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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

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.

AbstractIn the course of the spatial turn, long-established regional subdivisions of the world have been deconstructed, and area studies are increasingly opening up for transregional research. One (re)emerging research field is Trans-Saharan Studies, which considers historical and contemporary entanglements between the Maghreb, the Sahara and the Sahel (with further connections far beyond). Against this background, Steffen Wippel's essay reviews six recently published works that can be assigned to trans-Saharan research: two comprehensive textbooks and a catalogue written in French, two edited volumes that tackle entangled trans-Saharan and trans-Mediterranean migration flows and a study of an enclosed, yet widely interconnected inner-Saharan place and population group.

Wie auch andere Weltregionen wird der "Nahe Osten und Nordafrika" oftmals als eindeutig definierter, geschlossener und weitgehend homogener Raum betrachtet. Jedoch handelt es sich hier ebenfalls um eine Region, die ständigen Rekonfigurationen unterliegt und für die zudem eine Reihe von Bezeichnungen besteht. Zugleich entfalten sich wirtschaftliche, kulturelle, soziale und politische Verflechtungen und Austauschprozesse oftmals in völlig anderen regionalen Zusammenhängen, beispielsweise über den Indischen Ozean, die Sahara oder den Kaukasus hinweg, die quer zu verfestigten Raumvorstellungen liegen. Der Band wirbt für einen transregionalen Blick auf die Zirkulation von Gütern, Ideen und Menschen, ohne sich von etablierten Meta-Geographien begrenzen zu lassen. Damit positioniert er sich in kritischen Debatten um Raumproduktion und Area Studies und führt Forschung zusammen, die üblicherweise durch regional und disziplinär sortierte akademische Wissensproduktion getrennt ist.Mit Beiträgen vonDaniel C. Bach, Saïd Belguidoum, Katrin Bromber, Claudia Derichs, Andreas Eckl , Andrea Fischer-Tahir, Britta Frede, Ulrike Freitag, Albrecht Fuess, Dieter Haller, Jens Heibach, Béatrice von Hirschhausen, Tobias Koepf, Markus Koller, Laurence Marfaing, Matthias Middell, Amin Moghadam, Friederike Pannewick, Olivier Pliez, Dietrich Reetz, Florian Riedler, Heiko Schuß, Sarah Ruth Sippel, Katrin Sold, Julia Verne, Steffen Wippel.

Introduction:Transnational geographies of the Middle East in times of globalisation and uprisings / by Leïla Vignal. - PART I: PEOPLE ON THE MOVE. - 1 Managing transnational labour in the Arab Gulf : external and internal dynamics of migration politics since the 1950s / Hélène Thiollet. - 1 Transnational connections between Egypt and the Gulf : the experiences of migrants in the Emirates after the Arab Spring / Delphine Pagès-El Karoui. - 3 Pharisees, tartuffes and agnostics : migration and religious exchanges between Cairo and the Gulf / Lucile Gruntz. - 4 A life in asylum : Sudanese mobility between Egypt and Israel and the reconfiguration of political structures in the Middle East / Pauline Brücker. - PART II: FLOWS, ROUTES AND BORDERS. - 5 Gulf investments in the Middle East : linking places, shaping a region / Armelle Choplin and Leïla Vignal. - 6 Sinbad the sailor revived? : Oman and its Indian Ocean links / Steffen Wippel. - 7 The routes of globalisation between Algeria and Dubai : local impact and regional change / Brahim Benlakhlef and Pierre Bergel. - 8 Circulating by default : Yerevan and Erbil, the backyards of Iranian mobility / Amin Moghadam and Serge Weber. - 9 The wartime emergence of a transnational region between Turkey and Syria (2008-2015) / Benoît Montabone. - PART III: CIRCULATIONS OF IDEAS, MODELS AND CULTURE. - 10 Arab cultural foundations and the metamorphoses of pan-Arabism / Franck Mermier. - 11 Youth literature in the Arab Middle East : creation without borders? / Mathilde Chèvre. - 12 Beirut-Dubai : translocal dynamics and the production of alternative urban art districts / Sophie Brones and Amin Moghadam. - 13 Sustainable urban development : a vector of regional integration for the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean? / Pierre-Arnaud Barthel. - SNAPSHOTS. - 1 Place : the commercial neighbourhood of Deira in Dubai : a supply site for Algerian traders / Brahim Benlakhlef and Pierre Bergel. - 2 People : Mamali Shafahi, mobi