Sacred (re)Collections

This article discusses how state-organized, memory-cultural production drawing on religious signifiers contributes to a sacralization of Turkish public memory institutions and public space. This reinforces an Islamic-nationalist imagination of contemporary Turkey. The article explores state-led, disciplinary interventions in museal space (the Sacred Trusts exhibition of relics at Topkapı Palace Museum) and commemorative ritual in public space, display and education (the rise, fall and recalibration of Holy Birth Week (Kutlu Doğum Haftası). Drawing on theories of symbolic politics, nationalism, memory and space, the article elucidates the sacralization of Turkish memory production as a contesting yet malleable negotiation of nationalism. Innovative Islamic memory practice and ritualization requires careful discursive and disciplinary boundary drawing, catering to theological sensitivities and Sunni-orthodox mores. Then again, the spatial boundaries between various memory-cultural domains are becoming less distinct. Today, Islamic-nationalist imaginaries surface in the interstices of public memory institutions, public education and everyday public space.

Introduction

This special issue engages the historical and contemporary heterogeneity of the Gulf, which was a transcultural space long before the discovery of oil. Over the past two decades, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have actively begun to harness the media’s power, while at the same time grassroots productions—online, through social media and in regional festivals—reframe assumptions about film and visual media. With resident expatriate population comprising up to 90 percent of the population in Gulf states, film and visual media complicate conventional frameworks derived from area studies, such as ‘Arab media’, ‘Middle Eastern and North African cinema’, or ‘South Asian film’. These articles also unsettle the modernist divisions of media into distinct categories, such as broadcast television and theatrical exhibition, and consider forms that move between professional and nonprofessional media, and between private and semi-public spaces, including the transmedia spaces of theme parks and shooting locations. Articles examine the subjects of early photography in Kuwait, the role of Oman TV as a broadcaster of Indian films into Pakistan, representations of disability and gender in Kuwaiti musalsalat, tribal uses of social media, and videos produced by South Asian and Southeast Asian expatriates, including second-generation expatriates.

Representations of Non-Resident Indians from the Gulf in Online Comedy Videos

Longstanding connections between Indian residents and traders and the Gulf are not only featured in multiple Arab and Indian films but also in online media. Social media practices serve as tools to express and communicate identity through video and visual images. Self-representation of first- and second-generation Gulf migrants from Kerala finds its way into memes, GIF s and videos. On YouTube, comedic (self-) representation of Malayalis is introduced in a variety of genres, produced both in the United Arab Emirates and India. Although life in the Gulf is displayed from the perspective of more fortunate migrants, whose economic circumstances are often more secure than those of Indians in Kerela, these YouTube stories also depict alienation and their newfound identities as Indians from the Gulf. Ahmad Al Kaashekh’s Instagram and YouTube representations serve as one example of a comedic approach to claiming a Malayali identity in the Gulf. Through video analysis and interviews, I analyze notions of identity representation as well as the role of humor in the sources.

From Weddings as Resistance to Resistance to Weddings

This study focuses on two films in which weddings are conspicuously absent, Villa Touma (Suha Arraf, 2014) and In Between (Bar Bahr, Maysaloun Hamoud, 2016). Both films have a distinct focus on weddings: they are mentioned repeatedly—whether with longing or loathing, occasionally rendered in the films’ hazy perimeters, in ways that mark them as unsubstantial, inane and infecund, but most often they are occasions that end up not happening, non-doings that I call ‘un-weddings’. I examine the significances of this absence, especially as it contrasts with prevailing representations of weddings in Palestinian films that tend to portray weddings in powerful opposition to death and as the fulfillment of a profound personal longing and communal expectations that may also symbolize national aspirations.

Serial Readers United

Through an exploration of Kuwait’s independent bookstores, the article challenges the reputation of Gulf Arab monarchies as generally lacking a reading culture. It treats independent bookstores as urban spaces designed to enable participation in the practices and rituals of reading books and as indicators of reading microcultures in the country. Run by readers and writers, independent bookstores fill a gap in the cultural landscape in order to cultivate highbrow readership. They nurture emerging communities of readers, creating intimate spaces that blur the boundaries of public and private. They balance art and commerce to assume roles as arbiters of taste, community centers, and literary-cultural societies. Aided by social media, their activities spill over into the wider community and expand beyond the borders of Kuwait, attesting to the resilience of historical patterns of the Arab world of letters and the emergence of the Gulf as a new center in the circuit.

How Ibn Saud Became a Romanticized Legend in the U.S., British and French Press (1920–1953)

Despite the vast research on Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there has been little attention given to the impact of his representation by the British, French and U.S. press in the first half of the twentieth century. The man who built the kingdom in line with his Islamic sect’s doctrine has been portrayed as a puritan reformer and a modernist, in sharp contrast with the negative representation of other Arabs who happened to be fighting against French and British domination of the region at the time. This research is important for our understanding of how media representation was both a catalyst that contributed to building a reputation and a destiny for Ibn Saud and Saudi Arabia, and also a tool in the hands of the great powers of the time. This study is based on a critical examination of news articles and features published by French, British and American journalists from 1920 until Ibn Saud’s death in 1953.

Hizbullah’s ʿAshura Posters (2007–2020)

This article examines Hizbullah’s annual ʿAshura posters. It focuses on the campaigns created between 2007 and 2020 and places them against a backdrop of contemporary political events to demonstrate how the posters act as a significant site of political contestation and nationalist manifestation. By linking ʿAshura to contemporary politics in an ongoing reinterpretation of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom, Hizbullah places the Karbala battle at the center of its ideological identity, political actions and resistance activities, ultimately elevating its own fighters to Husayn’s position during Karbala. While Husayn is a figure mostly venerated within Shiʿa Islam, the article also demonstrates how Hizbullah utilizes the ʿAshura narrative to elevate Husayn—and ultimately the party’s fighters—to a transnational context by transforming the Karbala battle into a model for global resistance and victory. This is manifested in the posters’ meanings but also within the visual transformations whereby aesthetic changes reveal Hizbullah’s attempts at broadening its reach to a wider audience.