From the Chair
I am delighted that this edition of the Bulletin is now being issued, continuing a tradition that began with the formation of CBRL in 1998, and that has an older past in the original bulletin issued in the 1920s by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem founded in 1919. We are thus approaching a centenary, and are more than ever conscious of the service to scholarship provided by the Bulletin.
The fact that the publication of this edition has been delayed by two years is a reflection of the heavy burden of work borne by staff and Honorary Officers alike. The increasing demands of management and of regulatory compliance, as in so many professions and not least academia, have squeezed the time available for actual scholarship, the very purpose of CBRL’s existence. I am conscious that to produce this edition has called for exceptional degrees of commitment and voluntary effort by a number of people. Our heartfelt thanks are due to Dr Joanne Clarke, as editor and Chair of the Publications Committee; Dr Mandy Turner, Director of the Kenyon Institute; Dr Carol Palmer, Director of the British Institute in Amman; Dr Caroline Middleton, who has undertaken the textual revisions; and Maggie McNulty, CBRL’s Development Officer.
When I took on the chairmanship of CBRL in January 2017, I confess I had no idea of the scale of change the organization would be facing, in a funding environment that was unable to adapt to rising costs, while pursuing the improvements in governance that had been begun by our outstanding Honorary Treasurer, Fiona Salzen, when she assumed the role in 2015. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to her extraordinary dedication and professional skill in steering CBRL into safer waters. She has been tirelessly inventive and persuasive, good-humouredly nudging CBRL’s collective thinking and way of doing things into a form which is more modern, effective and sustainable. Fiona leaves us in December after four hard- working years in the voluntary post, and we shall greatly miss her.
All learned societies such as CBRL are having to make similar adjustments, and we are in good company with the other British International Research Institutes (BIRIs) which come under the aegis of the British Academy. We are joining forces in preparing for the next Strategic Spending Review, which will determine our level of governmental funding for the five years from 2020. The actual review has been brought forward to 2019, in a political environment coloured by Brexit. This could benefit us, in that the Government is publicly committed to increasing funding for what it regards as cultural diplomacy, in order to offset the negative effects of leaving the European Union. The region in which we operate as CBRL should be a priority. On the other hand, the blow that Brexit would deliver to public finances in the United Kingdom might have the exact opposite effect. We are thus in a situation of even greater uncertainty than usual.
These challenges have led CBRL’s Committee of Management, comprising the Trustees of the Charity and Directors of the Company, along with the Directors of our two institutes and our staff in London, to consider thoroughly the key aims we should identify for our institution and how to pursue them. An ‘Away Day’ at Durham in February 2018 provided valuable strategic thinking. The outcome, in the form of a new vision statement and strategy, will shortly be ready, in time for the Strategic Spending Review.
In the just over two years since the Bulletin was last published, there are many people I would like to thank for their commitment and contributions. The first is Professor Dawn Chatty, who served as our Honorary Secretary from 2014 to 2017 with great distinction, bringing her energy, insights and contacts to the great benefit of CBRL. The second is her successor, Dr Alex Bellem, who has worked exceptionally hard on the various organizational challenges we have faced and continue to face. She is leading the work on a review of governance, which, we trust, will crystallize the new thinking that is preparing CBRL for the future.
I am deeply indebted to my predecessor, Dr Noel Brehony, for all his kindness and advice, and express the thanks of all of us for the years he spent at the helm, enabling CBRL to adapt and grow. Our great thanks also go to our outgoing President, Dame Avril Cameron, who stepped down at the end of 2017. I shall always value the wise advice she has provided, and we are all deeply grateful to her for playing her role with commitment and a real passion for the success of CBRL. We warmly welcome her successor, Professor Clive Hollis, who has given us similar commitment and good advice.
My sincere thanks go also to the current members of the Committee, and to those former members who have left since 2014.
There have been important staff changes as well in the period since 2016. Our long-serving UK Director, Professor Bill Finlayson, left us in April 2018, having first held the position of Director in Amman from 1999, and later of Regional Director. Bill played such a central role in the work of the CBRL, notably in his own field of archaeology and cultural protection, that it is hard to do justice to his contribution by means of examples. From my own experience serving in Jordan as a diplomat, however, I would single out his work on the Wadi Faynan 16 project in the WadiAraba in the southern part of Jordan, conducted with Professor Stephen Mithen of Reading University and with the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, at a site of exceptional interest for the study early human settlement and of climate change. Bill remains in contact with that project, which though completed, in that the final stage has been reached with the opening of a museum in Faynan Village, is nonetheless still the source of rich material evidence for study. He has not only our heartfelt thanks but also the warm good wishes of his former colleagues at CBRL for his continuing engagement in the region and period which have absorbed his attention for so many years. The latest monograph about the site, WF16, The Excavation of an Early Neolithic Settlement in Wadi Faynan, Southern Jordan. Stratigraphy, Chronology, Architecture and Burials, was completed in 2018 and is the first e-book to be published by the CBRL.
Another departure was that of Penny McParlin, who served as CBRL’s wonderful Administrative Secretary from 2002 to 2016. With warm thanks for all her years of service and support, we wish her well in whatever professional future she chooses, and in her new role as a mother. We have welcomed Rachel Telfer as her successor: Rachel joined us in May 2017 with the new role and title of Executive Officer. The London staff were augmented by another new arrival, Maggie McNulty, in the new role of Development Officer: Maggie joined us in October 2017. Her initiative in launching a monthly e-newsletter has greatly improved our ability to communicate with both our members and a wider range of people interested in our work.
Joanne Clarke meanwhile is leading a review of our publications policy, taking account of the increasing use of online access and the changing conditions of academic publication. She shall be reporting to the Committee and proposals will, in due course, be issued.
Bill Finlayson’s final report as Director follows. After that I leave it to our two Directors in post, Mandy Turner and Carol Palmer, to report on the work of their institutes, and shall confine myself here to expressing my warm thanks for their success, their hard work and their innovative thinking. These are exciting times and I feel that CBRL collectively is well placed to take the opportunities they offer.
James Watt
From the UK Director
This issue of the CBRL Bulletin, unusually, covers research for two years, 2015–16 and 2016–17, as re-organization of CBRL publications, especially the successful launch of our new journal, Contemporary Levant, have required reconsideration of our overall publication strategy. This has happened within a broader context of review and discussion. When I last reported in 2016, we were part way into a protracted period of negotiations and discussions regarding our British Academy funding. Unusually, we still did not know about our future funding in the context of government austerity, indeed the Academy was still negotiating its own budget with the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Uncertainty was not confined to funding, but extended to the nature of our relationship with the British Academy. At one point it appeared that funding was going to rapidly decrease year on year, with the core grant coming to zero by 2020. By the end of a long and grueling negotiation process our situation was considerably improved, with our overall Academy funding remaining roughly static over the spending period to 2020. This, however, concealed enormous changes. The most significant were that within that funding package, our core funding would reduce each year, and the balance would be delivered via Business Development Funds, a new programme designed to help us become less reliant on the Academy. While some of the potential uses of these funds were for items already within our plans, for example employing someone to help with development, or improving office efficiency with the introduction of a new database, it was clear that core funds were going to become increasingly limited. New efforts would have to be put into winning new sources of funding. There was a further sting in the tail; Business Development Funds have to be matched by other resources, and although the sums available may become more generous every year, identifying an increasing ‘match’ becomes more onerous. At the same time, the increasing use of Official Overseas Development funds to support research programmes, such as the Global Challenges Research Fund, promises some potential new sources of income. We remain hampered by being unable to either bid directly to the research councils, or to gain a share of university overheads in research council grants.
