Welcome to MMETOHP

Emerging Themes

As with the interviews for the MIAOHP, our interviewees each have their own voice and perspective.  Nonetheless, some themes have emerged across several narratives that suggest further lines of inquiry.

Access to "Nature"

Nearly all the interviewees spoke fondly of how their visit to the Middle East gave them access to natural settings, tending - with a couple of exceptions -  not to draw parallels to similar geographical or natural features in Michigan or the United States.  This is striking because many interviewees also spoke about other places they traveled.  In some cases "the natural '' is closely associated with both the rural and "the traditional," where a slower pace of life, more flavorful foods and a general sense of well-being is apparent not only the words, but the tone and affect of interviewees.  It is less that they wanted to stay in those settings than they wanted access to those settings and felt closer to those experiences on their trips.  Even interviewees who spent most of their time in an urban setting in the Middle East - recalling the sounds of horns and traffic in Beirut or Cairo - would tend to note how accessible "natural" areas were and the variety of landscapes one could get to easily (to their way of thinking).

Transnational Families and Faith

We hear from a new Yemeni-American father who traveled to Yemen to marry but is still struggling to arrange for his wife and daughter to be able to join him in the United States.  We hear from a student in the UAE whose extended family in the Middle East joins him and his "nuclear" family on a visit to Egypt, where other extended family living there helps facilitate the vacation itself.  And for interviewees who are firmly established, maybe even second generation Americans, part of what brings Lebanon or Yemen "home" to them in Michigan is how easily other members of their family can visit or also establish themselves here.  Not every interviewee with heritage ties to the Middle East spoke about religion at any length, but those that did and identified as Muslim clearly saw their heritage country as more aligned with a vaguely defined Muslim lifestyle, often equated with certain "common"  sounds (the call to prayer) and places (neighborhood mosques) rather than particular holy sites, rituals or even sects (not one Muslim interviewee noted what sect of Islam they adhered to).  The ability to shape the cultural environment in Michigan to reconstitute a sense of religious community is valued but tends to come up short relative to the heritage country. Just like the food is not quite the same, the religious practice is not quite the same.

 

Passports, Gender, Wealth, and Im/Mobility

Several interviewees expressed insight into the privilege that informed their ability to travel.  Several noted the costs that they could cover or that their connections could help them economize those costs.  American passports helped many breeze through customs at ports and borders (with one notable exception: Iran after 1979).  A number interviewees were made especially conscious of this as they witnessed travelers from other countries at those same regulatory posts. The privileges of class and citizenship were mediated by gender.  For American women with no heritage ties to the Middle East their agency could be impeded both conceptually (as anxiety about how they would be treated)  and physically (either having or feeling obligated to confirm to some gender segregation or veiling).  For some Muslim interviewees (including women), the more conservative religious environment in the Middle Eastern countries they visited registered as places they could be more at liberty to be and be seen as Muslim (though some also assert Dearborn and other parts of the Detroit Metropolitan area; see the Halal Metropolis digital exhibit).  This would sometimes be paired with assertions of how few barriers there were for women or how much progress had been made in the Middle East.  These parts of the oral history narratives seemed to have an audience in mind with no heritage ties to the Middle East.  

Phase 2 of MMETOHP

The "soft launch" of this database in August of 2023 signals a transition in the project.  While MMETOHP will continue to record and curate interviews of anyone who has traveled to the Middle East, it will begin to focus on the inclusion the oral  history travelogues of members of the University of Michigan-Dearbon campus community itself.  We will also coordinate our interviewee recruitment and curation methodology with survey and focus group studies of the campus community that explore, among other things, the connection between individual agency with respect to "regimes of im/mobilty" globally with those same issues locally, on our campus.  Facilitating this new phase research from 2023-2025 will be funds from the Univeristy of Michigan's Inclusive History Project, which seeks to inform the university's repairative policies by better understanding our own history of facilitating and limiting a sense of belonging for our students, staff, faculty and the local communities in which University of Michigan operates.

