Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

A few months into the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2009/10, the promises of social media, including its ability to influence a participatory governance model, grassroots civic engagement, new social dynamics, inclusive societies and new opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, became more evident than ever. Simultaneously, cartography received new considerable interest as it merged with social media platforms. In an attempt to rearticulate the relationship between media and mapping practices, whilst also addressing new and social media, this interdisciplinary book abides by one relatively clear point: space is a media product. The overall focus of this book is accordingly not so much on the role of new technologies and social networks as it is on how media and mapping practices expand the very notion of cultural engagement, political activism, popular protest and social participation

Discourse in Translation

This book explores the discourse in and of translation within and across cultures and languages. From the macro aspects of translation as an inter- cultural project to actual analysis of textual ingredients that contribute to translation and interpreting as discourse, the ten chapters represent different explorations of ‘global’ theories of discourse and translation. Offering interrogations of theories and practices within different sociocultural environments and traditions (Eastern and Western), Discourse in Translation considers a plethora of domains, including historiography, ethics, technical and legal discourse, subtitling, and the politics of media translation as representation. This is key reading for all those working on translation and discourse within translation studies and linguistics

The Esoteric, the Islamicate, and 20th Century World Literature

By exploring the intersections of the esoteric and the islamicate in a series of 20th century literary works from disparate global locations, this dissertation maps out a constellation of countercultural world literature as a model for further advancing the study of literature and esotericism in a planetary context. Chapters are focused on literary works of Iranian Sādeq Hedāyat (1903-1951), Argentine Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), and the cut-up collaborations of American William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) and British-Canadian Brion Gysin (1916-1986). Using the statement 'writing is magic and labour,' I argue that these four authors yearned to attain ‘magic’ in their creative writing, while each had their own distinct definition and understanding of what this ‘magic’ would be. These definitions and understandings have been largely shaped by each author’s particular encounters with esoteric and islamicate discourses; they are also products of their ‘labour’—practices and strategies of writing and research affected by the social and political power dynamics of the fields of global cultural production and circulation. Hedāyat’s conception of magic, formed through encounters with European, Islamic, and Zoroastrian esoteric discourses, chiefly refers to practices and texts associated with the ancient magus (Zoroastrian priestly class) that through centuries of religious conflict have transfigured into something distant and incomprehensible. This magic becomes the subject of extensive folklore research for Hedāyat, and is further used and invoked in his works of fiction. For Borges, magic refers to the unexplainable quality of the aesthetic events that flees rational justification. His explorations in pantheism that expand to a range of esoteric currents such as Kabbalah and Gnosticism, find in the islamicate a culture that has grappled with questions on the nature of divinity and on writing being sacred and magical. In the cut-up collaborations of Burroughs-Gysin, the magic of writing is in the randomness of the process as well as the speech act of language, while its labour is primarily dependent on using scissors instead of conventional instruments of writing. Inspired by the islamicate milieu of post-war Tangier, Burroughs-Gysin opened up new possibilities for writing and for human-machine collaborations that are still influencing the electronic literature of the 21st century

Changing Production Practices of News and New Audience Configurations at BBC World Service: A Case Study of BBC Hausa on Facebook

This study addresses whether social media like facebook is changing the relationship between audiences and producers of news. Using an ethnographic approach the research follows both the news production and the consumption of social media at the BBC Hausa service through observation and interviews with producers and through analysing facebook statistics and BBC in-house audience data. The study shows that the majority of facebook ‘fans’ are diasporic, younger and more male skewed than average for the BBC Hausa radio audience in Africa. Practically no women take part of the debates on BBC Hausa facebook that predominately evolve around football and politics. Despite the increased potential of interactivity on facebook due to reduced moderation compared to traditional BBC message boards, few ‘fans’ interact on a day-to-day basis and the majority of interactions are in response to traditional news content. The producers do not interact directly with fans but instead use facebook as a source of news, commentary for radio programmes and an address book for eyewitness accounts from all over the world. The study raises important issues about the extent to which social media have a democratising and empowering force for audiences in Africa and for the wider global Hausa diaspora

International contracting and commercial arbitration : an analysis of the doctrine of harmonisation and regionalism with special reference to the Middle East region

