August 2020 Monthly Digest

Monthly Digest is a resource provided by Security in Context that provides a list of recent publications, calls, conferences and other items relevant to the critical global, security, and international political economy studies audience. In addition to new items, our digest may contain relatively recent entries, so please double check dates on any calls or conferences. All descriptions taken from their original sources unless otherwise indicated. If we’ve missed something, or you have items you’d like to contribute for future digests, please email us at: submissions@securityincontext.org

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Books

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Ecocide : Kill the Corporation Before it Kills UsDavid Whyte, Manchester University Press, 2020
In this book, David Whyte argues that we have reached the point of no return and that the existential threat of climate change is now a reality. Corporations know this; the business models of fossil fuel giants factor in continued profitability in a scenario of a five-degree increase in global temperature. “Ecocide makes clear the problem won't be solved by tinkering around the edges, instead it maps out a plan to end the corporation's death-watch over us. This book will reveal how the corporation has risen to this position of near impunity, but also what we need to do to fix it” - Manchester University Press, 2020 Join the webinar for the book launch on September 7th. here

Egypt's Housing Crisis: The Making of Urban SpaceYahia Shawkta, The American University in Cairo Press
“Egypt’s Housing Crisis takes presidential speeches, parliamentary reports, legislation, and official statistics as the basis with which to investigate the tools that officials have used to ‘solve’ the housing crisis—rent control, social housing, and amnesties for informal self-building—as well as the inescapable reality of these policies’ outcomes. Yahia Shawkat argues that wars, mass displacement, and rural–urban migration played a part in creating the problem early on, but that neoliberal deregulation, crony capitalism and corruption, and neglectful planning have made things steadily worse ever since. In the final analysis he asks, is affordable housing for all really that hard to achieve?” - The American University in Cairo Press

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Inventing Latinos A New Story of American RacismLaura Gómez, The New Press, 2020
“In an effort to reframe the often-confused and misrepresented discourse over the Latinx generation, Gómez provides essential context for today’s most pressing political and public debates—representation, voice, interpretation, and power—giving all of us a brilliant framework to engage cultural controversies, elections, current events, and more.” - The New Press, 2020

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Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of FireNeve Gordon and Nicola Perugini, University of California Press, 2020
“Describing the use of human shields in key historical and contemporary moments across the globe, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini demonstrate how the increasing weaponization of human beings has made the position of civilians trapped in theaters of violence more precarious and their lives more expendable. They show how the law facilitates the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people while portraying it as humane, but they also reveal how people can and do use their own vulnerability to resist violence and denounce forms of dehumanization. Ultimately, Human Shields unsettles our common ethical assumptions about violence and the law and urges us to imagine entirely new forms of humane politics.” - University of California Press

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An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Force Made a NationHaim Bresheeth-Zabner, Verso Books, 2020
In this book, Bresheeth-Zabner “charts the evolution of the IDF from the Nakba to wars in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and the continued assaults upon Gaza, and shows that the state of Israel has been formed out of its wars… He argues that the army is embedded in all aspects of daily life and identity and that we should not merely see it as a fighting force enjoying an international reputation, but as the central ideological, political and financial institution of Israeli society. As a consequence, we have to reconsider our assumptions on what any kind of peace might look like.” - Verso
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Articles

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Knowing Through Needlework: curating the difficult knowledge of conflict textilesChristine Andrä, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Lydia Cole & Danielle House (2020)
Drawing on experience of commissioning and co-curating an exhibition of international conflict textiles – appliquéd wall-hangings (arpilleras), quilts, embroidered handkerchiefs, banners, ribbons, and mixed-media art addressing topics such as forced disappearances, military dictatorship, and drone warfare – this article introduces these textiles as bearers of knowledge for the study of war and militarized violence, and curating as a methodology to care for the unsettling, difficult knowledge they carry.

