Extensive female-mediated gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa into near eastern Arab populations

We have analyzed and compared mitochondrial DNA variation of populations from the Near East and Africa and found a very high frequency of African lineages present in the Yemen Hadramawt: more than a third were of clear sub-Saharan origin. Other Arab populations carried approximately 10% lineages of sub-Saharan origin, whereas non-Arab Near Eastern populations, by contrast, carried few or no such lineages, suggesting that gene flow has been preferentially into Arab populations. Several lines of evidence suggest that most of this gene flow probably occurred within the past approximately 2,500 years. In contrast, there is little evidence for male-mediated gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa in Y-chromosome haplotypes in Arab populations, including the Hadramawt. Taken together, these results are consistent with substantial migration from eastern Africa into Arabia, at least in part as a result of the Arab slave trade, and mainly female assimilation into the Arabian population as a result of miscegenation and manumission.     

Mainstreaming Arabs: Filmmaking as image making in tales from Arab Detroit

The documentary video, Tales from Arab Detroit, is enjoying a rare blend of critical and popular success. This essay is an attempt to explain why the video is so popular with American audiences (Arab and non‐Arab alike). Special attention is given to (1) the representational strategies the makers of Tales used to shape their video; (2) the identity politics underlying these strategies; and (3) how interpretive differences among the filmmakers culminated in a video that resembles, in unforeseen ways, the Arab community it depicts. The essay doubles as a critique of “main‐streaming,” a representational technique that dominates sympathetic portrayals of Others in American popular media. Tales, it is argued, possesses all the strengths and weaknesses of this technique.     

Egypt’s Popular Uprising and the Stakes of Medical Neutrality

Amidst the recent political uprisings in the Arab region, physicians and other healthcare workers have found themselves in the crossfire. This paper focuses on Egypt’s doctors, paying special attention to how many have both appealed to and practiced medical neutrality as its own potent and contested political stance, particularly since the period of military rule following Mubarak’s removal from power. Our paper draws on interviews with physicians who served as volunteers in the field hospitals in the days of unrest and violence, and with others who played a major role in documenting protesters’ injuries, police brutality, and other forms of state violence against unarmed citizens. Based on interviews with doctors who belong to organizations such as “Tahrir Doctors” and “Doctors Without Rights,” our paper reveals how these doctors’ commitment to professional ethics put them at odds with the orders of military personnel, rendering their appeal to “medical neutrality” a weighty political act in and of itself.     

Colonialism and ethnicity: A theory and comparative case study

This article explores Arab American "invisibility" as a central theme in the historical narrative of Arab immigrants and their descendants in North America. "Invisibility" is primarily addressed in terms of Arab Americans' paradoxical positioning within the US racial/ethnic classification system. The article argues that four central paradoxes shape Arab American identity. The first paradox is that Arab Americans are a complex, diverse community, but are represented as a monolith in popular North American media images. The second paradox is that Arab Americans are simultaneously racialized as whites and as non-whites. The third paradox is that Arab Americans are racialized according to religion (Islam) rather than biology (phenotype). The fourth paradox involves the intersection between religious forms of identity that Arab immigrants bring to the US and racial forms of identity that structure US society. Overall, the article claims that each paradox of Arab American identity reinforces the difficulties associated in classifying this population.     

Street Scenes: The Politics of Revolutionary Video in Egypt

Images of mass protests that arose from Egypt in early 2011 enraptured global audiences with unexpected scenes of street politics and unprecedented possibilities for political change. While the presence of thousands of cellphone cameras, perhaps hundreds of thousands, provided the technology for a multitude of witnessing, the hyper-visibility of the street in times of protest made image-making practices both threatening and powerful. The recursive rehabilitation of counter-revolutionary images happened on many fronts. Western journalists have long characterized the “Arab Street” as a “barbarous urban mob” and, despite enchantment with the “Arab Spring,” still perpetuated a simplistic analysis of street politics in the region. Meanwhile local television, advertising, and music videos endlessly recycled revolutionary images in superficial modes of patriotic sentimentality; while the urban poor, unable to realize the aims of “bread, freedom, and social justice,” have suspiciously remained the unclaimed image of the Egyptian revolution. But by attending to the social life of revolutionary street media, this article reviews the potential for emerging image practice to cultivate new kinds of political subjectivity and collectivity.     

Becoming the image: Words of gold,talk television,and Ramadan nights on the little screen

Tarek ‘Allam is currently the most popular interview broadcaster in Egypt. An impromptu appearance last year on his widely‐watched program, “Word of Gold,” created instant celebrity for the author in Egypt, the Arab world, and among diaspora Arab communities that receive the Egyptian satellite channel. I suddenly became the image I study, simultaneously viewer and viewed, a participant in popular mass culture. The experience underscored the power of television to shape public culture, prompted deeper reflection on the resiliency of particular televised images, and emphasized the advantage of turning our gaze from the established texts of dramatic serials to the numerous “on‐the‐street” interview programs aired on Egyptian television.     