Additional Resources

Websites

Arab American National Museum Oral Histories and Digital Scrapbooks

Selected Readings: Academic

Middle East and North African Diaspora

Arab & Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, & Belonging. Edited by Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Alsultany, and Nadine Naber. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011.

Bawardi, Hani J. The Making of Arab Americans: From Syrian Nationalism to U.S. Citizenship. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014.

Boosahda, Elizabeth. Arab-American Faces and Voices: The Origins of an Immigrant Community. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003.

Buchanan, F. Robert. "Hopefulness and Hardship: Ethical Orientations of the Palestinian Diaspora." Humanomics 36, no. 4 (2020): 507-529. Link. 

Chehabi, H.E., and Amir Sayadabidi. An International Bibliography of the Iranian Diaspora. March 2023. Click here to view and download this resource.

Fernbrant, Cecilia, Birgitta Essén, Per-Olof Östergren, and Elizabeth Cantor-Graae. "Navigating between Control and Autonomy: Recently Arrived Iraqi Refugees' Perceptions regarding Honor, Well-being, and Risk for Intimate Partner Violence." Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 11, no. 2 (2013): 178-197. Link.

Gualtieri, Sarah M.A.  Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California.  Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019.

Gualtieri, Sarah M.A.  Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009.

Howell, Sally. Old Islam in Detroit: Rediscovering the Muslim American Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Howell, Sally, and Andrew Shryock. "Cracking Down on Diaspora: Arab Detroit and America's ‘War on Terror.’" Anthropological Quarterly 76, no. 3 (2003): 443-462. Link.

Inhorn, Marcia C. "Searching for Love and Test-Tube Babies: Iraqi Refugee Men in Reproductive Exile on the Margins of Detroit." Medical Anthropology 37, no. 2 (2018): 145-157. Link.

Lysa, Charlotte. "Governing Refugees in Saudi Arabia (1948-2022)." Refugee Survey Quarterly 42, no. 1 (2023): 1-28. Link.

Maghbouleh, Neda. The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017.

Micinski, Nicholas R. "Are You A Terrorist? Comparing Security Screening for Iraqi Asylum Seekers in the United States and Sweden." International Migration 57, no. 4 (2019): 58-74. Link.

My Shadow is My Skin: Voices from the Iranian Diaspora. Edited by Katherine Whitney and Leila Emery. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2020.

Pennock, Pamela E. The Rise of the Arab American Left: Activists, Allies, and their Fight Against Imperialism and Racism, 1960s-1980s. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

Sanders, Ben and Merrill Smith. "The Iraqi Refugee Disaster." World Policy Journal 24, no. 3 (2007): 23-28. Link.

Shakir, Evelyn. Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

Stockton, Ronald R. "The Palestinians of Dearborn, Michigan." Psychological Reports56, no. 1 (1985): 123-129. Link.

Sundvall, Maria, David Titelman, Valerie DeMarinis, Liubov Borisova, and Önver Çetrez. "Safe but Isolated – an Interview Study with Iraqi Refugees in Sweden about Social Networks, Social Support, and Mental Health." International Journal of Social Psychiatry 67, no. 4 (2021): 351-359. Link.

"Welcome to Gaza." Journal of Palestine Studies 44, no. 4 (2015): 145-149. Link.

Yako, Rihab Mousa and Bipasha Biswas. "“We Came to this Country for the Future of our Children. we have no Future”: Acculturative Stress among Iraqi Refugees in the United States." International Journal of Intercultural Relations 38, (2014): 133-141. Link. 

Zelkovitz, Ido. "A Paradise Lost? the Rise and Fall of the Palestinian Community in Kuwait." Middle Eastern Studies 50, no. 1 (2014): 86-99. Link.