A second major impact came out of the Academy’s review process. In the new, more nervous, environment, the British Academy Sponsored Institutes and Societies (BASIS) abroad have to ensure close alignment with the Academy’s role. For CBRL, this meant that we could no longer use Academy funding to support student projects— no more postgraduate scholarships to the region, and no more travel grants. We have managed to maintain some travel grants through the generosity of donations from members, but numbers of grants available have declined. The loss of the postgraduate scholarships has not only impacted support we can offer the vital next generation of scholars, but has also had an impact on the vibrant collegiate research environment we try to maintain within the institutes.
The third change was in our relationship with the Academy. In the past the Academy maintained a close relationship through the BASIS Committee, and the various schools and institutes were often described as being ‘the Academy’s’. At times the Academy had come to the rescue of institutes, for example in the release of additional funds to mitigate the effects of the collapse of sterling after 2008. As part of the review process it was made clear that the Academy acts as a conduit for BEIS funds, and has no other responsibilities towards us. As providers of major funding they would still maintain a close interest in us, and indeed hoped that the relationship would flourish, but the restatement of this formal relationship changes the dynamic of our relationship. In the last Bulletin I described how important British Academy funding is, not only valuable for its consistency and reliability, but because it is widely perceived as being free of political or corporate agendas. The relationship with the Academy, and the perception that our funding came from this prestigious source has always opened doors for us, and helped reassure people that our interests were academic, and not politically motivated.
One accidental benefit arising from this long period of negotiations has been considerably closer working with the other institutes sponsored by the Academy. The old terminology of BASIS has been dropped (few could correctly remember what it stood for) and a new term, the British International Research Institutes (BIRI) was agreed. The most visible effect of increasingly close relationships has been the move of almost all BIRI London offices into one large open plan space in the Academy basement.
Recent times have seen enormous changes in staffing. Penny McParlin went on maternity leave at the end of 2015 (and now has a lovely daughter), and Jessica Tearney-Pearce joined us on a part-time basis to provide cover. Jessica left us to start her PhD at Cambridge, but Penny decided not to return to work, and we had a short period of temporary cover provided by Melanie Powell. We are grateful to the efforts made by both Jessica and Melanie through 2016 and early 2017. In April 2017 Rachel Telfer joined us as full- time replacement for Penny. In light of the organizational changes taking place, Rachel was appointed as the CBRL’s first Executive Officer. In addition, using some of the first round of Business Development Funds, we appointed a part-time Fund Raising Assistant, Saskia Hoskins, in 2016. In 2017, making use of the increasing Business Development Funds, we were able to appoint Maggie McNulty as CBRL’s first Development Officer. Rachel and Maggie now share a desk cluster in a new open plan BIRI office in the Academy. There have been changes at the institutes too, these are detailed in their respective reports in this Bulletin. One specific change we have made in both institutes has been to upgrade the former scholar posts to Assistant (or in the KI, Deputy) Director posts. These have been largely funded by sums that we were no longer able to spend on postgraduate scholarships, and, as well as providing important support to the Directors, these new posts are now an important aspect of our research activity.
Changes have not been restricted to staff. At the end of 2016 Noel Brehony retired as Chair. Noel has been a long-time supporter of the CBRL (and the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History (BIAAH) before that) and we are always hugely grateful for his support and efforts. Noel has been replaced by James Watt, who I first knew when he was a very supportive Ambassador in Amman, but he has a longer history of engagement with us, reaching back to a previous posting in Amman when Andy Garrard was Director of the BIAAH. He has enormous experience in the region, and has already had an impact on our activities, finding matching funding for a new Newton fund programme we have negotiated with the Academy and BEIS to provide research capacity building funds in Jordan. This is an enormously important development, as it helps us foster deeper connections between UK and Jordanian academics and universities. Dawn Chatty, our first Hon Secretary from the social sciences, has also stepped down. Her appointment was a significant milestone in CBRL’s commitment to covering the full range of disciplines supported by the British Academy, and we are very grateful for her contribution to CBRL, both in its management, but also in the research she has conducted. Her replacement, Alex Bellem, continues this process. Alex is a linguist (a report on some of her research is presented within this Bulletin), and also a former Assistant Director in Amman, and was our first Director in Damascus. Our longstanding President, Dame Averil Cameron, has also retired from her office. Averil was CBRL’s first President, and played an important role in the growth of what is still a fairly young organization. Averil has been replaced by Clive Holes, who, when chair of the British Academy’s Middle East and North Africa panel, was hugely supportive in our plans to develop our presence in Damascus. We can only hope that the appearance of Clive and Alex at the same time may hint at better times ahead in Syria.
We have completed two projects that were funded by the Academy as Strategic Development projects through their previous funding schemes. In the last Bulletin I reported on the CBRL agreement that working to help protect cultural heritage in the Levant has to be one of our major priorities in the current environment. One of our Strategic Development projects, the Deep Past as a Social Asset, which was led in the field by Oroub el Abed, was reported in the last Bulletin, and helped identify CBRL’s work within the wider framework of cultural resource management, cultural protection and public archaeology, which forms the focus of this Bulletin’s feature articles. Publications from this research are now in process. The second project was to run a series of workshops in London and Manchester bringing together academics and practitioners from the humanitarian agencies.
I have referred to our new journal, Contemporary Levant, above. Four issues of this journal, with Michelle Obeid as editor, have now appeared (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ycol20/current). This has been a very important new initiative for us, and has been remarkably successful. Our journal publisher, Taylor & Francis, have been reporting remarkably high online interest in the journal and its papers. We are also in the process of making the Levant Supplementary Series an open access online series. We have been making previous volumes available through the Archaeological Data Service (http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/cbarl_2015/index.cfm), and from 2018 new volumes will appear online as they are published.
In addition to lectures and workshops, we have organized two major events in London during the last two years. In 2016 we held a CBRL conference, co-hosted by the London Middle East Institute at SOAS. The conference was our first attempt to run a wide-ranging event to showcase CBRL’s activities to a UK audience. Under the theme of ‘The Present in the Past’ over 30 speakers and almost 300 delegates participated in a busy two days: keynote lectures were given by Charles Tripp of SOAS, and Lina Khatib who had just taken up her new role at Chatham House.
2017 was the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a significant moment in the history of Britain and the Levant, and also in the history of our own development as an institution. Balfour had served as a longstanding President of the British Academy, and it made sense that we marked the event as a joint occasion.
The years covered by this Bulletin have seen some sad losses. Eddie Peltenburg sadly died in 2016. An obituary appears in Levant (https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2016.1263065) describing his wider contributions. He was a long-term member of the CBRL and its forbears, and had played an important role both on committees and through his research and personal contacts and networks. I started as an undergraduate at Edinburgh the same year he started to teach there, excavated in Cyprus with him as an undergraduate, returned as a postgraduate to study artefacts from his excavations, and saw him regularly in Edinburgh, Syria and Cyprus in the following years. A memorial service in Edinburgh with family, colleagues and friends provided a fitting tribute. His absence is keenly felt and we are all poorer for losing him.
CBRL expenditure
CBRL Income 2016–17 Source: 2016/17 audited management data
Simon Bennett, Crystal Bennett’s son, died suddenly in 2017. This came as a complete shock to us, as not long before he had attended one of our lectures and had been full of life and plans. Crystal’s role in the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ), in the establishment of the BIAAH, and in the archaeological work she conducted, are a vital part of the CBRL, and Simon provided an important family link to that institutional history.
