Area Studies and Methodological Approaches to the New Regional Dynamics of the Middle East

This paper explores how we might think through the shifting, contradictory, and plural features of the Middle East in ways that move beyond the constraints of competing nationalisms, geographical silos, and disciplinary boundaries. The main objective is methodological—an attempt to outline some of the key analytical perspectives that might productively frame a better understanding of the new regional dynamics of the Middle East. Three key methodological issues are highlighted: (1) a focus on the various cross-border flows that serve to both upset state-centric approaches to the region, while also destabilizing the particular conceptual categories through which we often think of social processes in the Middle East; (2) closer attention to borders, borderlands, and transboundary processes in the Middle East, all of which contribute in powerful ways to the making of the national and regional scales; and (3) a recognition that regional processes in the Middle East need to be considered as mutually constitutive of a global totality and that this necessitates a closer analysis of the various relations that exist between the wider world market and the regional scale.