Participants

This article investigates how the Burj Khalifa is used by the al-Maktoum family to reshape and legitimise the discourse around their rule. The Burj Khalifa is the highest building in the world, and its height is a political tool. In the 21st century, the race to build the highest building has intensified. Dubai’s ambition to build the highest building is fuelled by the desire of the ruling family to reshape the skyline of Dubai with projects they have sanctioned, to intertwine the physical appearance of the city with their rule. This article explains how they use the spatial triad of Lefebvre, specifically the concept of conceived space. Conceived space is the way those that design and build spaces see it. The article shows that the Burj Khalifa could have been built everywhere, which is a representation of abstract space, a space devoid of cultural and regional meaning. This process is called Dubaization. The construction of the Burj Khalifa fits into a broader policy of using spectacle to lure tourists and expats to Dubai. Spatial segregation, that results in wealthy Emirati living in government subsidised housing, the wealthy living in skyscrapers and the rest of Dubai’s inhabitants living in housing far away from the city centre, is a result of this policy of Dubaization as well as government policy aimed at breaking records. This has shaped the landscape and caused a shortage in affordable housing. It also explores the use of sustainability discourse. This discourse is used to mask the violations of human rights that took place during the construction of the Burj Khalifa. Further research could focus on other buildings in the United Arab Emirates or other authoritarian states where space is used to legitimise their rule.

Immediately after Israel captured East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967, it began demolishing the Maghrebi Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. This was done to make way for a large plaza in front of the Jewish holy site, the Western Wall. This article examines how the demolition of this neighbourhood contributed to the change in the spatial organisation and use of the square for Muslim Jerusalemites. The study uses literature research and an analysis of architectural designs to describe the motives and consequences of the redevelopment. This has provided insight into both the political decision-making process and the spatial implementation of the plans. The results show that after the Israeli takeover, a Muslim neighbourhood was deliberately demolished by the Israeli occupiers for political and religious purposes. By creating a large open square in front of the Western Wall, a physical and symbolic connection was established between the Jewish quarter in the Old City and the Jewish holy site. At the same time, Palestinian residents were expelled and their presence in that part of the Old City was deliberately erased. The findings of this research show that the demolition of the Maghrebi Quarter and the redevelopment of the Western Wall Plaza can be understood as an early example of a spatial strategy in which Israel’s political claims are established through interventions in urban public space. However, the research only shows part of a broader and recurring event within the Israeli Palestinian conflict, highlighting the need for other cases and further research.

The 1979 seizure of the Great Mosque in Mecca by Juhayman al-ʿUtaybī was a crucial moment that exposed the internal vulnerabilities of Saudi Arabia. This article researches the role of the state influenced newspaper Al-Riyad in shaping the collective memory of the seizure. Drawing on theories of Maurice Halbwachs and Jan Assmann, the study examines how media discourses serve as a mechanism for the social construction of communicative and cultural memory. The analysis reveals two strategies that were mainly used in the memory manipulation of the Saudi state. First, the authorities imposed a strict media blackout during the first few days of the seizure. The plan was to implement the blackout for a longer period, but this failed. The silence from the blackout prevented the formation of the social framework that was necessary for communicative memory. This effectively masked the government’s initial plans and its lack of an adequate crisis plan. Second, once the reports
began to emerge, Al-Riyad functioned as an active memory maker by framing the political rebellion as a religious incident. The state made use of specific terminology, such as “cleansing” and “incident.” This portrayed the bloody military intervention as a holy duty rather than a political struggle. Furthermore, the rebellious group was delegitimised through labels such as “Kharijites”, while the anonymity of the rebellious leader was maintained to prevent public sympathy. This article concludes that these strategies successfully institutionalised a state-driven cultural memory. It replaced the complex political reality with a static narrative memory of restored order and religious legitimacy. The state created a void in memory for the future generations. The memory of the state’s fragility was erased from public memories and consciousness, leaving behind a coloured history that only reinforces the religious and political authority of the Saudi state and Saudi monarchy.