Tragically, Mark Whittow was killed in a car accident just before Christmas 2017. I first got to know Mark when he became Honorary Secretary of the CBRL, a role he took on with what I came to know as his usual cheerful enthusiasm. He was a delight to work with, generous with his time, his knowledge and his hospitality. He returned to Jordan some years later to give a wonderfully wide- reaching and eye-opening lecture on Pirenne, Muhammad and Bohemond; reflecting the breadth of knowledge that impressed so many of his colleagues and students. In recent years we bumped into each other from time to time in Oxford and I deeply regret that we never found the time to follow through on plans to get together properly, but there seemed to be no urgency. His funeral at Christ Church cathedral in Oxford was a deeply moving event.
And then John Wilkinson, who I did not know personally, but who was Director of the BSAJ from 1979 to 1984 passed away early in 2018. He was Director at an interesting moment in the CBRL’s history, as he arrived in Jerusalem as Crystal Bennett moved to become Director of the new BIAAH.
As ever, we are grateful for the support of the British diplomatic missions to the region and the offices of the British Council. We continue to be extremely grateful for the support offered by our patron, Prince Hassan bin Talal, and by Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, and to the collaboration with the Royal Scientific Society.
CBRL Finances
CBRL exists to conduct and support advanced research in the humanities and social sciences, and the majority of our resources (over two thirds) are spent directly on research and research facilities. We also spend significant sums to make the results of our research visible, through publications and sponsorship of conferences and events. We maintain research libraries at both the British Institute in Amman and the Kenyon Institute; both of which important facilities for the research we support, and also a major resource for the local academic community. They are open to all scholars and students. We try to keep the costs of governance, fund- raising and member services as low as possible: combined these currently run well below 10% of our total expenditure.
The Academy grant in 2016–17 provided about 75% of our income. The use of our research facilities, accommodation, vehicles and laboratories by members represented our second largest income stream, while the membership fees represent a small, but stable, and therefore extremely valuable, source of income. Generous grants from Al Tajir and Barakat trusts, continue to make important contributions to our library in Jerusalem. The income from our publications, events and small gifts and donations all provide valuable contributions to our work.
Research Funding
Funding for fellowships, scholarships, travel grants, team- based awards and pilot studies were awarded for 2015–16 as follows:
Turner—£4800—Peace building-counterinsurgency symbiosis in the occupied Palestinian territory
Prag— £1000—Excavations at Tell Iktanu and Tell Hammam
Koutrafouri—£7500—Water systems in prehistory; research and heritage strategies
MacDonald—£4567—The Wadi Salma Area Epigraphic Survey
O’Connor—£4615—Exploring identities in East Jerusalem: the investigation of multiple/layered identities in East Jerusalem
Philip—£7500—Tell Kubba Excavations
White—£2590—Evaluating the potential of cryptotephra in refining the chronology and climatic context of human evolution in the Levant
Allinson—Senior Visiting Fellow—£5810—The geopolitics of counter-revolution: cross-regional impacts of domestic dynamics in the post-2011 Middle East
Baron—Senior Visiting Fellow—£5810—Imagining different communities: a comparative examination of diaspora and Israeli news and political commentary
Bellem—Senior Visiting Fellow—£5810—Disappearing dialects? Arabic and traditional lifestyles of the rural north, centre and south of Jordan
Distretti—Visiting Fellow—£7920—Desert roads. Investigating coloniality from Libya to Palestine
Elliott—Visiting Fellow—£13,840—Signatures of human and animal occupation: an ethnographic reference collection using a combined multi-method approach
Hartnett—Scholar—£7920—Growing power: agricultural policy and authoritarian power-sharing in Jordan
Jacobsson—Scholar—£13,840—Early Neolithic chronological relationships of Cyprus and south-west Asia: legacy dates and research design
Mustafa—Scholar—£13,840—Inter-textual nation: a novel paradigm of Palestinian community?
Whiting—Visiting Fellow—£7920—Adaptation and abandonment: contrasting patterns of pilgrimage conversion between the Nabataean and Islamic periods
Wright—Visiting Fellow—£13,840—Conflicted subjects: an ethnography of Jewish Israeli left-wing activism in Israel/Palestine
Arsan—Travel Grant—£343—A history of Lebanon
Humphreys—£800—Ecclesiastical control of water systems in Late Antique Palestine
Hussein—Travel Grant—£800—Hydro-politics and the role of the water scarcity discourse in shaping national water strategies and transboundary water governance (TWG) in arid and semi-arid regions: the case of Jordan
Jeffwitz—Travel Grant—£488—The regulation and protection, by the Israeli government and multinational enterprises, of Palestinian workers’ rights in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory
Leopard—Travel Grant—£800—History and narrative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Maxton—Travel Grant—£800—Sulayman al-Ghazzi: Christian monasticism under the Fatimid Caliphate
Mehta—Travel Grant—£800—Negotiating space on the ‘Right’: ‘everyday’ politics of Zionist settler women in Israel-Palestine
Traxier—Travel Grant—£800—Digital literacy for Palestinians
Trevis—Travel Grant—£800—Resistance through theatre Funding for fellowships, scholarships, travel grants, team-based awards and pilot studies for 2016–17 were awarded as below. Two new fixed-term post-doctoral posts were created, one in Amman and one in Jerusalem; these represent a significant use of research funds.
Fregonese—£5424—How a sectarian territory was made: (re) mapping the Dual Qaimaqamiyya of Mount Lebanon (1842–1860)
Bradbury—£7000—A threatened coast: archaeology, heritage and development along the northern coast of Lebanon
Plonski—£4070—Resistance in borderlands: the ambiguities of decolonization in Israel/Palestine
Jones—£4800—Early and Mid-Holocene environments and settlement in eastern Jordan
McQuitty—£1350—Khirbat Faris: continuity and change in southern Jordan
Sinibaldi—Visiting Fellow—£13,840—The Late Petra project: ceramics and settlement in the Petra region during the Islamic period
Varghese—Visiting Fellow—£13,840—Theatre’s counterpublics: Palestinian theatre in the West Bank after the Oslo Accords
Williams—Visiting Fellow—£7920—East Roman client management during the reign of Justinian I: a comparison of strategies on the eastern and African frontiers (Fellowship not taken up)
Souter—Travel Grant—£800—Not set in stone: understanding community in prehistoric Cyprus through ground stone tool biographies
Chevee—Travel Grant—£800—Representing the subaltern: engaged women intellectuals of the Syrian revolution, 2011–2016
Banko—Travel Grant—£800—Conduits of subjecthood, nationality and ciizenship: movement, migration and the subversion of borders in Palestine, 1869–1945
Sim—Travel Grant—£800—The effects of war trauma and adversity on parenting practices among Syrian refugees in Lebanon: a qualitative study
Irfan—Travel Grant—£800—‘An International Palestine’: UNRWA and Palestinian nationalism in the refugee camps, 1967–82
Wermenbohl—Travel Grant—£800—A past that does not pass? The Nakba and the Holocaust: transmission of exclusive victimhood narratives
Eggert—Travel Grant—£800—Female combatants, non-state violent groups and organizational decision-making
Tour of the Neolithic archaeological site of Beidha as part of the closing event of the ‘Deep Past as a Social Asset in the Levant (DEEPSAL)’ project, Saturday 19 November, 2016.