 

Class

Akar, Bassel. "Learning Active Citizenship: Conflicts between Students' Conceptualisations of Citizenship and Classroom Learning Experiences in Lebanon." British Journal of Sociology of Education 37, no. 2 (2016): 288-312. Link.

Clark, Janine. "Social Movement Theory and Patron-Clientelism: Islamic Social Institutions and the Middle Class in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen." Comparative Political Studies 37, no. 8 (2004): 941-968. Link.

Hanieh, Adam. "The Internationalisation of Gulf Capital and Palestinian Class Formation." Capital & Class 35, no. 1 (2011): 81-106. Link.

Joya, Angela. "The Military and the State in Egypt: Class Formation in the Post-Arab Uprisings." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 47, no. 5 (2020): 681-701. Link.

Omar, Hussein A.H. "‘Snatched by Destiny's Hand’: Obituaries and the Making of Class in Modern Egypt: Reading and Writing Obituaries in Modern Egypt." History Compass 15, no. 6 (2017): e12380. Link.

Pettit, Harry. "Uncomfortable Ethnography: Navigating Friendship and ‘cruel Hope’ with Egypt's Disconnected Middle-Class." Emotion, Space and Society 36, (2020): 100714. Link.

Turner, Lewis. "Explaining the (Non-)Encampment of Syrian Refugees: Security, Class and the Labour Market in Lebanon and Jordan." Mediterranean Politics 20, no. 3 (2015): 386-404. Link.

 

Education

Akar, Bassel, and Mara Albrecht. "Influences of Nationalisms on Citizenship Education: Revealing a ‘Dark Side’ in Lebanon." Nations and Nationalism 23, no. 3 (2017): 547-570. Link.

Chopra, Vidur. "‘We’re Not a Bank Providing Support’: Street-Level Bureaucrats and Syrian Refugee Youth Navigating Tensions in Higher Education Scholarship Programs in Lebanon." International Journal of Educational Development 77, (2020): 102216. doi: Link.

Education and the Arab Spring: Resistance, Reform, and Democracy. Edited by Eid Mohamed, Hannah R. Gerber, and Slimane Aboulkacem. Rotterdam: BRILL, 2016. Link.

Gaad, Eman, Mohammed Arif, and Fentey Scott. "Systems Analysis of the UAE Education System." International Journal of Educational Management 20, no. 4 (2006): 291-303. Link.

Gesink, Indira Falk. "Islamic Reformation : A History of Madrasa Reform and Legal Change in Egypt: Islam and Education - Myths and Truths." Comparative Education Review 50, no. 3 (2006): 325-345. Link.

Hashash, Mona, Kamal Abouchedid, and Suzanne Abourjeily. "Student–Teacher Interaction in Public Schools in Lebanon: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective in Grade 6 Classes." SAGE Open 8, no. 2 (2018): 215824401878303. Link.

Isik-Ercan, Zeynep. "Looking at School from the House Window: Learning from Turkish-American Parents’ Experiences with Early Elementary Education in the United States." Early Childhood Education Journal 38, no. 2 (2010): 133-142. Link.

Matherly, Laura L., Nadia Amin, and Shamma Sultan Khalifa Al Nahyan. "The Impact of Generation and Socioeconomic Status on the Value of Higher Education in the UAE: A Longitudinal Study." International Journal of Educational Development 55, (2017): 1-10. Link.

McMinn, Melissa, Martina Dickson, and Shaljan Areepattamannil. "Reported Pedagogical Practices of Faculty in Higher Education in the UAE." Higher Education 83, no. 2 (2020; 2022;): 395-410. Link.

Ment, David M. "The American Role in Education in the Middle East: Ideology and Experiment, 1920 - 1940." Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 1-2 (2011): 173-2<[173]-189. Link.

Ridge, Natasha, and Soohyun Jeon. "Father Involvement and Education in the Middle East: Geography, Gender, and Generations." Comparative Education Review 64, no. 4 (2020): 725-748. Link.