Football in Iran is a highly politicized social arena in which access to public space, gender norms, and citizenship are tightly regulated. While women have long been excluded from football stadiums, they have remained actively involved in football culture as players and fans. This article examines how Iranian women football players and fans claim and create space for expression, identity, and resistance within a restrictive socio-political context. Drawing on a thematic literature analysis of existing academic studies on women’s football and female fandom in Iran, this research combines three complementary theoretical perspectives. Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the social production of space is used to analyse how football spaces are produced, regulated and reappropriated. Asef Bayat’s concept of nonmovement, complemented by James C. Scott’s notion of infrapolitics, provides a framework for understanding everyday and often subtle forms of resistance. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is employed to examine how gender norms are reproduced, negotiated and partially transformed through bodily practices, discourse and public visibility. The analysis shows that Iranian women actively create alternative physical, social and digital spaces for football participation, including domestic settings and social media platforms such as Instagram. These practices constitute forms of everyday resistance that gradually challenge exclusion without direct confrontation. At the same time, women navigate conditions of precarity in which visibility entails risk, resulting in strategic and tactical forms of participation. The article demonstrates that exclusion from the stadium does not result in absence, but in ongoing negotiations over space, recognition and gender within Iranian football culture.

Queer support for Palestine has received a lot of criticism, often seen as contradictory. Still, it continues to be a significant and important movement that fights against pinkwashing and homonationalist discourses and practices, that present queerness as a Western value. This article researches how queerness is essentialised in pro-Palestinian activism: how it is used as a fixed identity to create attention, build networks and make political claims. Using feminist theory on strategic essentialism, intersectionality and queer theory, the article investigates how queerness is framed and used by activists. The research uses discourse analysis as a methodology and focuses on fourteen different activists and activist groups that combine queerness with Palestinian liberation advocacy. It focuses on their tendency to essentialise or de essentialise, their individualising or collectivising aims and their politicising or naturalising framework to queerness. The first part of the research analyses activists that are focused on local practices of queerness in Palestinian communities, which leads to them trying to de-essentialise their queerness. However, in some cases of mainstreaming, which is useful for gaining attention to the cause, essentialising queerness is applied as a conscious strategy. In the second part, the analysis looks at queer Palestinians that take a wider approach to homonationalist discourses. By displaying themselves and essentialising their identities, they disprove the binarities that are posed within these discourses. The analysis goes into the ways that this essentialising can have both collectivising or individualising outcomes, and the consequences thereof. The third part focuses on queer activists without a direct lineage from Palestine, who have other reasons to connect to the cause of Palestinian liberation. In some cases, Jewishness is essentialised as another way of opposing homonationalist and Zionist narratives, in other ways, a political approach to queerness is used to explain engagement with the cause.

The article looks at Turkish historical drama series Payitaht Abdülhamid and its role in Türkiye’s soft power strategy towards the Arab world, since the country shifted the focus of its foreign policy more towards the Middle East. Alongside this shift, the country witnessed a turn in its foreign policy of using a more soft power oriented strategy, where the goal is to attract rather than to coerce. For the analysis of the article the Arabic dubbed version is analysed building upon Nye’s soft power theory and literature about Neo-Ottomanism. The analysis is limited to the first season of the series. Three themes are analysed separately: the portrayal of Sultan Abdülhamid, the narrative on Muslim solidarity and the portrayal of Zionism and the West. The article explores how cultural products like historical drama series can be political carriers and instrumentalised as tools for shaping public opinion within soft power strategies. Also, the instrumentalisation of history is discussed and how this process can be used to address contemporary problems. The analysis looks at the portrayal of Sultan Abdülhamid II as a just and moral leader and his functioning as Caliph protecting and leading the Muslim world. The legitimacy of his leadership is built on an Islamic framework and a certain historical continuity. Also, the portrayal of Zionists and the West as external threats to the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim world is discussed. By drawing upon Muslim solidarity, the series broadens its audience beyond the Turkish borders. Within the Neo-Ottomanic framework the series constructs ideas in line with the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) (Justice and Development Party). In the view of the AKP Türkiye is the heir of the Ottoman Empire and its Caliphate and should thus lead the Muslim world.

The conflict in Yemen has increasingly become internationalised, involving foreign actors and external conflicts such as the Iran-Saudi rivalry. Existing literature examining the roles of Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen’s humanitarian crisis primarily study the dimension of hard power, such as military interventions and a potential proxy war, and literature that examines soft power mainly concern religion and education. This article aims to contribute to a less explored area of research by examining
what role the strategic use of development aid to Yemen, in the form of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, plays in the Iran-Saudi rivalry. A qualitative comparative case study has been conducted, analysing the strategies and activities of Iran and Saudi Arabia related to development aid in Yemen based on existing academic literature, examining both the quantities of development aid as well as the way it is employed. This article concludes that Saudi Arabia contributes a large amount of development aid to Yemen, employing it as an instrument of soft power, possibly related to reducing the influence of its adversaries in Yemen, such as Iran. Although the Houthis, who appear to strategically implement the blocking of humanitarian aid as a form of hard power, are linked to Iran, the Houthis cannot be seen as a proxy of Iran. Consequently, this blocking of aid cannot be directly seen as an Iranian strategy in Yemen. In comparison to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s contribution of development aid to Yemen is negligible. This article uses Juneau’s analysis of the Iran-Saudi rivalry in Yemen to explain this discrepancy, who argues that Iran faces greater risks and has less to gain strategically when investing in Yemen compared to Saudi Arabia. The findings of this paper contribute to a better understanding of the political dimension of development aid in Yemen.