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Departing ‘Secularism’: boundary appropriation and extension of the Syrian state in the religious domain since 2011Rahaf Aldoughli, 2020
Despite the official secularity of the Syrian state, religion has always been a viable instrument used by the Baˈathist regime to consolidate its authority and legitimacy. Taking different historical trajectories ranging from confrontation to co-optation, the boundaries between state and religion have shifted to conflation in the post-2011 uprising. The official political rhetoric has become explicitly religious and anti-secular, ending an era of official secularity since the 1970s. This newly employed religious rhetoric is evident of how the deployment of religion has become a source of security, legitimacy and survival for the Baˈathist regime since 2011.

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The war and the economy: the gradual destruction of LibyaMatteo Capasso, 2020
This article challenges dominant analyses of Libya’s conflict that see its continuation as a result of enduring local dynamics. Matteo Capassao traces the “unmaking of Libya” from the revolutionary era of the 1970s to today where war, sustained by permanent military intervention, has become a mode of imperial governance. Approaching this history with a materialist understanding of the state and class relations, Capasso moves from conceptualisations of Libya’s so called “war economy” to “war and the economy”, which more accurately delineates the ways in which war as a mode of imperial governance brings postcolonial spaces into circuits of capital.

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Evolving Trends in the Post-Arab Spring Era: Implications for Peace and Stability in the MENA RegionIbrahim Fraihat and Taha Yaseen, 2020
In this article, Ibrahim Fraihat and Taha Yaseen summarize the trends of counter revolutions, violence and conflict, emerging alliances, external interventions, sectarian politics, ineffective governance, terrorism, and migration that have prevailed since the 2011 revolutions. In doing so, they make the case for viewing the emergence of these trends, not as a failure of the moment, but as a process that will sew the seeds for future revolutions. Altering these trends and patterns to avoid repeating these drivers of instability is essential for revolutions to come.

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Race, Activism and Space in Latin-American Theory and PracticeInstitute of Latin American Studies, 2020
The Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) held an online symposium exploring the connections between space, activism and race in Latin America. The symposium brought together both activists and scholars interested in rethinking processes of racialization and spatial organization. Topics included: Contesting Racial Violence, Carving Out Spaces of Activism, Land, Race and Development, Rural and Urban Geographies

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Racing National Security SymposiumJust Security, 2020
This symposium of 12 articles aims to render race visible in national security to shift the dominant paradigm toward addressing issues of racial justice.

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How The British Media Reports TerrorismThe Muslim Council of Britain, 2020
The Center for Media Monitoring analyzed over 230,000 articles published in 31 national online media outlets to show the inconsistencies in the coverage of terrorist attacks, depending on the background of the perpetrator. The report finds a significant disparity in the association of “terror” between so-called Muslim and non-Muslim perpetrators: over half of the terms “terrorist”, “terrorism” or “terror” were used with the terms “Islam” or “Muslim” – almost nine times more than when the perpetrator was identified with the terms “far-right”, “neo-Nazi” or “white supremacist”.

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Updates on Women, Peace, and SecurityThe Global Campaign for Peace Education, 2020
“Updates on Women, Peace, and Security” is a short series of articles published in July 2020 by the Global Campaign for Peace Education in observation of some of the strides over the UN’s 75 years towards the realization of “the equal rights of men and women and nations large and small,” an aim, especially embraced by women and what has been referred to as “the Global South,” as basic to a just peace.

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NACLA Report on the AmericasNorth American Congress on Latin America, 2020
NACLA Fall 2020 Issue covering CoronaVirus issues in the Americas.

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The Syria Report: Housing, Land and Property (HLP) resourceThe Syria Report, 2020
The Syria Report launches a new open-access resource on content covering issues of housing, land and property (HLP) violations.

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Mid-Year Update: 10 Conflict to Worry About in 2020ACLED, 2020
This report finds that the world is significantly more violent now than a decade ago and that today’s conflicts are highly localized and fragmented according to localized contexts. Governments are also increasingly using violence against their citizens without international reproach. Increasing violence and instability is occurring in enduring conflicts such as in Afghanistan and in new more recent spaces such as the US.
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Conferences/Calls for Papers or Abstracts

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Call for proposals: Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Well-being, Fragility and Conflict (Arabic)Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), 2021-2023

Call for Papers: Latin America in Times of the Global PandemicIdentities and Cultures Research Group
Deadline: October 25, 2020

Call for Papers: 10 Years On: The People and the ProtestsSEPAD
As we approach the 10th anniversary of Bouazizi’s death, this SEPAD online
conference reflects on the legacy of Bouazizi’s act and the ensuing struggles that
followed. This initiative seeks to reflect on the ways in which the uprisings have affected
people and political projects across the Middle East and North Africa.

