Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East: (Series Number 5 The Contemporary Middle East)

Dispossession and forced migration in the Middle East remain even today significant elements of contemporary life in the region. Dawn Chatty's book traces the history of those who, as a reconstructed Middle East emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, found themselves cut off from their homelands, refugees in a new world, with borders created out of the ashes of war and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As an anthropologist, the author is particularly sensitive to individual experience and how these experiences have impacted on society as a whole from the political, social, and environmental perspectives. Through personal stories and interviews within different communities, she shows how some minorities, such as the Armenian and Circassian communities, have succeeded in integrating and creating new identities, whereas others, such as the Palestinians and the Kurds, have been left homeless within impermanent landscapes.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: forced migration in the contemporary Middle East: community cohesion in impermanent landscapes; 1. Dispossession and displacement within the contemporary Middle East: an overview of theories and concepts; 2. Dispossession and forced migration in the late Ottoman Empire: distinct cultures and separated communities; 3. Circassian, Chechnyan and other Muslim communities expelled from the Caucuses and the Balkans; 4. The Armenians and other Christians: evictions and massacres; 5. Palestinian dispossession and exodus; 6. Kurds dispossessed and made stateless; 7. Liminality and belonging: social cohesion in impermanent landscapes.

About the Author :
Dawn Chatty is a social anthropologist with long experience in the Middle East. Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East is her most recent book. Previously she edited the thirty-six chapter Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Facing the 21st Century (2006). She is University Reader in Anthropology and Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre in the Department of International Development, University of Oxford.

Review :
'Dawn Chatty brings to this study a detailed knowledge of the Chechen, Circassian, Armenian, Palestinian and Kurdish peoples, displaced into and within the early modern/modern Middle East. Her approach highlights interaction between European and Middle Eastern history (usually taught separately), the relative openness of the Ottoman Empire to ethnic and religious diversity, and the socio-cultural capacity of migrants to build new communities in unfamiliar places. This is a book I would definitely use for classes on nationalism, forced migration and refugeedom as factors in the making of the modern Middle East.' Rosemary Sayigh, Independent Scholar 'Chatty's book is an invaluable contribution.' Erik Mohns, Anthropos