This article investigates the digital resurgence of Saddam Hussein on the social media platform TikTok and analyses how this contributes to the collective memory of his authoritarian regime. Despite a broad historical and moral consensus surrounding his figure, there is an abundance of TikTok content that frames him as a national hero. This article examines how digital environments are used to circulate these representations and how they function as a form of criticism of present-day Iraq. The theoretical foundation of this research lies in (Digital) Memory Studies. The analysis uses Andrew Hoskins’ concepts of the ‘connective turn’ and the ‘restless past,’ as well as Sune Haugbolle’s work regarding Memory Studies in the Middle East following the 2011 Arab uprisings. Using this framework, Saddam Hussein’s popularity is shown as a form of post-2011 digital memory practice, in which the past is used to express critique of present-day Iraq. The article also talks about theories regarding platformisation and algorithms, which emphasize TikTok’s affordances, such as playability. These factors contribute to the filtration of content and let some fragments become visible, while pushing others to the background. This paper uses discourse analysis to show how text, but also visual and auditive uses influence the portrayal of Saddam Hussein. The findings show that he is frequently portrayed as a figure of order, while his repressive practices are minimised. Visuals show contrast between a prosperous past and a decaying present. The article argues that the digital representations of Saddam Hussein show the malleability of memory in platform-driven environments. This proposes a risk: the normalisation of authoritarian figures through pop culture. At the same time, the nostalgia surrounding Saddam is shown to be mainly about dissatisfaction with present-day Iraq.

This article analyses how traditions, sacred sites and memories of violence remain meaningful within the Yazidi diaspora in the Netherlands after the 2014 genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State. As an ethnic-religious minority with a largely oral religious tradition, Yazidis have historically been strongly connected to specific holy sites, particularly Lalish in northern Iraq. The genocide and subsequent forced migration have disrupted these place-bound forms of memory, thereby raising new questions about the construction and transmission of collective memory in diaspora. Based on insights from memory studies, including Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire, Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, and approaches to transcultural and diaspora memory, this study examines how memory functions in the absence of physical proximity to holy places. Methodologically, the research combines an analysis of relevant secondary literature with an in-depth qualitative interview with a member of the Dutch Yazidi community. The analysis demonstrates that holy sites, particularly Lalish, continue to play a central role in the religious and cultural experience of Yazidis in the diaspora. Despite the absence of physical access, Lalish maintains a symbolic presence through ritual practices and material traditions, thus conceptualised as a displaced lieu de mémoire. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that the remembrance of the genocide manifests not solely in formal memorialisation, but also in everyday practices of action and moral decision-making, which serve as manifestations of everyday agency. The experiences of a Yazidi individual residing in the Netherlands serve to illustrate how personal life narratives, activism, and future-oriented action intersect within the context of diasporic memory. This research demonstrates that memory within the Yazidi diaspora is a dynamic process, in which religion, trauma and visions for the future are intertwined.

This article explores how the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 has been politically reinterpreted by two major Israeli parties – Likud and Labor – during the Gaza War between 2023 and 2025. Originally a controversial move, the disengagement is now a central theme in current political rhetoric, particularly following the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023. Drawing on the framework of memory politics, this paper analyses how past events are selectively remembered to serve current strategic goals. The first part of the article outlines the original motivations behind the 2005 disengagement, as formulated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and official government sources. It reveals that the decision, publicly framed as unilateral, involved significant multilateral coordination and was rooted in both security concerns and political calculations. The second part delves into the political responses within Likud and Labor at the time, showing ideological divides within Likud and a pragmatic embrace of the plan by Labor. This historical context provides a foundation for understanding current discursive shifts. The final section presents a discourse analysis of statements made between 2023 and 2025 by key figures in both parties. Likud embraced a narrative framing the disengagement as a strategic mistake leading to Hamas’s rise, while Labor presents a more nuanced stance, balancing former support with present regret. The paper concludes that collective memory in Israel is politically instrumental. Both parties reinterpret the disengagement to align with present-day political agendas.