Racialized political shock: Arab American racial formation and the impact of political events

This article explores significant factors influencing the process of Arab American racial formation. I bring into conversation theories of racial formation and ‘political shock’ in social movement scholarship to develop the notion of ‘racialized political shock’ as an important factor in how racial and ethnic groups mobilize and organize. Many moments of political shock are highly racialized and have the potential to reorder the racial and ethnic landscape in ways that can open opportunities or introduce constraints to mobilizations around racial formation. Drawing on existing studies of Arab Americans, this paper highlights how Arab American racial formation has been galvanized during moments of racialized political shock. In the Arab American case, these moments have led to a call for recognition outside the category of white. I conclude by outlining ways forward in the study of Arab Americans, who have been overlooked in studies of race and ethnicity in the US.     

Contested Citizenship and Social Exclusion: Adolescent Arab American Immigrants' Views of the Social Contract

Drawing from social contract theory, we explore how some adolescent Arab immigrants' (n = 99) sensitivity to the image of their ethnic group as enemies of America colors their interpretation of the social contract. Analyses of data collected in 1997 reveal that those youth who reported that the American media portray Arab people and nations as enemies of the United States are more attuned to personal experiences of prejudice based on their ethnic identity and are more dubious that the tenets of the social contract apply equally across groups. Negative images of Arab Americans were well in place prior to September 11, 2001, a pivotal moment that altered the lives of Arab Americans as well as the discourse on immigration and citizenship.     

Bestial Wisdom and Human Tragedy: The Genesis of the Animal Epic

ABSTRACT

A radical redefinition or blurring of the boundaries between the human and animal realms, between “us” and “them,” can sometimes open dramatic new aesthetic and cultural possibilities. This paper discusses the earliest example of this, an ancient Akkadian fragment known, a bit deceptively, as “The Fable of the Fox.” Set against the background of a terrible drought which may well have destroyed the Akkadian Empire, it records the exchanges of a fox or jackal, a wolf, a lion and a dog. The last of these animals, especially, seems to bear a tragic destiny, of a sort that traditional literature tends to identify exclusively with the “human condition.” The essay goes on to trace how the story may have been the origin of a tradition which includes such important literary works as the Hindu Panchatantra, the Arab Kalila wa Dimna and even Shakespeare's “Othello.” Finally, it concludes with suggestions as to how recognition of tragedy not simply as part of “the human condition” but also as a bond with animals and the environment may open new aesthetic possibilities in the years to come.     

Visibilities,invisibilities and twilight zones at the crime scene in Portugal

The Police are the first element of a chain of custody culminating in the court. The documents they produce mediate the understandings between the crime scene and the court. Based on the formal rules, the police give visibility to the narrative and assign legitimacy and credibility to their performance. However, the decision to turn certain aspects of the narrative visible, leaving others in a twilight zone may have repercussions in the production of a verdict. Based in a qualitative analysis of three Portuguese judicial proceedings in this paper I explore how the narrative constructed by the police, based on what they see and what is unseen, travels between subepistemic cultures. Looking at the visibilities, invisibilities and twilight zones, I will try to understand how police forces at the crime scene in Portugal construct their narratives through the use of biological traces and how these narratives are part of the construction of the evidence. I argue that in criminal investigations in Portugal, the production of a narrative with legal meaning in court can be conditioned by the co-existence of the epistemic subcultures of police work (different police forces at the crime scene) that have different knowledge, practices, understandings and ways of “seeing” the forensic evidence. The degree of technological enthusiasm that guides the performance of different police forces at the crime scene is reflected in the way they “see” the scene and in the sociocultural understandings that they produce. This technological enthusiasm and what I call here “selective professional vision” are mobilized at the crime scene and can impact the robustness and efficiency of the evidence presented in court.     

Intensity and motion responses of giant vertical neurons of the fly eye

There are nine “giant vertical” neurons in the lobula plate of the fly optic lobe. Intracellular recordings were obtained from the three most peripheral of these cells. These cells respond to a light flash with graded changes in the membrane potential. The response consists of an “on” transient, a sustained depolarization, an increase in membrane potential fluctuations, and an “off” transient. Signal averaging showed that only the “on” and “off” transients are correlated to the stimulus. A pattern of horizontally oriented stripes moving in the vertical direction evokes a response larger than the response to a stationary pattern. The response is most sensitive to vertical movement; motion in the downward direction evokes a net membrane potential depolarization, and upward motion results in a net hyperpolarization. We conclude that the giant vertical cells function primarily as vertical motion detectors and that the direction of the motion is encoded in the polarity of the shift in the membrane potential.     

A Random Blend: The Self in Philip Larkin’s Poems “Ambulances” and “The Building”

In two of his great poems, “Ambulances” and “The Building,” Philip Larkin considers a deep fear about human individuality. The fear is that the human self is contingent and disjunctive, lacking any integrity or unity. The arrival of an ambulance on an urban curb and a visit to the hospital are the occasion of reflection on this form of human fragility. But more significant, the ambulance and the hospital are imagined as contexts in which the contingency of the human individual is brought out and laid before us.     

