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Nahoststudien (Naïli)

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Futures Interrupted: Social pluralism and political projects beyond coloniality and the nation-state

Research Project  | 3 Project Members

SNSF Consolidator Grant


This projects aims to renew our perspective on the period between the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the age of nations in the Arab world by paying particular attention to local actors. The focus on unrealized social and political projects promoted by local actors allows us a look at the Arab world beyond the colonial framework and beyond the prevailing nation-state model. It also offers a view of alternative articulations of belonging and political community.

This project concerns futures that were conceived or imagined by the people of the Arab world, but which were not implemented or not fully realized due to the course of historical events between the end of the age of empires and the beginning of the age of nations. Using case-studies stretching from North Africa to South West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, the project will be particularly attentive to the way in which these unimplemented or unfinished projects dealt with the social pluralism that characterized the region at that time and that, in many parts of the area, was upset by the colonial division into separate states that occurred mostly after the First World War.

Indeed, there have been and still are numerous contestations concerning the application of the nation-state model in the region. The passage from the multi-cultural and multi-confessional Ottoman imperial framework to that of separated nation-states was fraught with conflict and violence, but as all interstitial moments, it was also rife with new ideas, concepts and definitions. Below these new ideas laid practices of daily life, and in particular the “lives in common” that Muslims, Christians, Jews and others shared in the regions’ cities and villages. This project intends to provide the link between daily life, popular sociability and political projects that emerged during that period. Local idioms of community and grammars of inclusion will form an important part of the research focus as well as non-territorialized forms of political belonging.

This project will follow a bottom-up approach, proceeding from daily life and practice and moving up to social and political movements. It will be source-driven, not theory-driven, while engaging critically with existing social and political theory. Its objective is to enrich the pool of concepts at the disposal of political science and sociology through a grounded historical analysis of social and political imaginaries in the Arab world.


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NOMAD – Naher Osten, Mesopotamien, Ägypten im Diskurs

Research Networks of the University of Basel  | 22 Project Members

Das universitäre Forschungsnetzwerk «NOMAD – Naher Osten, Mesopotamien, Ägypten im Diskurs» vernetzt Forschungen zum östlichen Mittelmeerraum, Mesopotamien und Ägypten an der Universität Basel und fördert den Austausch mit der Öffentlichkeit. Im westasiatischen Raum (ca. 10. Jt.v.u.Z. bis 7.Jh.u.Z.) entstanden sesshafte Lebensweisen, Ackerbau, Viehzucht, urbanes Leben, Schriftsysteme, Industrien und Wissenschaften sowie die religiösen Traditionen von Judentum, Christentum und Islam. Ohne Berücksichtigung der Geschichte Westasiens lassen sich relevante Prozesse der Weltgeschichte nicht verstehen. Themen aus dem Bereich des Nahen Osten sind seit Jahrzehnten in Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft relevant, national und international omnipräsent und werden es weiterhin bleiben.

In der Region Basel setzen sich zahlreiche Forschende und Institutionen mit Kulturen, Zeiten, Regionen, Religionen und Sprachen des Nahen Ostens, Mesopotamiens und Ägyptens auseinander. NOMAD hat zum Ziel, diese Kompetenzen und Angebote zu bündeln. NOMAD fördert den für Wissenschaft wie Öffentlichkeit wichtigen Austausch über kulturhistorische, aktuelle und fachübergreifende Themen zwischen (Nachwuchs-)Forschenden, Studierenden und der breiteren Öffentlichkeit.

Am Forschungsnetzwerk beteiligt sind Forschende der Theologischen Fakultät, des Departements Altertumswissenschaften, der Nahoststudien, des Zentrums für Jüdische Studien und der Integrativen Prähistorischen und Naturwissenschaftlichen Archäologie (IPNA) der Universität Basel sowie das Antikenmuseum Basel.


The university research network «NOMAD – Near East, Mesopotamia, Egypt in Discourse» connects research at the University of Basel focused on the Eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, and promotes dialogue with the public. In West Asia (approx. 10th millennium BCE to 7th century CE), key developments emerged, including settled ways of life, agriculture, animal husbandry, urbanization, writing systems, industries and sciences, as well as the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Understanding major processes in world history is impossible without considering the history of West Asia. Topics related to the Near East have long played a crucial role in politics, economics, and society – both nationally and internationally – and will continue to do so.

In the Basel region, numerous researchers and institutions engage with the cultures, periods, regions, religions, and languages of the Near East, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. NOMAD aims to bring together these areas of expertise and offerings. The network fosters interdisciplinary exchange on cultural-historical, contemporary, and academic topics among (early-career) researchers, students, and the wider public – an exchange essential to both scholarship and society.

The research network includes researchers from the Faculty of Theology, the Department of Ancient Civilizations, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPAS) at the University of Basel, and the Antikenmuseum Basel.