Art, Culture & Society
Reprinted from the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Summer  2002 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards).
Copyright 2002 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America
Hybrid Urbanism: On the Identity Discourse and the Built Environment, edited by Nezar AlSayyad. 258 pages, illustrations, index. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001. $69.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-275-96612-7



The contributors to Hybrid Urbanism set out to revise our understanding of city building and identity formation. They borrow the idea of “hybridity” from post-colonial theory to challenge both essentialist and multicultural explanations of these intertwined processes. In this view, built environments and the social meanings they convey are neither the products of individual cultures nor the various creations of discrete groups. Rather, they are syncretic, the result of the constant interplay of cultures and traditions. The essays in this volume document that process effectively, particularly as it works in the realm of architecture and policymaking. The more methodologically creative among them move beyond these elite spheres to explore the ways ordinary people defined urban spaces.

One finishes this collection persuaded that cities are hybrid creations. This conclusion seems especially true of the modern era, though Thomas Gensheimer’s provocative speculations on Swahili urbanism suggest global interaction shaped cities as early as the thirteenth century. Straightforward accounts of colonial dominance and indigenous resistance give way here to analyses suggesting that even in the inequitable power relationships created by Western imperialism, urban forms grew from combinations of cultures rather than the simple imposition of European ideas. The discussion of British architectural aims in mandate-era Palestine by Ron Fuchs and Gilbert Herbert demonstrates this nicely, as does Ann-Marie Broudehoux’s account of the search for a Chinese architectural identity during the twentieth century. In a different context, Greg Castillo offers a fascinating exploration of efforts by the US and the Soviet Union to infuse Cold War Berlin’s housing with ideological meaning.

Although all the essays document the interaction of cultures clearly, few confront issues of power directly. “Who has the power to be hybrid?” Ananya Roy asks in her perceptive epilogue (p. 238). Most of these essays dodge that question. They portray city building as the self-conscious efforts of a few powerful people seeking to create distinctive and authentic urban visions. Some participants in the process are colonial or Western authorities, others are locals, but almost all are elites operating within a global network of architects and policymakers.

Those essays that move beyond the formal world of planners and designers to explore what Henri Lefebvre calls ‘lived space’—the ways ordinary people shape and define the physical contexts in which they lead their daily lives—provide models for a fuller exploration of hybrid urbanism. Sibel Zandi-Sayek’s sensitive account of public rituals in and around Izmir’s Frank Street explores not only formal spectacles but also the informal interactions of groups that made the street a highly contested, multi-ethnic space. Ayfer Bartu’s review of the battles over preservation and development in the Beyoğlu/Pera district of Istanbul incorporates the voices of barkeepers and shopowners along with those of activists and public officials. Robert Mugerauer makes explicit use of Lefebvre’s approach to suggest that Mexican-Americans in a San Antonio housing project used fencing to create a distinctive space and identity for themselves. By making room for ordinary folks as well as architects, these three essays point us toward especially satisfying ways of comprehending the hybrid character of cities.

James J. Connolly
Ball State University

A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani, by Abdulaziz A. Al-Sudairi. 179 pages, bibliography, index. New York, NY: I. B. Tauris, 2000. $35.00 (Cloth) ISBN 1-86064-581-X

This respectful yet analytically critical biography does full justice to the complexity of Albert Hourani’s intellectual legacy. Al-Sudairi, a student of Fuad Ajami, did extensive research, including interviews, to deliver a thoughtful and comprehensive study not only about the intellectual contribution of a leading historian of the Middle East, but also about Hourani’s contribution to historiography in the West. A Vision of the Middle East captures the spirit and tone not only of the scholar it focuses on, but also of the whole academic trend he largely inspired, in which a gentleness of style dominates, in stark contrast to the virulence and spite of some recent critics of the Middle East and its scholars.

Hourani’s gentle and moderate approach stressed liberalism, continuities, and dialogue between civilizations, although he was perfectly aware of the complexities of the world he lived in, including its tendency to become more and more intolerant and closed to the views or cultures of others. The book carefully documents the many ways in which Hourani understood current problems and correctly saw where they would lead, if left unresolved, including the problem of Palestine, which he cared about deeply, and relations between the West and Arabs, which he predicted as early as 1967 would end in the revolt of Palestinians from within and without unless greater parity was ensured. As early as 1991 he also foresaw that Islam would replace communism as the bête noire of the West. Al-Sudairi rectifies the view held by some (pp. 153-56) that Hourani glossed over the realities around him by showing that he was perfectly aware of them but chose to focus on continuities rather than breaks, on cultural exchanges rather than hatreds, on legacies of tolerance rather than on those of intolerance.