This dissertation seeks to contribute to the development of the comparative study of international commercial arbitration by focusing on the Middle Eastern experience in commercial dispute resolution. Theoretical and practical criticism is offered and suggestions for an improved regional legislative framework are made. With the ever-increasing importance of international trade to Middle Eastern countries, research upon the effective dispute resolution mechanisms of commercial arbitration has become imperative. The process of harmonisation of commercial arbitration has become the subject of wider international and regional research studies, and the aim of this work is to contribute to the field in the context of the Middle Eastern region. This thesis examines "regionalism" and the process of harmonisation in international commercial arbitration. Within the philosophical framework of international commercial arbitration, international contract principles and dispute resolution mechanisms, the objective is to analyse existing cultural deviations and boundaries, and ascertain how these have prevented effective law reform within the region itself, obstructing the harmonisation process. Despite regional variations, in practice the process, of harmonisation is essential if the Middle East is to benefit from and participate in the phenomenon of globalisation. Whilst regional culture has become increasingly significant, harmonisation of commercial arbitration has become more urgent. The thesis argues that harmonisation with the international commercial arbitration Model Law can be achieved when the concept of regionalism is taken into consideration. Different aspects manifested within regionalism regarded as legal cultural deviation can be accommodated, making for an efficient arbitration law reform in accordance with the international accepted substantive and procedural principles of the UNCITRAL Model Law.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

International contracting and commercial arbitration : an analysis of the doctrine of harmonisation and regionalism with special reference to the Middle East region

This dissertation seeks to contribute to the development of the comparative study of international commercial arbitration by focusing on the Middle Eastern experience in commercial dispute resolution. Theoretical and practical criticism is offered and suggestions for an improved regional legislative framework are made. With the ever-increasing importance of international trade to Middle Eastern countries, research upon the effective dispute resolution mechanisms of commercial arbitration has become imperative. The process of harmonisation of commercial arbitration has become the subject of wider international and regional research studies, and the aim of this work is to contribute to the field in the context of the Middle Eastern region. This thesis examines "regionalism" and the process of harmonisation in international commercial arbitration. Within the philosophical framework of international commercial arbitration, international contract principles and dispute resolution mechanisms, the objective is to analyse existing cultural deviations and boundaries, and ascertain how these have prevented effective law reform within the region itself, obstructing the harmonisation process. Despite regional variations, in practice the process, of harmonisation is essential if the Middle East is to benefit from and participate in the phenomenon of globalisation. Whilst regional culture has become increasingly significant, harmonisation of commercial arbitration has become more urgent. The thesis argues that harmonisation with the international commercial arbitration Model Law can be achieved when the concept of regionalism is taken into consideration. Different aspects manifested within regionalism regarded as legal cultural deviation can be accommodated, making for an efficient arbitration law reform in accordance with the international accepted substantive and procedural principles of the UNCITRAL Model Law.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Contentious information: Accounts of knowledge production, circulation and consumption in transitional Egypt

While the 2011 Egyptian Uprising renewed attention to revolutionary news platforms such as Al-Jazeera and Facebook, citizens continued to be understudied as active consumers of information. Yet citizens’ perceptions of their informational milieu and how they responded in consuming, processing, and interpreting facts offer crucial insight into the turbulent transition that followed the initial uprising. This study analyzes Egyptian citizens’ accounts of their information environment and practices amid socio-political change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 politically-engaged citizens from various political and professional backgrounds. Participants were asked to discuss the state of public discourse, the institutions responsible for the circulation of information, and their own practices to become informed, with on-going political controversies used as case studies. The findings are presented into two parts. The first part compiles responses regarding institutions (the state, broadcast media, and social media) which were found to be functionally interconnected and interdependent, forming Egypt’s information ecosystem. This ecosystem systematically rendered information elusive, equivocal, and unreliable, but also demonstrated the importance of official information, a tolerance for partisan news, and the complementary role of social media. The second part examines citizens’ practices (the characteristics of consumers, the types of sources they relied upon, and the tactics they employed to become informed) which constituted an information culture, the information ecosystem’s counterpart. This culture was characterized by skepticism, mistrust, ingenuity, bias, and elitism, with sources being conceived as individuals and classified according to their proximity and type of knowledge; and consumers employing tactics involving the parsing of subtexts and the juxtaposing of claims from multiple texts. The characteristics, sources, and tactics of consumers reflected an information culture influenced by and responding to socio-political conditions. Drawing on both the disciplines of media and information studies, this study offers a new approach for exploring the societal dimensions of information through the narratives of citizens on the production, circulation, and consumption of information in the context of dramatically shifting political and media landscapes. Besides advancing information practices research beyond traditional settings, the fieldwork was conducted in the weeks prior to the controversial overthrow of Egypt’s first elected president and therefore provides insights into a dramatic episode in the country’s transition