Call for Applications: MECAM-Fellowships for the IFG "Aesthetics & Cultural Practice”The Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb
Deadline: September 30, 2020
MECAM invites applications for its first Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG) "Aesthetics & Cultural Practice". MECAM invites researchers at all career stages with a disciplinary background from the fields of literature, theatre and media studies as well as cultural studies to apply for five short-term fellowships for the period from April to July 2021

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Lectures and Webinars

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Transnational Rights and Security in an Era of Populism Lecture SeriesJoin the Center for Security, Race and Rights (Rutgers) for their Fall virtual lecture series: Transnational Rights and Security in an Era of Populism.
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Dr. Khyati Joshi, Fairleigh Dickinson University
White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America

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Professor Amy Austin Holmes
Coups and Revolutions: Mass Mobilization, the Egyptian Military, and the U.S. From Mubarak to Sisi
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Azadeh Shahshahani
From Sanctions to the Muslim Ban: The Impact of U.S. Policies Affecting Iran and Iranian-Americans
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Abukar Arman
How Counterterrorism Drives U.S. Foreign Policy in Somalia as Part of our Transnational Rights

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Virtual Book Talk with Rashid Khalidi: The Hundred Years’ War on PalestineThe Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center

Jairus Grove: "Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World"Jairus Grove delivers his talk on "Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World" at the Center for 21st Century Studies (UW-Milwaukee)

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Scholarships/Fellowships

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Call for Applications: Princeton University, Fung Global Fellows Program   Deadline: November 16, 2020
Applications for one-year resident scholars at Princeton University are open. Candidates will be considered in two categories:  (1)  Postdoctoral research associates who received their doctorate from an institution outside of the United States and who, at the time of application, do not hold a tenure-track faculty appointment. (2) Early-career scholars employed outside the United States who have a faculty appointment, a professional research appointment, or are an established independent scholar in the designated theme of the program.  

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The British Academy Postdoctoral FellowshipsDeadline: October 14, 2020
The British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships is a three year award made to an annual cohort of outstanding early career researchers in the humanities or social sciences.

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Chevening ScholarshipsApplications open September 3, 2020
Deadline: November 3, 2020
Chevening Scholarships offer fully funded scholarships to enable outstanding emerging leaders from all over the world to pursue one-year master’s degrees in the UK.
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Job Openings

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Cornell University, Government DepartmentDeadline: October 1, 2020
The Department of Government invites applications from scholars with international, global, or transnational interests for a tenure-track position in international relations at the rank of assistant professor in the fall semester 2021. A PhD is required no later than July 1, 2021

Senior Lecturer in War StudiesDeadline: September 4, 2020
The Swedish Defence University (SEDU) invited applications for a full time senior lecturer based at the Strategy section (StratA), Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership (ISSL) in Stockholm.

Podcasts

5 Questions - Anything but Normal: The UAE-Israel Deal
Podcast host Yousef Munayyer and guest Dana El-Kurd unpack the UAE-Israel deal and discuss the prospect of Arab states normalizing relations with Tel Av

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Politics, Theory, Other - The IDF: An Army Like No Other
Haim Bresheeth-Zabner joins the podcast to talk about his new book, 'An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Force Made a Nation'. They discussed how the the Zionist project in Palestine depended upon the erasure of the culture of the Pre-WWII Jewish diaspora, why it is that Israeli military operations command near unanimous support within Israel, and how Israel's economy has become massively dependent on its military industrial complex and permanent conflict.

A World To Win - “Neoliberal Authoritarianism”: An Interview with Guillaume LongIn this episode Guillaume Long, former foreign minister of Ecuador under Rafael Correa, discusses the rise of Latin America's new right-wing.

Behind the NewsAugust 27, 2020

Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and Trade, on the role of shipping in the development of capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula • Kayla Popuchet on what’s been going on in Belarus

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