Over the Borderline? Rethinking Territoriality at the Margins of Empire and Nation in the Modern Middle East (Part II)

Abstract

AbstractThis is the second of two connected articles examining the evolution of historical scholarship on borderlands within the field of Middle East studies. In both articles, I pay particular attention to how historians have addressed the relationship between borderland identities and modern territorializing empires and nation‐states. I argue throughout both parts that analyzing what I call the “lived experience of territoriality” in borderland regions ought to take precedence over approaches that presume the ultimate imposition of fixed nation‐state boundaries by the mid‐twentieth century. The adoption of borderlands as an analytical category along these lines presents an exciting opportunity for future research in modern Middle Eastern history precisely for its malleability. Historians who take a conceptually nuanced approach to borderlands and relate their work to new scholarship on territoriality will be able to explore a range of ways to understand local as well as state experiences and practices of power and politics; sovereignty and authority; and identity and belonging. In Part I, I focused primarily on laying out a framework for conceptualizing the relationship between borderland identities and the lived experience of modern territoriality. In Part II, I push this framework further by surveying two large themes that have defined the work of Middle East borderland historians over the last two decades – critical cartography and the visual representation of borderland identities and borderlands as sites of contestation and negotiation. In the final section, I sketch out some possibilities for future research, drawing largely on new scholarship from within Middle East studies.