Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East

Dawn Chatty is a social anthropologist with long experience in the Middle East. Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East is her most recent book. Previously she edited the thirty-six chapter Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Facing the 21st Century (2006). She is University Reader in Anthropology and Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre in the Department of International Development, University of Oxford.

• Introduction: forced migration in the contemporary Middle East: community cohesion in impermanent landscapes; 1. Dispossession and displacement within the contemporary Middle East: an overview of theories and concepts; 2. Dispossession and forced migration in the late Ottoman Empire: distinct cultures and separated communities; 3. Circassian, Chechnyan and other Muslim communities expelled from the Caucuses and the Balkans; 4. The Armenians and other Christians: evictions and massacres; 5. Palestinian dispossession and exodus; 6. Kurds dispossessed and made stateless; 7. Liminality and belonging: social cohesion in impermanent landscapes.

'Dawn Chatty brings to this study a detailed knowledge of the Chechen, Circassian, Armenian, Palestinian and Kurdish peoples, displaced into and within the early modern/modern Middle East. Her approach highlights interaction between European and Middle Eastern history (usually taught separately), the relative openness of the Ottoman Empire to ethnic and religious diversity, and the socio-cultural capacity of migrants to build new communities in unfamiliar places. This is a book I would definitely use for classes on nationalism, forced migration and refugeedom as factors in the making of the modern Middle East.' Rosemary Sayigh, Independent Scholar