How Islam evolved from its beginnings to now
John Tolan’s Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present offers a sweeping account of Islam’s evolution, highlighting influential figures, sectarian divisions, and global expansion. Though it…
Tag: Africa and the Middle East
How UN peacekeeping camps coexist with urban life
Maren Larsen‘s Worlding Home is a study of UN peacekeeping camps in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, revealing them as dynamic, porous and embedded in city life. Larsen…
What makes politics in the Middle East so unstable?
In The Great Betrayal, Fawaz Gerges examines the reasons for consistent political instability in the Middle East since the early 20th century. Examining Western intervention, domestic authoritarian ru…
Suburbanisation and the making of the African middle class
Claire Mercer‘s The Suburban Frontier examines African suburbanisation and the emergence of middle-class culture through a case study of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Drawing on ethnographic data col…
Palestinian Refugee Women from Syria to Jordan – review
In Palestinian Refugee Women from Syria to Jordan, Afaf Jabiri considers the discrimination and violence experienced by Palestinian women displaced from Syria to refugee camps in Jordan. Based on four…
Revolution and Democracy in Tunisia: A Century of Protestscapes – review
In Revolution and Democracy in Tunisia, Larbi Sadiki and Layla Saleh present an interdisciplinary analysis of Tunisia’s rich history of protest, arguing that popular resistance has long shaped t…
Book Review: They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria by Daniel E. Agbiboa
In They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria, Daniel E. Agbiboa challenges simplistic understandings of corruption by offering a captivating study of Lago…
Book Review: The Religion of the Central Luo by Okot p’Bitek
LSE Professor Tim Allen reflects on the profound impact that Ugandan poet Okot p’Bitek‘s The Religion of the Central Luo had on his own approach to fieldwork among…
Book Review: Western Privilege: Work, Intimacy, and Postcolonial Hierarchies in Dubai by Amélie Le Renard
In Western Privilege: Work, Intimacy, and Postcolonial Hierarchies in Dubai, Amélie Le Renard explores the organisation of social life in Dubai, focusing on the experiences of mobile Western passport…
Book Review: The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea by Hannah Appel
In The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea, economic anthropologist Hannah Appel closely examines the operations of US oil companies in Equatorial Guinea, not only…
Author Interview: Q and A with Dr Simidele Dosekun on Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture
In this author interview, we speak to Dr Simidele Dosekun about her new book, Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture, which reflects on ideas about postfeminist self…
Book Review: Blindness Through the Looking Glass: The Performance of Blindness, Gender and the Sensory Body by Gili Hammer
In Blindness Through the Looking Glass: The Performance of Blindness, Gender and the Sensory Body, Gili Hammer draws on the first-person narratives of 40 blind women in Israel…
Book Review: Nairobi in the Making: Landscapes of Time and Urban Belonging by Constance Smith
In Nairobi in the Making: Landscapes of Time and Urban Belonging, Constance Smith explores how the residents of Nairobi’s Kaloleni estate interact with materials and structures from the…
Book Review: When the State Winks: The Performance of Jewish Conversion in Israel by Michal Kravel-Tovi
In Israel, Jewish conversions by first and second generation repatriates from the former Soviet Union are often depicted in public discourse as ‘wink-wink’ conversions, whereby converts an…
Book Review: Race Women Internationalists: Activist-Intellectuals and Global Freedom Struggles by Imaobong D. Umoren
In Race Women Internationalists: Activist-Intellectuals and Global Freedom Struggles, Imaobong D. Umoren traces the lives of three black women activist-intellectuals—Una Marson, Paulette Nardal and Es…
Book Review: Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey by Begüm Adalet
In Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey, Begüm Adalet offers an account of the historical construction of the ‘Turkish Model’ as a manufactured …
Book Review: Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World by Crystal Biruk
In Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World, Crystal Biruk offers an analysis of the production of data within HIV-AIDS quantitative survey research conducted in Malawi. This…
Reading List: 12 Recommended Reads on Immigration, Refugee Rights and Asylum
Image Credit: Mural, Paris, 2017 (Jeanne Menjoulet CC BY 2.0) In this new reading list, we recommend 12 books authored or edited by women whose scholarship delves into the…
LSE Festival Beveridge 2.0 Reading List: 7 Recommended Reads on Housing and Urban Development
Image Credit: Mumbai, India, 2010 (Sunghwan Yoon CC BY SA 2.0) 75 years after the publication of the Beveridge report, LSE Festival Beveridge 2.0 (Mon 19 Feb – Sat 24 Feb…