Archiv der Kategorie: Readings

Jadaliyya’s new Environment page

There is finally a site for environmental questions on the Middle East: On Earth Day, April 22, Jadaliyya, e-zine of the Arab Studies Institute, has launched its Environment page.

The Jadaliyya Environment Page is a forum for innovative, critical, and incisive analysis and reporting on environmental questions in the Middle East. It invites contributors and readers to rethink these questions by taking a broad stance on what counts as an environmental issue. Whereas environmental questions in the Middle East are usually framed in terms the security of water or oil, this page purposefully seeks out a wide array of sources and perspectives in examining important environmental issues on the ground and across the region. As curators of this Jadaliyya project, we want to provide a platform that brings together diverse perspectives including, and especially, from those living in the region, indigenous voices, and grassroots approaches.

The launch page features, among others, articles on Smallpox in Monarchiq Iraq, a wind energy project in the Syrian Golan Heights and environmental racism in Palestine – the general picture, that Israel and Palestine are the sites where most research on environmental issues (from a social science perspective) is undertaken – is apparent here too. But as the new page is calling for more contributions, the geographic and temporal perspective might become wider.

Like on other issues, Jadaliyya is offering a Media Roundup with recently published news articles on environmental issues from the region now, an Essential reading list with important contributions in the field, and aditionally two podcasts – one on green islamic finance and an interview with the editors about their aims for the new page.

political Ecology Reading List

I recently came across the Political Ecology reading list Julian Bloomer shared on the blog Undisciplined Environments. Though from 2016 and thus missing the latest publications, this may be of great help to all preparing courses or looking for an overview of the most important publications in the fields. As most of the literature mentioned is in english, it might be interesting in the long term to add more publications in other languages…