnicity
Hegemony
Identity politics
Intersectionality
Motion pictures
Photography
Political activism
Political culture
Political economy
Political power
Sexuality
Social justice
Special Focus: MERIP and the Politics of Knowledge Production in MENA Studies
Theater
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Summary:In this essay, we examine how MERIP has navigated the frictions between the political economic critique of extraction and domination in the region, and more semiotic models which center “culture,” variously understood, in their analyses of power and inequality. Broadly speaking, MERIP authors have addressed four dimensions of culture writ large: aesthetic expressions and artistic performances; everyday practices and ordinary life in their various multisensorial, affective experiences; identity performance along intersectional terrains of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and race; and discursive formations in which the very categories of the “political” and the “economic” are produced and reproduced within shifting fields of power. In all its dimensions, culture is embedded and entangled in material conflicts over production, distribution, and consumption, and thus necessarily political, but not merely so. How to approach cultural politics and political culture without reducing them to a play of hegemony and resistance has been a persistent challenge in cultural analysis. By exploring how MERIP authors have negotiated this fraught terrain—by outlining MERIP's effective culture concept with a focus on its aesthetic dimensions—we offer a window into a central tension within the broader field of Middle East studies.
ISSN:2151-3481
2329-3225
DOI:10.1017/rms.2022.4