Bill Finlayson
From The British Institute in Amman (BIA)
This report covers the period from summer 2015, where the last report left off, to the latest news from the beginning of 2018. This has been a very productive period for the British Institute in Amman (BIA). We continued to host a wide range of outreach events and activities, as well as welcome many researchers—both old colleagues and new. It has also been a period of great change, particularly in terms of staffing, with new staff and new staffing structures; sadly, the retirement or advancement of some staff to new roles in other organizations; and, happily, the return of BIA associates to play new roles. This report summarizes the main changes, some of the range of our visiting researchers, events organized and supported, and projects using BIA support and facilities, as well as the activities of the BIA Director and new Assistant Director.
People
The most significant change in terms of staffing re- structuring has been the re-introduction of the post of Assistant Director. In October 2016, the BIA welcomed Philip Proudfoot, a then recent PhD graduate in Anthropology from the London School of Economics. Philip is a political anthropologist whose work has examined activism, forced migration, populism, revolutionary art and working class aesthetics, and rural-to-urban populations in the Levant. The aim of the re-introduction of the position of Assistant Director, as well as supporting the work of the British Institute in Amman, was to provide an opportunity for early career scholars to spend time in the region—in Jordan specifically—to make contacts and to take that experience and knowledge back into an academic post in the UK. Philip was so successful that he accepted a position as the ‘Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Global Challenges’ at Northumbria University in February 2018, some months before the end of his original two-year appointment. Aside from his research, while at the British Institute Philip assisted with multiple issues around new technology and communication, pioneering our live streaming of lectures in 2017, and launching a new e-magazine.
Prior to Philip’s appointment, Adam Ferron, BIA Scholar in Residence, continued to have a very active role in running institute activities until September 2016, when, after two years at the BIA, he left to take up a prestigious, 2 + 3 MSc Arabic language plus PhD scholarship, at the University of Edinburgh. Adam was also very instrumental in improving our social media presence, especially growing our number of followers on Facebook and Twitter. His particular research interests focus on social media and affect theory.
We have been fortunate to have a range of residential fellows funded through CBRL’s awards. In 2015/16, our fellows were: CBRL Senior Fellow, Dr Alex Bellem (University of Durham, a linguist); Dr Sarah Elliott (University of Reading PhD, environmental archaeologist), Dr Piotr Jacobsson (University of Glasgow PhD, radiocarbon dating) and Dr Nora Parr (SOAS PhD, contemporary Arabic literature), the latter two of whom split their residency between the Kenyon institute and the BIA; and CBRL Scholar, Allison Hartnett (DPhil candidate University of Oxford, political scientist). In 2016/17, Dr Micaela Sinibaldi (University of Cardiff PhD, medieval archaeologist), familiar to both the BIA and the Kenyon Institute won a fellowship. Finally, in 2017/18, Dr Sarah Elliott won a second fellowship. In addition, CBRL Fellow Dr Oroub El Abed (SOAS PhD, political economy) completed her research as a British Academy-sponsored Post-doctoral Fellow on the Deep Past as a Social Asset in the Levant (DEEPSAL) project based at the BIA in 2015–2016. DEEPSAL examined the rural communities of Beidha and Basta and their relationship with their Neolithic heritage.
People at the British Institute Amman. Fieldtrip to Iraq al-Amir, Jordan. March 2016 Left to right: Dr Piotr (Pete) Jacobsson (CBRL Fellow), Allison Hartnett (CBRL Scholar), Dr Ceren Kabukc (University of Liverpool) and Alex Bellem (CBRL Senior Scholar)
At the BIA, through our partnership with the Qasid Arabic Language Institute, we are also able to offer semester scholarships to study Arabic. In 2016, we welcomed Olivia Mason (PhD candidate at Durham University, human geography) and Lauren Hales (MPhil graduate from Oxford). In 2017, Ann-Christin Wagner (PhD candidate, anthropology) and Fred Wojnarowski (PhD candidate at Cambridge University, anthropology) secured the scholarships. Olivia is now completing her PhD on the intersections between tourism, culture and politics in the Middle East; Ann-Christin, likewise on displacement and Syrian refugees in Mafraq; with Fred undertaking fieldwork in Madaba on historical narratives around the end of nomadism. Lauren has continued in Amman, doing amazing work with refugee communities teaching and promoting the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira.
We were lucky to have excellent volunteers supporting us in 2015/16. Christine Elias, a professional archaeological registrar, spent the second half of 2015 working through our archives and basement producing a comprehensive update on our collections, as well as labelling artwork and collections on display for the appreciation of all residents and users. Julio Moreno Cirujano made many valuable contributions to the life of the BIA, including co-ordinating two seminar series on Critical Humanities. He is now undertaking a PhD at SOAS. Maïra Kaye, a recent graduate in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, volunteered her considerable artistic, communicative and writing skills and was a great support in the period between Adam Ferron’s departure and Philip Proudfoot’s arrival. Finally, Nishad Sangzagiri, then a student from the University of Edinburgh, volunteered his considerable IT skills for a short period in spring 2016.
The BIA could not run without the hard work and experience of our local staff. In April 2016, Nadja Qaisi left the BIA after 20 years of dedicated service. The BIA and regular BIA users are extremely grateful to her for the support and facilitation she provided over the years, and she was presented with a well-deserved long-service award at her leaving event. In September 2017, BIA’s characterful caretaker and driver (as well rightly famed lentil soup maker), Mohammed Fseiseh retired after approximately 40 years’ service. He had been originally recruited by our founder-director, Crystal-M. Bennett in the 1970s, and his departure truly represents the ‘end of an era’. Issa Madi, who since the 1980s provided support with vehicle maintenance and logistics, retired in October 2017. We wish them both well in their retirements. Most recently, Esmeralda Ugerio, our full-time housekeeper since April 2012 and helping out at the BIA since 2011, happily returned to her family in the Philippines. She looked after staff and all our many guests so well and is much missed. Our Wadi Faynan part-time guard, and former manager of the solar powered energy system at the former CBRL Faynan field research station, Jouma Ali Zanoon, continues as the now longest-serving member of the BIA team. Rudaina Al Momani continues in her role as our hard-working, extremely organized and resourceful librarian. She had a break from library duties in January 2016 for the birth of her son, Zaid. Her maternity leave was capably covered by Ayat Al Momani, who had originally worked in the library as a volunteer in 2015.
With departures come new arrivals and, in June 2016, Rana Al Zoubi joined the BIA team as part-time accountant, followed in August by Nancy Abaza as our new Administrator. Rana brings experience from a range of accounting positions and has been closely working with the new staff the CBRL London Office to introduce a new cloud-based accounting system in 2017. Nancy worked very capability with CBRL for one year, being at the heart of all our events and new initiatives, and was promoted quickly to the role of Executive Officer, before receiving an unexpected offer from the US Embassy in Amman to be their alumni co-ordinator. Her replacement saw the return of Mr Firas Bqa’in, BIA Events Administrator 2012–14, to the role of Executive Administrator in October 2017. His experience in organizing events and knowledge of Jordan is proving crucial to re-orienting the BIA in a changing context, both in the UK and in Jordan. At the same time, Osama Dasouqi, familiar to many as the BIA’s trusted taxi service provider, took on the role of caretaker and driver. We have recently recruited a new housekeeper, Sameera Jbour, whose cooking, as well as thorough attention to housekeeping duties, is already making her very popular. So, with the new BIA team, we look forward to what 2018 and beyond will hold for us in a good position.
