Urban Transformations in the Middle East and North Africa from a Geographical Perspective

Though a multidisciplinary field, Middle East studies has historically had little engagement with the theoretical and methodological contributions of the discipline of geography. In the wake of the Arab Spring, there was a turning point, as scholars of the region noted the importance of public space to the uprisings, thus sparking engaging debates about urban spatial politics. In fact, Middle East studies is not alone in its newfound affinity to geography; a shift to what many have called “the spatial turn” across the social sciences and humanities has put geography in the limelight. Geography is in fact the original “area” studies—geographers of the early 20th century saw the main rationale of their discipline as identifying and describing regions, and the region was the core geographical concept. The post–World War II area studies boom occurred much at the expense of the discipline; after Harvard University closed its geography program in 1948, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Columbia University, and other Ivy League schools soon followed and Title VI essentially led to the closing of numerous other geography programs around the country—including Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago. A growing sentiment within the ivory tower found the discipline too ambiguous and asserted that a university did not need geography to be a great institution.