Status/الوضع

A year after the blast in the port of Beirut, Lebanon sinks into a severe economic crisis which the World Bank ranks in the top 10, and possibly top 3, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century. Electricity, gas and even medicine are in short supply in the country. Angry residents wait in line for hours to fill their car tanks while others lucky enough to be able to con...

On August 10th 2021, Hamid Nouri, a former prosecutor in Iran, went on trial in Sweden for his alleged role in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. The historic trial against Nouri, will hear testimonies from dozens of witnesses and it will be the first time that one of the worst crimes of the past 40 years in Iran will be examined in a court of law. In July 1988, th...

Since the 2010-2011 Revolution, Tunisia has been seen as the most successful democracy in the Arab world but, at the moment it is teetering at the edge of what some people call have called a constitutional coup. One of the major contributing factors to this crisis has been the COVID-19 pandemic. Host Khalil Bendib spoke to researcher Mohamed-Dhia Hammami about the current situation in Tunisia. Cou...

In this special episode, Huma Gupta and China Sajadian discuss abolition geographies and environmental movements with renowned geographer and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. She is the author of the award-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California and several forthcoming books, including Change Everything, Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation, a...

On July 12th, protests erupted in Iran’s Southwestern province of Khuzestan over severe water shortages. The protests swiftly spread to 22 other cities across the oil rich province. In solidarity with protesters in Khuzestan, people in several other cities in Iran have also taken to the streets, chanting anti-government slogans. The regime has responded to the protests with characteristic violent...

This interview is a discussion with the Syrian Director Osama Halal, about making theater in the Middle East and the difficulties accompanying it. Founded 21 years ago, Koon is a theater group working mainly on integrating music, dance, poem, singing and rap into theater, and finding untraditional spaces to perform. هذا اللقاء هو نقاش مفتوح مع المخرج السوري أسامة حلال حول صناعة المسرح في الشرق الأ...

In this episode, Huma Gupta speaks with Rawan Maki about fast fashion and the question of sustainability in Bahrain and beyond. They explore the past, present, and speculative futures of the fashion industry. Maki traces the life-cycle of the clothing we wear everyday, mapping its geographies from the crops and petroleum necessary to produce organic and synthetic fibers, the individuals who farm,...

In conversation with Malihe Razazan, Gianfranco Rosi discusses his film "Notturno" (2020) which was shot over a 3 year period along the borders between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon, giving voice to a human drama that transcends geographical divisions and time. Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).

In this interview, Noah Black sat down with Issam Eido to discuss his work, key questions he approaches, and how he approaches them in his study of the epistemology of testimony and hadith studies.

In this interview, Noah Black sat down with Dr. Evren Altinkas to discuss his work, what brought him to it, and how he approaches key questions in the study of the intellectual history of Turkey.

Huma Gupta and Camille Cole speak with Dr. Caterina Scaramelli about Turkey’s wetland ecosystems, which range from alluvial forests to fishing lagoons, salt marshes, and volcanic crater lakes. Scaramelli unpacks how these shallow water ecosystems are materially and discursively produced into a flattened category called 'wetlands' by conservationists, ornithologists, and government agencies engaged...

Huma Gupta speaks with Todd Reisz about the transformation of the marshy estuary known as Dubai Creek (خور دبي‎) into infrastructure – a process which was central to the city’s architectural and urban development projects in the twentieth century. Reisz discusses the spatial, architectural, ecological and economic relationships between the creek, its inhabitants, and the city. These relationships...

More than two generations after the end of colonization in north Africa, France still suffers from the undigested legacy and aftereffects of a brutal empire that spanned over two centuries and whose perverse reverberations are still felt today. Khalil Bendib speaks with French Algerian Nacira Guenif Souilamas, Professor of sociology and anthropology at University Paris 8 of Vincennes in Saint-Deni...

Malihe Razazan spoke with Kali Rubaii, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University, about the toxic legacy of the war in Iraq and the underlying reasons for the high rates of birth defects in the city of Fallujah.

Hossam el-Hamalawy, journalist, photographer and member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists, reflects on the term 'Arab Spring' and the ten years that have passed since what he refers to as the regional revolutions and regional uprisings that took place in the Middle East and North Africa. Interviewed by Khalil Bendib | English Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).

Host Mouin Rabbani fills us in on the most recent and upcoming topics of Jadaliyya.com's Quick Thoughts interviews. Featuring guests Noura Erakat on the extra-judicial execution of Ahmad Erekat, Ardi Imseis on the ICC's ruling on February 9th on Palestine, Nazan Üstündağ on the protests at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University, and much more. To read these interviews, visit: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Categ...

هذا اللقاء هو حديث عن الموسيقى والشتات. كيف من الممكن أن تلهم الصعاب الفنان. بدءاً من منفاها وصولا إلى الوباء العالمي، تصر المغنية السورية ليندا الأحمد على إيجاد طرق فنية لتستخدم صوتها وتوسع مخيلتها لمواجهة الواقع الصعب الذي تعيشه من خلال الموسيقى. A Journey from Syria to Spain: How exile inspired the voice of singer Linda Alahmad. This interview is a conversation about music and diaspora, and how...

Sardar Saadi, PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Toronto and host of the Kurdish Edition podcast, examines urban dynamics of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination in Iran, in comparison with their struggles in Turkey. Interviewed by Shahram Aghamir | English Courtesy of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA).

In part 1, medical students Chanelle Simmons and Isabella Giunta explore the impact of mass incarceration on the health of individuals and communities. Through collected anecdotes, they illustrate the failures of prisons to provide their inmates with adequate health care, even in life-threatening situations. They also describe the history of racist policies and practices that allow for this inhuma...

In part 2, Chanelle and Isabella are joined by Jose Hamza Saldaña, the Director of Release Aging People in Prison, or RAPP. Mr. Saldana describes the unique health challenges of the aging incarcerated population, who often suffer from multiple chronic conditions that cannot be properly managed in prison. He challenges the racist and vengeful system of prolonged incarceration and advocates for comp...

In this special episode, Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi speaks with Alishine Osman, Anisa Salat, and Huma Gupta about their experiences of environmental scarcity and diaspora, as well as the refugee camps and urban environments that became the landscapes of that trajectory. These acts of ecological reclamation can take place on a local, international, planetary, or a historical level. The guests reflect u...

In this episode of Environment in Context, Huma Gupta speaks with journalist Layli Foroudi. They explore how the story of phosphates can help us understand the political economy of environmental transformation in Tunisia from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. This episode discusses phosphate mining towns like Gafsa, railway networks that transport this important resource to coastal...

يركز الحوار على الكتب الجديدة للشاعر وكيف تختلف عن القديمة ونظرته للشعر وقصيدة النثر. On this episode of In Their Own Voices: The Audio Divan of Modern Arabic Poetry, Syrian poet Firas Sulaiman sheds light on his two new recently published divans, his view of poetry and the prose poem. Interviewed by Osama Esber | Arabic

In part 2, together Anjali, Andrea, and Carla describe mental health care that goes beyond medications and hospitalizations to both treat and prevent mental health crises. Anjali and Andrea further reflect on the role of medical providers in the violence and traumatization of people with mental health concerns and describe what changes to our medical education are necessary to prepare physicians t...

In Part 1, medical students Anjali Jaiman and Andrea Martinez discuss the history of oppression through psychiatric institutionalization and criminalization of mental health concerns. They are joined by Carla Rabinowitz, who is the Project Coordinator of Correct Crisis Intervention Today NYC (CCIT-NYC), an organization that advocates for peer-led, compassionate care for people experiencing mental...