Events and Activities
We organized and participated in many special events during the second half of 2015, 2016 and 2017, in addition to regular lectures and seminar series. In total we held 11 public lectures in 2015, ten in 2016, and nine in 2017. Many lectures were organized in the context of our very successful joint series of lectures with the Institute Français du Proche Orient (IFPO) on ‘Perspectives on the Modern and Contemporary Arab World’. Lectures in this series were wide-ranging with British, French and Jordanian scholars presenting their work. CBRL fellows, staff and resident guests were all involved. We also ran a short series of three lectures on ‘Science and Archaeology’ in late summer and early autumn 2016, beginning with a lecture on Bioarchaeology by Prof Christopher Knüsel (University of Bordeaux, former CBRL Senior Visiting Fellow in 2013). CBRL Fellows Sarah Elliott and Piotr Jacobsson, presented lectures on scientific ethnoarchaeology and radiocarbon the Neolithic of the Levant, respectively. Dr Micaela Sinibaldi gave a lecture on her work at Beidha in the Petra region, on the occasion of a book launch for Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant: The Archaeology and History of the Latin East, a festschrift for Professor Denys Pringle, at the Jordan Museum, our first joint event with the new Museum, in April 2017. This followed on from Micaela’s successful book launches for the same volume in the UK and in Jerusalem at the Kenyon Institute. Almost all of our lectures are available as podcasts on CBRL Sound on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cbrl_sound.
We ran three seminar series in 2015/16. The first two were on ‘Critical Humanities’—the original series extended by popular demand—and co-ordinated by Julio Moreno Cirujano (BIA intern) with contributions from Nora Parr (CBRL Fellow) and Ann-Christin Wagner (Edinburgh). Olivia Mason (Durham) ran a very successful series of informal meetings for junior researchers based in Amman during summer 2016 when she was a BI-Qasid Scholar. Oroub Al Abed’s rural Jordan discussion group ended in late 2015, but the rural theme was continued in autumn 2016 with Allison Hartnett (CBRL Scholar) convening a short successful seminar series with Carol Palmer on ‘Rural Spaces in the Middle East’.
The ‘Palestine Refugees and International Law’ short course organized by the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, hosted at the BIA, has continued to run annually, as it has been since March 2012, with Profs Dawn Chatty and Susan Akram as course leaders. Each year we welcome a very diverse group of humanitarian aid practitioners, PhD students and young academics as well as, in 2017, some members of staff working in Jordanian ministries.
With regard to our special events, we were privileged in November 2015 to host and co-organize with the British Academy (BA), two linked follow-on events resulting from the workshop on ‘Reinforcing Academic Independence and Excellence in the MENA Region’ held at the Institute in October 2014. We were pleased to welcome back and collaborate with Dr Desislava Stoitchkova, then BA International Senior Policy Advisor, in co-ordinating these two follow-on events. The first event was a seminar on 25 November 2015, which brought together department heads, thinkers and teachers from the UK and MENA region to share comments, experience and insights into the state of research methods, teaching and practice. Key recommendations included the need for: ways to foster, support and encourage good researchers and teachers through networking; training in methodological tools; and the need for critical texts to be available in Arabic.
The recommendation for training in methodological tools was immediately put into action in the following two days, 26–27 November 2015, with a workshop that brought together early career researchers from the MENA region with UK and MENA professors, many of the latter of whom had also participated in the previous day’s seminar. The early career researchers had competed for places on the course, and there were representatives from almost every MENA country where travel is possible, with particularly strong representation from Egypt, Palestine and Morocco. The course included modules on Scientific Method in Social Science (Prof Abdelmajid Bouziane, Université Hassan II de Casablanca); the Research Process, Theories in Scientific Research and Research Design, as well as Subjectivity in Research (Dr Sara Ababneh, University of Jordan); Research Ethics (Prof Charles Tripp, SOAS), Qualitative Research (Dr Carol Palmer, CBRL, and Dr Hassan Ayoub, An-Najah University, Nablus); Quantitative Research in Social Science (Prof John MacInnes, University of Edinburgh); and Social Media Research (Dr Farida Vis, University of Sheffield). The training models were interspersed with panel and practical sessions. The course was enjoyed by all, students and instructors, but the students commented that they would have welcomed the opportunity to be joined by UK early career researchers, so that they might have exchanged experiences and insights with them too.
On a local community level in Jordan, Dr Oroub El Abed with the BIA team organized four community events in Jordan during the course of the DEEPSAL project: the ‘Story of Basta’ on 8 August 2015; a field-trip and ‘Story of Beidha’ event 8–9 October 2015; a stake-holder workshop for both the communities of Basta and Beidha at the BIA on 19 October 2015; and, finally, a project closing event on 19 November 2016 in Beidha. In April 2016, the DEEPSAL project was represented at the CBRL showcase conference held at SOAS in London. Dr Paul Burtenshaw gave a presentation on cultural heritage as a sustainable development asset and Dr Oroub on the results of her research in the communities of Beidha and Basta.
Carol Palmer served on the Scientific Committee for the 13th International Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan (ICHAJ) held at the Princess Sumaya University of Technology (PSUT). This series of conferences, begun in Oxford in 1980, runs approximately every three years, but it has been some years since it was organized in Jordan. It is always rewarding to see all our colleagues who conduct archaeological research in Jordan, hear about their latest research news, and to consider future disciplinary challenges.
The BIA’s collaboration with IFPO included a lecture and workshop on ‘World War I in the Middle East: Sources and Narratives’, 17–18 May 2017. The Middle East was one of the main theatres of what has become known as the ‘Great War’, and its centenary provided an opportunity for review and analysis. The aim of the event was to gather historians of the Middle East, and especially Jordan and Palestine, who contribute to a renewal of its historiography by using new kinds of sources and narratives, and by widening the traditional chronology within which WWI is often considered. The organizing team was Dr Falestin Naili and Dr Norig Neveu (IFPO), Carol Palmer representing CBRL, and Dr Elena Corbett, then representing the CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange).
Professor Eugene Rogan (University of Oxford) kindly accepted the invitation to be this event’s keynote speaker, commentator and a session chair. He delivered his early evening opening lecture on ‘Between Ottomanism and Arabism: Jordan in the First World War’ at the British Council in front of an invited audience. Presentations at the academic workshop held the next day were given by: Prof Ali Mahafza (University of Jordan) on the political, economic, social, and cultural impacts of WWI on Palestine and Transjordan; Prof Selim Deringil (Lebanese American University) on the ‘Days of the Turks’ as seen by the Turks; Dr Issam Nassar (Illinois State University) on local accounts of Jerusalem during its last days as an Ottoman City; Dr Norig Neveu (IFPO) on Ma’an during WWI; Prof Fawzi Abudanah (King Hussein bin Talal University) and Dr John Winterburn (GARP) on the archaeology of the Great Arab Revolt; and Dr Falestin Naili (IFPO) on the Ottoman Municipality of Jerusalem. Much of the afternoon was dedicated to highly engaged discussions on social history and private archives with invited distinguished local historians and collectors from the Amman community.
In November 2017, the BIA organized on behalf of CBRL-sponsored special session at the 8th World Science Forum (WSF), held under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein, with the Chair of the WSF organizing committee, HRH Sumaya bint El Hassan, President of the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, and long- time supporter of the BIA and its initiatives. The theme of the WSF was ‘Science for Peace’: HRH was named UNESCO Ambassador for Science for Peace in June 2017 by Irina Bokova, then Director-General of UNESCO.