Saad, Elias, and Fabrice Delsahut. "An Institutional History of the Physical Education in the Lebanon." Sport in Society 24, no. 5 (2021): 794-810. Link.

Saleh, Mohamed. "Public Mass Modern Education, Religion, and Human Capital in Twentieth-Century Egypt." The Journal of Economic History 76, no. 3 (2016): 697-735. Link.

 

Healthcare

Anayah, Fathi, Issam A. Al-Khatib, and Banan Hejaz. "Assessment of Water and Sanitation Systems at Palestinian Healthcare Facilities: Pre- and Post-COVID-19." Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 193, iss. 1 (2021): 41. Link.

Ismail, Sharif A. "The Rocky Road to Universal Health Coverage in Egypt: A Political Economy of Health Insurance Reform from 2005–15." International Social Security Review (English Edition) 71, iss. 2 (2018): 79-101. Link.

Kahlenberg, Caroline. "‘The Gospel of Health’: American Missionaries and the Transformation of Ottoman/Turkish Women's Bodies, 1890-1932: American Missionaries and Ottoman/Turkish Women's Bodies, 1890-1932." Gender & History 28, iss. 1 (2016): 150-176. Link.

Rose, Christopher S. "The History of Public Health in the Modern Middle East: The environmental–medical Turn." History Compass 19, no. 5 (2021): 1-n/a. Link.

 

Travel

Alloul, Jaafar. "'Traveling Habitus' and the New Anthropology of Class: Proposing a Transitive Tool for Analyzing Social Mobility in Global Migration." Mobilities 16, iss. 2 (2021): 178-193. Link.

Cobb, Elvan. "Learning Vicariously: Tourism, Orientalism and the Making of an Architectural Photography Collection of Egypt." Architectural Histories 5, iss. 1 (2017). Link.

Lanoie, Nicholas. "Inventing Egypt for the Emerging British Travel Class: Amelia Edwards' A Thousand Miles Up the Nile." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40, iss. 2 (2013): 149-161. Link.

 

Transportation

Elshahawany, Dina N., Eduardo A. Haddad, and Michael L. Lahr. "Accessibility, Transportation Cost, and Regional Growth: A Case Study for Egypt." Middle East Development Journal 9, no. 2 (2017): 256-277. Link.

Tarabay, Rana, and Maya Abou-Zeid. "Modeling the Choice to Switch from Traditional Modes to Ridesourcing Services for social/recreational Trips in Lebanon." Transportation (Dordrecht) 47, no. 4 (2019; 2020;): 1733-1763. Link.

 

Urban History/Studies

Arabian Peninusala

El Bakri, Alia. "'Memories of the Beloved': Oral Histories from the 1916–19 Siege of Medina." International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 4 (2014): 703-718. Link.

Didero, Maike, Sonja Nebel, and Carmella Pfaffenbach. "Urban Structures and Daily Mobility Patterns in a City of Long distances—the Case of Muscat/Oman." Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 40, no. 3 (2019): 361-386. Link.

Lücking, Mirjam. "Working in Mecca." European Journal of East Asian Studies 16, no. 2 (2017): 248-274. Link.

 

Egypt

Bakir, Reem A., and Sahar A. Attia. "Changing use of Public Spaces in Cairo during COVID-19." Urban Research & Practice 14, no. 5 (2021): 576-593. Link.

Malmström, Maria Frederika. "Making and Unmaking Masculinities in Cairo through Sonic Infrastructural Violence." Urban Studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) 59, no. 3 (2022; 2021;): 591-607. Link.

Ibrahim, Mohamed R. "How do People Select their Residential Locations in Egypt? The Case of Alexandria." Cities 62, (2017): 96-106. Link.

 

Iran

Alijani, Saeideh, Ahmad Pourahmad, Hossein Hatami Nejad, Keramatollah Ziari, and Sahar Sodoudi. "A New Approach of Urban Livability in Tehran: Thermal Comfort as a Primitive Indicator. Case Study, District 22." Urban Climate 33, (2020): 100656. Link.