Hourani’s breadth and continual intellectual renewal are also well conveyed in the book, as it follows the evolution of a historian who, at different times in his career, focused on politics, but mainly on intellectual and then social history. His intellectual quest was first inspired by scholars such as Arnold Toynbee and mentors and colleagues such as H. A. R. Gibb, but he continued to renew his interests and to be open to the ideas of other scholars such as Marshall Hodgson and his own students, particularly André Raymond, who inspired his understanding of the role cities played in the history of the Middle East. He emphasized the contribution of indigenous scholars of the Middle East, the Arab and Muslim intellectual roots of nationalism, the politics of Arab notables and of Ottoman court and bureaucracy, the place of minorities in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon, the homeland of his parents, and the eastern Mediterranean for, as Al-Sudairi points out, Hourani saw the Middle East from the perspective of the Mediterranean, at the expense of the desert, particularly Arabia and the Gulf.

This balanced study is solid and well documented, aside from a few gaps in references such as Nancy Gallagher’s interviews with Hourani and Raymond’s writings on him. It captures the essence of Hourani’s intellectual contribution and analyzes his works fairly, in a moderate tone that is fitting for the study of an influential scholar who was in person and in his writings a model of gentleness, moderation, and balance.

Leila Fawaz
Tufts University

Behind Closed Doors: Women’s Oral Narratives in Tunis, by Monia Hejaiej. 369 pages. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. $17.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-8135-2376-1

Behind Closed Doors is a collection of oral narratives recorded from three ’Beldi’ (members of the traditional Tunis elite) women by Hejaiej, a Tunisian scholar who is also from a Beldi family with deep roots in Tunis. Her account is valuable for the special insider’s access she has to a particular cultural urban milieu. Furthermore, Hejaiej explicates some of the artistic and linguistic conventions (for example, diglossia, use of diminutives, and use of formulaic phrases) difficult to convey from Arabic to English. Through a lengthy (ninety-four page) introduction, Hejaiej deftly fills us in on the various contexts necessary to appreciate the subtleties of the stories. She situates the tales and tellers within historical context and in contrast to the storytelling traditions of men. She describes the varied social situations within which tales are told in Tunis and the particular life situations that may affect the tales chosen by each of her informants and Hejaiej’s interpretations of them.

The work is a welcome addition to the, rather few, Middle East folktale collections that provide the contexts necessary for readers to begin to situate themselves vis-à-vis the stories, their tellers, and their audiences. Hejaiej treads carefully. These women and their families are identifiable to anyone who knows her and her milieu and she means to protect their privacy. Still, she is able to tell us enough about each woman’s history and personal circumstances to point to some reasons why each story might have been chosen to share with Hejaiej, as a younger, unmarried Beldi woman herself, one who carries on, as they do, a cosmopolitan tradition dating back to ancient Carthage, today a popular suburb of Tunis.

She underscores in her introduction the differences in life philosophies of her three taletellers—foregrounding the individuality of a social group (Arab, Muslim, urban, upper-class women) often portrayed, even in fairly recent popular accounts of the Arab world, as faceless, silent, and homogeneous. She describes in detail the personal circumstances of the storytellers, revealing for each how stories that have been resources for generations are imbued with particular meanings when shaped to address the very special life conditions of one of these tale tellers. Life’s disappointments, ironies, and joys can be both revealed and concealed with virtuoso storytelling. And, the versatility and talent of the teller evokes empathy, sympathy, and admiration from her listeners, rather than the boredom or censorship that plainer speech might fall victim to. Delicate topics—sexual dilemmas, mistreatment or repression by other family members or spouses, personal regrets—not easily broached (or even taboo) outside the artistic medium can in performance get a thorough and cathartic airing before an enthusiastic audience. The stories then provide a safe venue for reviewing creatively life experiences, and living, through story, alternative endings within the ‘safe’ story world. Hejaiej also differentiates among the artistic styles of her three informants—both within individual tales and as each teller relates her stories one to another.

It is only with these explications that readers can begin to see the liberating power of the tales for both tellers and listeners. Hejaiej observes that men often seem uncomfortable with the tales, and well they might, for the power and potential of the educated, sexual, wealthy, traveled women in these stories packs quite a punch—upsetting standard social norms in the process.

The stories, while all fairy tales and told from the points of view of women, are nevertheless quite different one from the other. Well translated, they evoke a storytelling milieu, whether concerned with royalty or everyday folk, ogres or witches, family or sexual relations, mothers-in-law or brothers and sisters. In total, they are reminiscent of 1001 Nights and will probably speak to Western readers’ imaginations in ways neither imagined nor expected by the tellers.

Sabra Webber
Ohio State University