CBRL’s session was on ‘Science and Archaeology’, with three invited speakers from UK universities: Prof Amy Bogaard (University of Oxford, archaeologist and archaeobotanist), Prof Dominik Fleitmann (University of Reading, global and regional climate change expert), and Dr Ophélie Lebrasseur (University of Oxford, zooarchaeologist and geneticist, a member of the Palaeogenomics and Bioarchaeological Research Network led by Professor Greger Larson). In addition to perspectives on developments in their individual specialisms, all the speakers considered what the past can contribute to the present, reflected on what archaeological science can contribute to current debates and practice on climate change and environmental stewardship, human origins and ingenuity through time, and considered human-animal and human-plant relations in the past with an eye to the present. A video of CBRL’s session, and more details about the WSF is available on the conference website: https://worldscienceforum.org/
We were privileged that both our special events in 2017 were attended by CBRL’s new Chairman, James Watt CVO, former Ambassador to Jordan (2006–11). James is extremely well known and liked in Jordan with a wide array of contacts. Prof Rogan’s keynote lecture in May provided a great opportunity for both James and the BIA staff to engage with senior members of the broader Amman community, including embassy and government officials, as well as old friends. James’s presence at WSF in November 2017 was an opportunity to meet with the international science community and Jordanian academics based both in Jordan and abroad at this time. Moreover, it was an important opportunity to review and emphasis what science, and in the broader sense, academic research can do to ‘engage with dialogues surrounding social and economic relevance, influence and responsibilities’.
Research
Management and research are intertwined in the roles of the Director and Assistant Director and it is false to separate them absolutely. In organizing events and managing a research centre, every day is a rich, often challenging, experience that lends insights into the many dimensions that define the Levant. Committee advisory contributions are also hugely enlightening and one of the most rewarding in 2016/17 has been involvement in the Petra Integrated Management Plan organized by UNESCO and the Department of Antiquities, with Dr Aylin Orbasli (Oxford Brookes University and also guest speaker during CBRL’s involvement in the ‘Secrets of Tafilah’ conference in 2014), and in which both Carol Palmer and Oroub el-Abed have been involved.
Dr Oroub El Abed (BA-Funded Post-doctoral Fellow on the DEEPSAL Project) and Adam Ferron (CBRL Scholar in Residence 2014–16) during a fieldtrip in one of the reconstructed houses at Beidha.
CBRL Fellow Dr Micaela Sinibaldi (2016/17) giving a site tour of her Islamic Bayda Project during the DEEPSAL closing event in Beidha with BIA Librarian, Rudaina Momani, translating.
A workshop held at CBRL’s British Institute with community members from Basta and Beidha. Photos from the Deep Past as a Social Asset in the Levant project (DEEPSAL), 2015–2016, a British Academy sponsored project. The project focussed on the communities living near the Neolithic sites of Beidha and Basta (also see the feature article included in this Bulletin).
Carol Palmer’s research involves the documentation and understanding of rural life and its transformation in the Middle East, and the Levant specifically, with a focus on Jordan and Palestine. Opportunity to reflect on comparative themes and develop ideas with colleagues doing similar research in the MENA region has been provided by her involvement in the ‘Thimar Research Collective’. Thimar’s aim is ‘to share information and analysis, to promote basic research, and to open policy debate on the nexus linking agriculture, environment and labour’ (http://www. athimar.org). Since early 2016, the research collective has benefitted from the award of a Leverhulme International Network Grant, ‘Agrarian Change in the Arab World’, to Prof Martha Mundy (Professor Emerita, LSE), which has employed Dr Karim Eid-Sabbagh as co-ordinator, as well as providing funding for meetings and workshops, and some small research grants. Carol attended meetings in Beirut in September 2016 organized around a conference on ‘The Production of Knowledge for Research: Understanding Rural Well-being in the Arab world,’ and, most recently, in October 2017, when she visited Morocco for the first time to attend a workshop on ‘Agricultural Labour and Rural Landscapes in the Arab World’ held at the École Nationale d’Agriculture de Meknès. Carol has been using this collegial network to develop ideas and publication of research on the agricultural transformation of Safi, southern Jordan; a very rich research project initiated with CBRL staff development funding in 2011/12.
Two of the other projects in which Carol was involved, and that had just begun when the last BIA Director’s report was made, are now well into their publication phase, notably INEA and DEEPSAL. This issue of the CBRL Bulletin contains a full summary of this AHRC-funded INEA project in which CBRL is a partner, and of which Dr Emma Jenkins, University of Bournemouth, is Principal Investigator (PI). Carol continues work on the Turkowski manuscript on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), an English translation and analysis of the ethnographic work of the Polish exile, Lucjan Turkowski, in 1940s Palestine, which is scheduled for completion in 2018.
During his time as Assistant Director, Philip Proudfoot published an article with CITY journal, a quarterly magazine published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, ‘The smell of blood: accumulation by dispossession, resistance and the language of populist uprising in Syria’. Philip also had a book proposal accepted by Stanford University Press on his long-term ethnographic fieldwork, carried out amongst a network of Syrian labourers in Beirut (2011–2016) during the course of his PhD. The book, describes from a bottom-up perspective, the personal and political transformations of men whose voices are frequently silenced in the face of today’s brutal proxy war.
During the summer months of 2017 Philip also conducted a short fieldwork trip to Athens and Beirut, where he examined the grassroots activist response to the presence of LGBT Arabic-speaking refugees in both contexts. The work compares and contrasts the horizontalist Greek squatting movements’ humanitarian action with the NGO-ized Lebanese response. It is currently in preparation for submission.
Now at Northumbria University, Philip is already planning to involve CBRL in several grant applications on environmental justice movements, sustainable agriculture and post-conflict peace building in Syria. He is also continuing his association with CBRL through volunteering on the re-branding and webpage development campaign.
CBRL affiliated and archaeological projects passing through the British Institute in Amman included the 20th and 21st seasons of Prof David Kennedy and Dr Bob Bewley’s ‘Aerial Archaeology of Jordan’ project, flying over Jordan to document the changing state of sites of heritage importance. Professor Claudine Dauphin retired CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) researcher visited to continue her research on the Hajj route and ‘Fallahin and Nomads in the Southern Levant from Byzantium to the Crusades’.
As always, there was a strong early prehistory and eastern badia emphasis, with Dr Louise Martin and her team from University College London visiting as part of their ‘Prehistoric Hunting Strategies in Jordan’ project, as well as Dr Bernd Müller-Neuhoff from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) continuing his explorations around Jawa. Drs Gary Rollefson, Yorke Rowan and Alex Wasse continued their eastern badia prehistory project in 2016. Dr Danielle MacDonald and Dr Lisa Maher, who work together under the umbrella of Epipalaeolithic Foragers in Azraq project, returned, with Danielle and Lisa working at Kharaneh IV. Tobias Richter (University of Copenhagen) continued his fieldwork in 2016 and 2017 with his multi- disciplinary team at Shubayqa.
Finally, we are grateful, as always, to all the organizations that collaborate with us and make our work possible. In particular, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Department of Antiquities, particularly the support of the Director General, HE Dr Munther Jamhawi; the Ministry of Culture; the British Embassy and British Council in Amman; The Royal Scientific Society and support of our patron, HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal, and his daughter, HRH Princess Sumaya bint El-Hassan.
Carol Palmer
From the Kenyon Institute
In 2017, the Kenyon Institute (KI) had a very good year for research activities, publications, and outreach events.