This article analyses how the sit-in space surrounding the headquarters of the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum has been discursively and visually transformed since the Sudanese revolution of 2019. During the revolutionary moment, the sit-in emerged as a central urban site of mass mobilization. Civilians collectively transformed public space into a self-organized environment of political participation, cultural expression and care. Through collective bodily presence, symbolic practices, and visual representation, the sit-in functioned as a powerful manifestation of revolutionary imagination. Following the violent breakup of the sit-in on June 3, 2019, the military takeover in 2021, and the outbreak of armed conflict in 2023, the meaning of this space underwent significant transformations. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, the article conceptualises the sit-in not as a neutral backdrop for protest, but as a space actively shaped through social practices and power relations. Judith Butler’s work on performative assemblies informs the analysis of collective bodily presence during the sit-in. While Sharon Macdonald’s concept of difficult heritage is used to explore how the site has become a contested space of memory following episodes of violence and repression. Methodologically, the article adopts a qualitative case study approach focusing on the sit-in area as a single urban site. It combines discourse analysis of international media coverage, activist perspectives as represented in journalistic sources, and selected social media posts. But also with a visual analysis of protest imagery and murals from 2019 to 2023. The analysis shows that the sit-in space has been continuously transformed: first as a revolutionary protest space, then as a militarised zone of control, and later as a digitally mediated site of remembrance and mourning. By tracing these transformations, the article contributes to discussions on urban space, protest, and memory in post-revolutionary and conflict-affected contexts.

This article examines how the French language has shaped national identity in Lebanon through the educational system. Lebanon is a country known for its multilingualism, which grew out of a long history involving international trade, missionaries, and colonial contact. While speaking many languages is often seen as a strength that connects Lebanon to the wider world, it has also created deep social and political divisions within the country. This study uses a critical discourse analysis to examine existing literature on Lebanese education from the time of the French mandate to today. It explores how French became the language of the elite. Beginning in the 19th century, French missionaries established schools to spread their culture and language, specifically targeting Christian communities. This legacy continues, with French still being used in Lebanese schools as the primary language of instruction for mathematics and science, while Arabic, the native language, is increasingly
marginalised. The findings show that the dominance of French has contributed to a fragmented national identity. Private schools, which educate the majority of students, rely heavily on French and often exclude national subjects such as Lebanese history, civics, and geography from their curriculum. As a result, students from diverse backgrounds lack a shared understanding of their country and its democratic values. Furthermore, the emphasis on French has hindered students from becoming fully fluent in Arabic, weakening their connection to cultural heritage. This situation reinforces the prestige of the former colonial language over the native tongue, creating symbolic hierarchies that mirror broader social inequalities. Ultimately, the article argues that the Lebanese education system perpetuates divisions rather than fostering unity. Language policies in schools are not neutral; they carry symbolic weight that shapes how students perceive themselves, their heritage, and their place in society. Without reform, the imbalance between French and Arabic risks undermining efforts to build a
cohesive national identity.

This article investigates how the privatisation of Beirut’s coastline since the 1990s has led to a reduction in public access to coastal space. Although Lebanese law formally defines the seashore as part of the inalienable maritime public domain, post-civil war redevelopment has fundamentally altered how this space is controlled and used. Beirut is examined as a post-conflict city in which neoliberal urban restructuring operates under conditions of legal ambiguity and limited state enforcement. The study adopts a qualitative historical methodology based on critical document analysis. It analyses legal decrees, policy documents, NGO reports, and academic literature to trace how coastal privatization has unfolded since the end of the Lebanese civil war. Rather than treating privatisation as a single legal act, the article conceptualises it as a process produced through temporary permits and regulatory exceptions. Empirically, the analysis focuses on four coastal sites, Ramlet al Baida, Dalieh, Saitunay Bay, and the Beirut Waterfront District. These cases illustrate different mechanisms through which public access is constrained, including informal enclosure, selective regulation, commercial redesign, and formal redevelopment. Together, they demonstrate how coastal space is increasingly conditioned by consumption, social norms, and economic status, even where legal public ownership formally persists. The article draws on the concept of the right to the city and critiques of neoliberal urbanism to interpret these findings. It argues that coastal privatisation in Beirut represents not only a physical restriction of access, but also a broader erosion of appropriation, understood as the ability of urban residents to use and inhabit collective space. By situating Beirut within debates on public space, post-conflict urbanism, and coastal privatisation, the paper contributes to a limited body of literature on spatial inequality in Middle Eastern cities.

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