Category Archives: Blog
Charlotte Al-Khalili: Transitional Justice from Below: Demands for Truth and Social Reparations
What do transitional justice aspirations look like a year after the downfall of the Assad regime for Syrians in the country? What can transitional justice mean for a people who have lived through several decades of an extremely brutal dictatorship? If the violence of the Assad regime culminated after the start of the 2011 revolution, […]
Thomas Pierret: The Sunni Ulama: Syria’s Parliamentary Era as a Golden Age
One might intuitively assume that the Syrian Sunni ulama (religious scholars) would valorize periods emblematic of Islam’s bygone grandeur, such as the Umayyad or Ottoman empires. In practice, however, their historical narratives accord greater significance to the era of parliamentary rule spanning the late French Mandate through the early years of independence (1932–1963). This emphasis […]
Christine Crone: Constructing post-Ba’athist Syria through Cultural Heritage: the role of the Syrian Arab News Agency
In the years leading up to the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and the downfall of the Syrian Ba’athist state, the Syrian state propagated what I referred to in previous publications, as a ‘post-war narrative’ (Crone 2023; 2025). This narrative became particularly evident after the last-remaining area of rebel-held Aleppo was recaptured by the state army […]
Kræn Kielsgaard: Rewriting Syria´s history – the case of Israel in Syrian schoolbooks after December 8, 2024
This post examines how the new Syrian state seeks to reconstruct public memory through revisions of public-school curricula in a period of profound political and social transformation after December 8, 2024. It unfolds how education, and more specifically official historiography, are employed by the new state as symbolic tools through which the former regime is […]
Khalid Syaifullah & Wardatul Adawiah: Asking, and Asking Again: Understanding the Roots of Ecological Disasters in Sumatra
Amid the outpouring of public solidarity for the victims of floods and landslides in Sumatra, one development deserves close attention. The term “natural disaster,” long used to describe such events, is increasingly being questioned and replaced with a more political framing. This shift has gained significant traction on social media. Rather than calling these events […]
Giorgos Poulimenakos: (Con)fusing geoeconomics and geopolitics: Logistics fetishism and infrastructural speculation on the waterfronts of Western Attica
The appointment of a female former TV persona as the new U.S. ambassador to Greece drew some derisive, if not openly sexist, comments. Such a choice by President Trump, the analysts pointed out, is symptomatic of Greece’s supposed marginality within U.S. strategic priorities. However, Kimberly Guilfoyle’s first statements upon arriving in Greece suggested precisely the […]
Ahmad Moradi: Iran, Year 1404: Chronicles of Planned Chaos
No, dear Rira,my letter must be short,must be simple,with no talk of ambiguity or mirrors.I will write to you again:We are all well—but do not believe me. (Ali Salehi, Iranian poet) The Sense of an Ending — April 26, 2025 Thick black smoke is rising over the port of Bandar Abbas, where Iran’s largest port […]
Ana Ivasiuc: ‘I can’t explain, you need to see for yourself’: Matters and senses of insecurity in the campi nomadi of Rome
‘What is it like to work with Roma?’ I asked the police officer. He gestured widely, shaking his head and raising his arms and shoulders, suggesting that words could not describe what he was trying to convey. ‘You would have to see for yourself. Once you see how they live, how they smell, what the […]
Erella Grassiani and Nir Gazit: The Smell of Fear, The Sound of Relief: Sensing War in Israel/Palestine
As we write this, in January 2026, there is, theoretically speaking, a ceasefire in place in Gaza. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the war, the genocide, the violence, and horrors have come to a stop as Israel is breaching the ceasefire on a daily basis. Violence and death are still omnipresent in Gaza and […]
Ståle Knudsen: The Invisible Hard Toilers of The Green Transition in The Maritime Sector: Shipyard Workers in Turkey
How do companies handle responsibilities to people and the environment when they operate abroad? What tools do they use, and what are the effects? These have been throughgoing concerns in my work during the last 10-15 years of research in Turkey. I have investigated how the ‘corporate social responsibility’ work of Austrian energy company OMV […]