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New directions in the study of popular culture and politics in the Middle East and North Africa
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Mostafa, Dalia, Pratt, Nicola Christine and Rezk, Dina (2021) New directions in the study of popular culture and politics in the Middle East and North Africa. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 48 (1). pp. 1-6. doi:10.1080/13530194.2021.1885854 ISSN 1353-0194.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2021.1885854
Abstract
What is the relationship between popular culture and politics in the Middle East and North Africa? 1 Historically, the region’s popular culture has attracted surprisingly little scholarly attention. However, the flourishing of popular creative expression as part of the mass protests and uprisings from the end of 2010 onwards has increased interest in popular culture and, particularly, in its role in mobilizing and articulating resistance to hegemonic power. 2 Whilst building on this body of work, this special issue investigates the relationship between popular culture and politics in the Middle East and North Africa more broadly. Whilst some articles focus on episodes of mass mobilization and anti-regime confrontations, others explore the multiple ways in which popular culture and politics intersect in the lives of the region’s residents, which cannot be reduced to ‘the people’ versus ‘the regime’. In particular, there is a concern to go beyond understanding popular culture as positioned either in resistance to or as complicit with hegemonic power. The articles here demonstrate that such binary frameworks are unable to capture the complex ways in which popular culture is entangled with power relations shaped by gender, sexuality and class, as well as hegemonic meanings of national modernity and cultural authenticity. Significantly, the special issue examines the question of the aesthetics of popular culture and its relationship to politics and power, a question that is often overlooked in much of the existing literature on popular culture in the MENA region, which has tended to focus more on the political messages communicated through popular culture rather than the significance of its creative innovations.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JQ Political institutions (Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Area, etc.) |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Popular culture -- Middle East, Popular culture -- Africa, North , Popular culture -- Political aspects -- Middle East, Popular culture -- Political aspects -- Africa, North , Politics and culture -- Middle East, Politics and culture -- Africa, North , Middle East -- Politics and government , Africa, North -- Politics and government | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies | ||||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1353-0194 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 10 February 2021 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 48 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1-6 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/13530194.2021.1885854 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Copyright Holders: | British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies | ||||||
| Description: | Free access |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 30 March 2021 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 10 August 2022 | ||||||
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