Bagheri, Bagher, and Sahar Nedae Tousi. "An Explanation of Urban Sprawl Phenomenon in Shiraz Metropolitan Area (SMA)." Cities 73, (2018): 71-90. Link.

Kermani, Azadeh Arjomand. "Heritage Management and Urban Development in Iran, Case Study of Shiraz." Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development 10, no. 4 (2020): 343-357. Link.

Lak, Azadeh, and Pantea Hakimian. "Collective Memory and Urban Regeneration in Urban Spaces: Reproducing Memories in Baharestan Square, City of Tehran, Iran." City, Culture and Society 18, (2019): 100290. Link.

Roosta, Maryam, Masoud Javadpoor, and Maryam Ebadi. "A Study on Street Network Resilience in Urban Areas by Urban Network Analysis: Comparative Study of Old, New and Middle Fabrics in Shiraz." International Journal of Urban Sciences 26, no. 2 (2022): 309-331. Link.

 

Jerusalem

Azaryahu, Maoz, and Rebecca Kook. "Mapping the Nation: Street Names and Arab-Palestinian Identity: Three Case Studies." Nations and Nationalism 8, no. 2 (2002): 195-213. Link.

Baumann, Hanna, and Manal Massalha. "‘Your Daily Reality is Rubbish’: Waste as a Means of Urban Exclusion in the Suspended Spaces of East Jerusalem." Urban Studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) 59, no. 3 (2022; 2021;): 548-571. Link.

Efrat, Elisha. "British Town Planning Perspectives of Jerusalem in Transition." Planning Perspectives 8, no. 4 (1993): 377-393. Link.

Haramati, Tamar, and Ravit Hananel. "Is Anybody Home? the Influence of Ghost Apartments on Urban Diversity in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem." Cities 56, no. 56 (2016): 109-118. Link.

Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona. "Capital City Or Spiritual Center? the Politics of Architecture in Post-1967 Jerusalem." Cities 22, no. 3 (2005): 229-240. Link.

 

Lebanon

Ajrouch, Kristine J. "Place, Age, and Culture: Community Living and Ethnic Identity among Lebanese American Adolescents." Small Group Research 31, no. 4 (2000): 447-469. Link.

Bădescu, Gruia. "Traces of Empire: Architectural Heritage, Imperial Memory and Post-War Reconstruction in Sarajevo and Beirut." History and Anthropology 30, no. 4 (2019): 366-38. Link.

Bahou, Lena. "Addressing Issues of (in)Justice in Public Schools within Postwar Lebanon: Teachers’ Perspectives and Practices." International Journal of Educational Development 43, (2015): 63-76. Link.

Baytiyeh, Hoda. "Has the Educational System in Lebanon Contributed to the Growing Sectarian Divisions?" Education and Urban Society 49, no. 5 (2017): 546-559. Link.

Kassem, Ali. "Village-Ness, Discrimination, and Urban Modernity: Thinking Alongside ‘village People’ in Lebanon." International Sociology 38, no. 3 (2023): 372-393. Link.

Monroe, Kristin V. "Circulation, Modernity, and Urban Space in 1960s Beirut." History and Anthropology 28, no. 2 (2017): 188-210. Link.

Nagle, John. "‘Where the State Freaks Out’: Gentrification, Queerspaces and Activism in Postwar Beirut." Urban Studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) 59, no. 5 (2022; 2021;): 956-973. Link.

Quenoy, Paul du. "Arabs Under Tsarist Rule: The Russian Occupation of Beirut, 1773-1774." Russian History (Pittsburgh) 41, no. 2 (2014): 128-141. Link.

Sakr-Tierney, Julia. "Real Estate, Banking and War: The Construction and Reconstructions of Beirut." Cities 69, (2017): 73-78. Link.

