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Endeavours to establish cities as brands have become a worldwide phenomenon. In the Middle East and Africa, too, cities have started to actively position themselves as attractive tourism destinations and investment sites and are trying to enhance their distinctiveness and recognisability. Gulf cities have become the most prominent - and often emulated - examples. Less attention has been given, for instance, to North African places. Accordingly, this chapter starts from the assumption that systematic approaches to branding cities are still limited, notably for cities of the "Global South."

This edited volume investigates branding in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including some studies from adjacent regions and the wider Islamicate world. The book critically analyses processes of strategic communication and image building and covers three major objects of branding - consumer brands, place brands, and personal brands - as the regional unfoldings of a global phenomenon. However, the main focus is on place branding - probably due to my own research focus and knowledge of colleagues, but also to a certain preference or fashion in the current research landscape. Often following the example of Dubai, project sites, cities, and nations are trying to enhance their public reputation by means ranging from creating novel architecture and organising attentiondrawing cultural and sport events to announcing strategic urban and national visions. "Green" and "sustainable2 branding has been added to this in recent years. While branding in the Western world and many emerging economies has been meticulously analysed, comprehensive investigations are still missing for the MENA region, except for some Gulf countries. Some of the existing literature, for example on urban branding or Islamic branding, is again very technical and application-oriented. This was the motivation behind compiling this volume, which fills important gaps in the research on branding in this part of the world.

Branding has its ancient roots in the wider Mediterranean and the Middle East, as we have seen in the preceding conceptual chapter. Throughout history, branding products, persons, and places - even if the concept did not yet exist by this name - has been practised in the Arab, Ottoman, and Islamic realms. Especially with increasing contemporary globalisation and implementation of neoliberal agendas, the pressure on nations and cities for competitive positioning and worlding has dramatically increased everywhere in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In particular, the hydrocarbon-based ascension of the Arab Gulf countries and their quest to prepare for a post-oil and post-gas era, with Dubai clearly at the forefront, has given pervasive branding endeavours a particular push. Supported by technological advances and in a world of growing postmodern experiments, these places excelled in constructing hyperreal worlds and preparing virtual presentations, which perfectly fit the global attention economy.

The chapter starts with a short global, initially mostly Western, history of branding. An overview of conceptualisations of branding follows and first contrasts application-oriented literature with more critical studies and insights. It continues by presenting attempts to clarify terminology and discussing some important elements of the branding process, from the variety of its purposes, actors, and addressees to the proposed and employed tools and strategies. Another section pertains to the global macro-contexts in which contemporary branding is said to take place, including globalisation, neoliberalisation, and postmodernisation. Subsequently, some critical considerations relate to a range of political, social, and spatial aspects and consequences of branding. All this will be carried out with a certain bias in favour of place branding, corresponding to the main focus of the articles in the present volume. Most of the references used for this conceptual chapter were published from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, when, after the initiating works, the research field consolidated and provoked critical assessment be-fore it ramified into ever more detailed issues.

This edited volume fills a gap in the research on place, product and personal branding in the Middle East and North Africa. It critically analyses processes of strategic communication and image building under conditions of globalisation, neoliberalisation and authoritarian rule. It looks at historical and contemporary branding efforts of different actors involved, their interests and motives and at the positioning of brands in time and space.

This edited volume investigates place, product, and personal branding in the Middle East and North Africa, including some studies from adjacent regions and the wider Islamicate world. Going beyond simply presenting logos and slogans, it critically analyses processes of strategic communication and image building under general conditions of globalisation, neoliberalisation, and postmodernisation and, in a regional perspective, of lasting authoritarian rule and increased endeavours for "worlding." In particular, it looks at the multiple actors involved in branding activities, their interests and motives, and investigates tools, channels, and forms of branding. A major interest exists in the entanglements of different spatial scales and in the (in)consistencies of communication measures. Attention is paid to reconfigurations of certain images over time and to the positioning of objects of branding in time and space. Historical case studies supplement the focus on contemporary branding efforts. While branding in the Western world and many emerging economies has been meticulously analysed, this edited volume fills an important gap in the research on MENA countries

pt. 1. The politics and economy of infrastructure and architecture -- pt. 2. Images and iconic brands : constructing markets and identity -- pt. 3. Art production and exhibitions : a critical engagement with urban developments -- pt. 4. Dubai-style elsewhere : plagiarizing or transforming the Gulf model.

Interdisciplinary in approach, this volume explores and deciphers the symbolic value and iconicity of the built environment in the Arab Gulf Region, its aesthetics, language and performative characteristics. Bringing together a range of studies by artists, curators and scholars, it demonstrates how Dubai appeared - at least until the financial crisis - to be leading the construction race and has already completed a large number of its landmark architecture and strategic facilities. In contrast, cities like the Qatari capital Doha still appear to be heavily 'under construction' and in countries like the Sultanate of Oman, ultra-luxury tourism projects were started only recently. While the construction of artificial islands, theme parks and prestige sport facilities has attracted considerable attention, much less is known about the region's widespread implementation of innovative infrastructure such as global container ports, free zones, inter-island causeways and metro lines. This volume argues that these endeavours are not simply part of a strategy to prepare for the post-oil era for future economic survival and prosperity in the Lower Gulf region, but that they are also aiming to strengthen identitarian patterns and specific national brands. In doing so, they exhibit similar, yet remarkably diverse modes of engaging with certain global trends and present - questionably - distinct ideas for putting themselves on the global map. Each country aims to grab attention with regard to the world-wide flow of goods and capital and thus provide its own citizens with a socially acceptable trajectory for the future. By doing that, the countries in the Gulf are articulating a new semiotic and paradigm of urban development. For the first time, this volume maps these trends in their relation to architecture and infrastructure, in particular by treating them as semiotics in their own right. It suggests that recent developments in this region of the world not only represent a showcase of extraordinary initiatives by which these desert states have transformed, but also that the commodification of local 'traditions' acts as an essential element in the countries' effort to design an Arab version of (hyper- )modernity and to position themselves as a regional and global archetype, which has frequently been adopted elsewhere.

Der Sammelband gibt einen Einblick in Entwicklungen und Probleme der Wirtschaft im Vorderen Orient und das wirtschaftliche Handeln der dort Lebenden, seine Bedingungen und seine Folgen. Zugleich zeigt dieses Buch das vorhandene Potenzial von auf Wirtschaft und den Vorderen Orient bezogener Forschung in Deutschland auf. Anlass ist das nun 15-jährige Bestehen und das Herannahen der hundertsten Ausgabe der "Diskussionspapiere" (DKP) des früheren Fachgebietes Volkswirtschaft des Vorderen Orients an der FU Berlin, eine Reihe, die sich durch eine breite Vielfalt von disziplinären Herangehensweisen und fachlichen Perspektiven auszeichnet