We worked on two major research projects in 2017: the first was the completion of a two-year project (November 2015 until October 2017) with the London School of Economics’ Middle East Centre (MEC) in partnership with Birzeit University. Entitled ‘Promoting Teaching and Research in Political Economy in Palestine’, this project had two main components: the first involved knowledge exchange visits between LSE and Birzeit University, which brought LSE academics to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) to undertake teaching at Birzeit, and to introduce these visitors, through field trips and expert briefings, to the political economy of the OPT. Four teaching trips were undertaken: Dr Jason Hickel, Prof Toby Dodge, Dr Marsha Henry, and Prof John Chalcraft. Dr Hickel, from the LSE’s Anthropology Department, is a specialist on development in the Global South and on the politics of southern Africa. During his visit, which took place in April 2016, he gave lectures on Apartheid South Africa, the politics of development, and research methods. In November 2016, Prof Dodge, who is Director of LSE’s MEC and a Professor in the International Relations Department, visited and gave lectures on the origins of Da’esh (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), US President Barack Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya, and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Dr Henry, who is Deputy Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, and whose research interests focus on gender and security, visited in March 2017. She gave lectures on critical engagements with UN Resolution 1325 (on women, peace and security); the problems of peacekeeping for women, peace and security; intersectionality and militarized masculinities; and conducting fieldwork in the global south. The final visit from Prof Chalcraft from the Government Department, a specialist on the politics of protest in the Middle East and North Africa, took place in June 2017. He lectured on the politics of protest in Egypt and theories of social movements. The second component of the project involved a research project analyzing the political economy of the OPT. The project ended in November 2017, and a variety of articles and book chapters have been written and are currently in various stages of publication from the researchers on the project: Dr Tariq Dana (Birzeit University), Dr Mandy Turner (Kenyon Institute), and Dr Toufic Haddad (Arab Council for Social Sciences).
The second significant project involving KI researchers was the creation of a network of scholars investigating the way in which knowledge is produced in, for, and about settler colonial societies. This was initiated by Elian Weizman (KI Deputy Director 2015–2017, now a lecturer in Middle East Politics at SOAS), and Sharri Plonski (CBRL Pilot Studies holder 2016–2017, and a lecturer in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London), and included researchers from Europe, the Middle East, North America and Australasia. Two successful invitation-only workshops were undertaken in Jerusalem (February 2017) and London (June 2017), and five panels at the European International Studies Association conference in Barcelona (September 2017) expanded the network. The two invitation-only workshops critically assessed the development, rapid expansion and institutionalization of the academic field of ‘Israel Studies’ over the past decade. The papers and discussions highlighted the need to re- occupy the space that constitutes radical discussion of Israel, particularly in order to unveil, reject and deny the normalization of existing power relations, and to make visible the settler colonial relationship. The five panels at the EISA opened up the discussion to the wider field of settler colonial studies in an attempt to bring together different case studies and disciplinary fields for the useful cross-fertilization of ideas. The success and interest shown in this network continues to grow. For 2018, the network has a series of events and publications planned: a one- day workshop at the International Studies Association convention in San Francisco in April 2018 (funded by the ISA), another five-panel track at the European International Studies Association conference in Prague in September 2018, and a special issue of the journal Settler Colonial Studies. While Dr Weizman left the KI in September 2017 to take up a new position as a lecturer in Middle East Studies at SOAS, University of London, many former KI and CBRL scholars continue to be part of this network and participate in its events.
The partnership with the Khalidi Library in the Old City of Jerusalem on their British Council Cultural Protection Fund Award for ‘Preserving Palestinian Heritage’ went into its second year. This project, whose goal is to expand access to the largest private collection of Arabic manuscripts in Jerusalem, as well as research into the history of the library and the Khalidi family and its collection, is scheduled to finish in November 2018. We are delighted to have been able to support this creative and timely endeavor. This partnership opened up new avenues for the KI, particularly in religious and heritage studies.
Publications from KI Staff and Research Fellows
In addition to these two exciting projects, KI researchers have maintained an impressive publications and outreach record—some highlights are presented below.
Mandy Turner (Director of the KI), whose research interests lie in the political economy of intervention and peacebuilding, continued to research, write and present her work in a number of outlets and forums. She wrote two comment pieces for online publications: for a special issue of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) on 50 Years of Occupation (June 2017); and for a ‘war economies roundtable’ for Jadaliyya (August 2017). She undertook new research into the politics of analogies and conflict narratives in the Israel-Palestine conflict which she presented in Montreal in October 2017, and again in April 2018 at the International Studies Association convention in San Francisco; this will be published as an an article in the journal Civil Wars in late 2018/early 2019. She also wrote a chapter on the Israel-Palestinian peace process for the Routledge Handbook on Peace Processes (edited by Roger Mac Ginty and Alp Ozerdem) that will be published in 2019. In 2017, she presented her research in Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Brighton, Jerusalem, and Montreal; in 2018 she is scheduled to present her work in San Francisco, where she will also receive the 2018 Susan S. Northcutt Award from the International Studies Association Women’s Caucaus (WCIS). This award recognizes a person who actively works towards recruiting and advancing women and other minorities in the profession; she was nominated by over 30 researchers with whom she has worked with in her position as Director of the Kenyon Institute.
Elian Weizman (Deputy Director of the KI until September 2017), whose research interests lie at the intersection between hegemony, law and resistance in the Israeli context, continued to work on her book (to be published with IB Tauris) from her PhD research; provisionally entitled Hegemony, Law, Resistance: Struggles against Zionism in the State of Israel. In 2018, we shall also see the publication of her co-edited special issue of the journal Settler Colonial Studies with Sharri Plonski and Yara Hawari entitled ‘Settlers and Citizens: A Critical View of Israeli Society’ with contributions for the network of scholars created in 2017 as outlined above. In 2017, Elian presented her research in London, Edinburgh, Barcelona and East Jerusalem.
Micaela Sinibaldi (CBRL Fellow 2016–2017), who joined us as Acting Deputy Director from November 2017, is a medieval archaeologist specializing in the material culture of the Middle East. She has been working on the book manuscript from her PhD thesis, which she obtained from Cardiff University—Settlement in Crusader Transjordan, 1100–1189. She directs the CBRL-affiliated Islamic Bayda Project in Petra and co-edited the volume Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant: The Archaeology and History of the Latin East (University of Wales Press, 2016). She presented her work in Jerusalem (February) and Denmark (February), and will take up a Research Fellowship with the Albright Institute in Jerusalem in May 2018.
In August, Gabriel Varghese (CBRL Fellow 2016–2017), who is a specialist on Palestinian theatre, joined us after completing his PhD at Exeter University, and left us after the end of his Fellowship. He has continued to publish in the field of theatre studies (including ‘Homer in Palestine’, in Contemporary Approaches to Adaptation in Theatre, edited by Kara Reilly, London: Palgrave Macmillan), and is completing the manuscript of the book from his PhD, provisionally entitled: Theatre’s Counterpublics: Palestinian Theatre in the West Bank after the Oslo Accords (to be published by PalgraveMacmillan).
Polly Withers (CBRL Fellow, 2017–2018), who joined us in September 2017 for one year, is a specialist in Palestinian popular culture, particularly hip-hop music and the dance- scene. She is working on the book manuscript from her PhD, which she received from Exeter University, provisionally entitled: Beyond Resistance: Nationality, Gender, and Leisure in a Palestinian Music Scene (under consideration with Cambridge University Press). She presented her research at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar, in December 2017, and at the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies conference at Kings College London, June 2018.