Valsamos, G., M. Larcher, and F. Casadei. "Beirut Explosion 2020: A Case Study for a Large-Scale Urban Blast Simulation." Safety Science 137, (2021): 105-190. Link.

 

United Arab Emirates

Alawadi, Khaled, Sahar Khaleel, and Ouafa Benkraouda. "Design and Planning for Accessibility: Lessons from Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s Neighborhoods." Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 36, no. 2 (2020; 2021): 487-520. Link.

Alawadi, Khaled, Victoria Hernandez Striedinger, Praveen Maghelal, and Asim Khanal. "Assessing Walkability in Hot Arid Regions: The Case of Downtown Abu Dhabi." Urban Design International (London, England) 27, iss. 3 (2021): 211-231. Link.

Ewers, Michael C. "International Knowledge Mobility and Urban Development in Rapidly Globalizing Areas: Building Global Hubs for Talent in Dubai and Abu Dhabi." Urban Geography 38, no. 2 (2017): 291-314. Link.

Mohammad, Robina, and James D. Sidaway. "Spectacular Urbanization Amidst Variegated Geographies of Globalization: Learning from Abu Dhabi's Trajectory through the Lives of South Asian Men." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36, no. 3 (2012): 606-627. Link.

Sotoudehnia, Maral, and Reuben Rose‐Redwood. "‘I Am Burj Khalifa’: Entrepreneurial Urbanism, Toponymic Commodification and the Worlding of Dubai." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43, no. 6 (2019): 1014-1027. Link.

 

Yemen

al-Huraibi, Nahla and Amanda Konradi. "Second-Generation Yemeni American Women at the Turn of the Century: Between Individual Aspirations and Communal Commitments." Humanity & Society 36, no. 2 (2012): 117-144. Link.

Beckerleg, Susan. "From Ocean to Lakes: Cultural Transformations of Yemenis in Kenya and Uganda." African and Asian Studies 8, no. 3 (2009): 288-308. Link.

Kabir, Nahid Afrose. "A Study of Young Yemeni-American Muslims' Identity, 2010-2021." Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 41, no. 4 (2021): 627-642. Link.

Kangas, Beth. "The Burden of Pursuing Treatment Abroad: Three Stories of Medical Travelers from Yemen." Global Social Policy 10, no. 3 (2010): 306-314. Link.

Katz, Marion Holmes. "women's Mawlid Performances in Sanaa and the Construction of “popular Islam”." International Journal of Middle East Studies 40, no. 3 (2008): 467-484. Link.

Mandal, Sumit K. "Popular Sites of Prayer, Transoceanic Migration, and Cultural Diversity: Exploring the Significance of Keramat in Southeast Asia." Modern Asian Studies 46, no. 2 (2012): 355-372. Link.

Orellana, Marjorie Faulstich, Barrie Thorne, Anna Chee, and Wan Shun Eva Lam. "Transnational Childhoods: The Participation of Children in Processes of Family Migration." Social Problems (Berkeley, Calif.) 48, no. 4 (2001): 572-591. Link. 

Pandya, Sophia. "Religious Flexibilities of Older Yemeni Women in Sanaa." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 10, no. 2 (2014): 52-79. Link.

Sarroub, Loukia K. "The Sojourner Experience of Yemeni American High School Students: An Ethnographic Portrait." Harvard Educational Review 71, no. 3 (2001): 390-415. Link.

Sheikh, Farrah, Jin-Han Jeong, and Kangsuk Kim. "From Sex Offenders to National Heroes: Comparing Yemeni and Afghan Refugees in South Korea." Social Inclusion10, no. 4 (2022): 200-210. Link.

Suprenant, Mark P., Anuraag Gopaluni, Meredith K. Dyson, Najwa Al-Dheeb, Fouzia Shafique, and Muhammad H. Zaman. "A Predictive Model for Healthcare Coverage in Yemen." Conflict and Health 14, no. 1 (2020): 16 pages. Link.