Events—locally and internationally
KI staff were very active on the international stage in 2017: we put on two panels at the British International Studies Association in Brighton (June)—one on capitalism and class in the Middle East, and the other on the politics of international intervention; we had one panel at BRISMES in Edinburgh on research on Israel-Palestine (July); and seven panels at the European International Studies Association in Barcelona (September)—five on settler colonial studies, and two on the politics of international intervention. We had two panels at BRISMES in July 2018—one on new directions in Palestine studies, and the other on settler colonialism; and former Deputy Director Elian Weizman has another five-panel track at the EISA in Prague on settler colonialism. We are proud that we helped launch this hugely successful network by providing the space, resources and initial support to hold the first workshop and fund Elian’s stewardship of the first EISA panels.
The KI continued to partner with local institutions in terms of lectures, book launches and teaching. These partners included: the Educational Bookshop, Dar al- Tifel al-Arabi, the Khalidi Library, Birzeit University and Al-Quds University. From January to December 2017 we held 13 events, most of which have been podcasted and are available on the KI YouTube site; this included a half- day conference on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration (2 November) which had a keynote by Professor Avi Shlaim (Oxford University) and two panels of local and UK-based historians of the British Mandate period: Rema Hammami (Birzeit University), Steven Wagner (Brunel University), Salim Tamari (Institute for Palestine Studies), Roberto Mazza (University of Limerick), Raja Shehadeh (independent writer), Rana Barakat (Birzeit University), Jacob Norris (Sussex University) and Lauren Banko (Manchester University). This was a joint event with the British Council Palestine and the Educational Bookshop, and was held at the Palestinian National Theatre, East Jerusalem. Attendance was very high, around 400 people, which exceeded all our expectations; some pictures of it accompany this report.
Completion of a major research project and publication
There was one other major highlight for the KI; 2018 will see the publication of a significant piece of research conducted by KI staff and colleagues under the direction of KI Director Mandy Turner. Funded by the British Academy from 2013–2015, this research focused on an analysis of ‘20 years of the Oslo Peace Accord’ and has resulted in an edited book with contributions from all the contracted researchers on the project. With the title From the River to the Sea: Palestine and Israel in the Shadow of Peace, this book has a significantly different focus from other studies. The brief description below explains how and why.
The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (also known as the ‘Oslo Peace Accord’, here referred to as the DOP) and subsequent agreements, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, not only established track-one elite level negotiations overseen by the US, but also put in place a framework that structured the lives of all peoples living between the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River (hence the book’s title). However, this framework impacted differently depending upon which community and what geographical area. The research project analyzed the structural impact and ideational assumptions of this framework in each of the different communities—as well as how they have responded to it.
The book starts by analyzing the Agreements and how they thereafter structured the way in which communities lived their lives. The communities analyzed include: Palestinians in the West Bank; Palestinians in East Jerusalem; Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; Palestinians in Israel; Palestinian refugees in Jordan; and Jewish-Israelis. The development of peoples and societies from that initially widely acclaimed DOP in 1993 until 2018 is traced through the different chapters. They show how the Oslo framework instituted contradictory dual processes of separation and unification that have taken place economically, politically and socially. Each chapter focuses on what Oslo instituted in its wake and how these different sectors and communities have responded. While Palestinian refugees do not live between ‘the river and the sea’ we decided that it was both intellectually and politically misguided to ignore their experience of the DOP, and how they dealt with their practical exclusion from the narrative of two states as it developed over the past two and a half decades, there is, therefore, a chapter on their experiences, too. The methodology used was qualitative: based on in-depth interviews, archives, the drawing together of research conducted across the sectors and deep knowledge of the societies concerned. It involved experts and scholars from the field of economics, oral history, sociology, political economy, international relations, journalism, and law: Diana Buttu (Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and a former spokesperson for the PLO); Raja Khalidi (Research Co-ordinator at the Palestinian Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah, Palestine); Mansour Nasasra (Lecturer in Middle East politics at Ben Gurion University of the Negev; who was previously a Research Fellow employed directly on the project by the CBRL 2013–2015); Toufic Haddad (Arab Council for Social Sciences); Cherine Hussein (Research Fellow with the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Stockholm; who was previously Deputy Director of the Kenyon Institute, 2012–2015); Luigi Achilli (Marie Curie Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute); Dimi Reider (an Associate Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations); Yonatan Mendel (senior lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University, Israel); Jamil Hilal (an independent sociologist affiliated to Birzeit University, Palestine); and Tariq Dana (Assistant Professor at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, Qatar).The book is edited by Mandy Turner, who also has a chapter in it.
While other communities could have been analyzed (for example, the Bedouin, the Druze) and indeed different communities within communities (for example Christians, Muslims, different types of Jews: Mizrahim/Ashkenazim/Haredim), the communities were chosen because they capture the system of ‘stratified citizenship’ that has conferred different legal-political status on peoples, and which has structured their lives and created different political economies. These communities were also selected because they represent the major fissure in Israel and Palestine; because of Israel’s character as a Zionist state: other divisions (while they obviously have impacts) were therefore not regarded to be as important for our project.
There have been many analyses of the DOP (why they failed, and/or whether both parties were serious in their negotiations) and of the framework introduced as a result of them. However, the unique aspect of our research (and our edited book) is that it brought together analyses of both the impact of separation on the different communities, as well as their strategies for coping with them. In the context of an increasingly acrimonious debate regarding the feasibility and desirability of a two-state solution, and an accumulation of evidence that it will either not be implemented, or it will not work in practice, we started from the premise that it is imperative we understand the current situation in order to generate new thinking. The project presented its initial findings at a half-day conference at the London School of Economics in September 2015. Once the book is published, there will be launch events in London and East Jerusalem. We are delighted that the prestigious publishing house, Rowman and Littlefield, is publishing it.
Audience at our half-day conference on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November 2017—‘The British Legacy in Palestine: Balfour and Beyond’. They keynote was given by Professor Avi Shlaim (Oxford University) and there were two panels of local and UKbased historians of the British Mandate period: Rema Hammami (Birzeit University), Steven Wagner (Brunel University), Salim Tamari (Institute for Palestine Studies), Roberto Mazza (University of Limerick), Raja Shehadeh (independent writer), Rana Barakat (Birzeit University), Jacob Norris (Sussex University) and Lauren Banko (Manchester University). This was a joint event between the Kenyon Institute, the British Council Palestine, and the Educational Bookshop, and was held at the Palestinian National Theatre (al-Hakawati), East Jerusalem. Attendance was very high, around 400 people.
Professor Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy, gives his keynote address ‘Britain and Palestine: From Balfour to May’ at our conference: ‘The British Legacy in Palestine: Balfour and Beyond’ on 2 November 2017, at the Palestinian National Theatre (al-Hakawati), East Jerusalem.
The second panel–‘The Historical Legacy of the Balfour Declaration’— at our conference ‘The British Legacy in Palestine: Balfour and Beyond’. Left to right: Raja Shehadeh (independent writer), Jacob Norris (Sussex University) and Lauren Banko (Manchester University), and Rana Barakat (Birzeit University).
The KI’s local and international outreach work, and the publications of its researchers, has significantly raised its profile in the social sciences and humanities. In 2018, we will continue to develop our networks, create the basis for excellent research outputs, and engage with researchers both locally and internationally.
Mandy Turner