Attitudes towards Muslims and fear of terrorism

This article looks at explanatory approaches of fear of terrorism. Until now, empirical studies looking at determinants of fear of terrorism have used the theoretical framework from the field of research regarding fear of crime. We argue that the cognitive link between terrorism and Islam is currently so strong that explanatory models should include measures of attitudes towards Muslims. On an argumentative level, the fear of crime theoretical framework is unconvincing. Our empirical analysis using structural equation modelling shows that fear of terrorism shares almost no determinants with the fear of violent crime. Negative attitudes towards Muslims are the strongest determinant of fear of terrorism and totally mediate all other effects. Discussions about tackling the issue of fear of terrorism should consider these findings as solutions may otherwise be inappropriate, at best. At worst, solutions based on an improper understanding of the determinants of fear of terrorism may serve only to exacerbate the problem.     

Fear or greed? Oxytocin regulates inter-individual conflict by enhancing fear in men

People may choose non-cooperation in social dilemmas either out of fear (if others choose to defect) or out of greed (when others choose to cooperate). Previous studies have shown that exogenous oxytocin motivates a “tend and defend” pattern in inter-group conflict in which oxytocin stimulates in-group cooperation and out-group defense. Using a double-blind placebo-controlled design combined with a modified Prisoner's dilemma game (PDG), we examined the effect of oxytocin on social motivations in inter-individual conflict in men. Results showed that compared with the placebo group, oxytocin-exposed participants were less cooperative in general. Specifically, oxytocin amplified the effect of fear on defection but did not influence the effect of greed. Another non-social control study confirmed participants' decisions were sensitive to social factors. Our findings suggest that even when social group conflict is removed, oxytocin promotes distrust of strangers in “me and you” inter-individual conflict by elevating social fear in men.     

The rhetoric of Islamophobia: an analysis of the means of persuasion in Hege Storhaug’s writings on Islam and Muslims

Few actors have had a greater impact on the “framing of Muslims” as a social and political “problem” in Norway since 2001 than Hege Storhaug of the government- and corporate billionaire funded civil society organization Human Rights Service (HRS). Using the methodological tools of the “rhetorical branch” of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and applying the Aristotelian concepts of ethos, logos and pathos, we analyze the bestselling popular title on Islam and Muslims ever published in Norway, namely Storhaug’s self-published 2015 title “Islam – The Eleventh Plague”. We argue that Storhaug’s popular success must be understood in light of her rhetorical appeals to femonationalism, the critique of religion and “Enlightenment” values. We show how she in her writings incites fear of the Muslim “Other” through specific rhetorical devices and a positioning of herself as a defender of the “nation” and the “people” – against national and international “elites”.     

Imagining race and nation in multiculturalist America

Post-1965 demographic changes in the United States [US] have brought blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans into direct conflict, raising the question of how and whether law and public policy should attempt to adjudicate conflicts among racialized minority groups. I argue in this article that for the past few decades, national political leaders in the US have promoted an official multiculturalist discourse that actually discourages Americans from naming and addressing these intergroup tensions. This discourse superficially reimagines race and nation – by moving from a biracial, black-white focus to a formal acknowledgment of multiracial difference – while refusing to acknowledge the complex interminority inequalities and antagonisms generated by this new diversity. How might we refocus national attention on the serious interminority conflicts and racial justice struggles unfolding around us? I consider resurrecting the traditional notion of racial hierarchy as a counter-narrative to official multiculturalist discourse before arguing instead for one which involves a more complex notion of “racial positionality”.     

Speaking the conflict,or how the Druze became bilingual: a study of Druze translators in the Israeli military courts in the West Bank and Gaza

The Druze community occupies a distinctive niche in the broader context of Israel/Palestine, one which is located in the interstices of various socio-political cross-currents, notably Jewish/Arab and Israeli/Palestinian. Druze Israeli identity is built around a politics of difference and separation from all other population groups residing in this area, yet it is an ambivalent and contradictory designation. This article focuses on those Druze who, through their service in the army, have been used as translators in the military courts in the occupied territories. The preference of Druze for this role relates to the fact that they have both bilingual skills (Hebrew and Arabic) and a socio-political status as 'non-Arab Arabs'. Following a general discussion of the politicization of Druze identity, I analyse the state's uses of Druze bilingualism for the purposes of maintaining and legitimizing the occupation, and the effects that fulfilling such a role have had on those who have functioned in this capacity.     

Aboriginal overkill

Prior to European influence, predation by Native Americans was the major factor limiting the numbers and distribution of ungulates in the Intermountain West. This hypothesis is based on analyses of (1) the efficiency of Native American predation, including cooperative hunting, use of dogs, food storage, use of nonungulate foods, and hunting methods; (2) optimal-foraging studies; (3) tribal territory boundary zones as prey reservoirs; (4) species ratios, and sex and age of aboriginal ungulate kills; (5) impact of European diseases on aboriginal populations; and (6) synergism between aboriginal and carnivore predation. Native Americans had no effective conservation practices, and the manner in which they harvested ungulates was the exact opposite of any predicted conservation strategy. Native Americans acted in ways that maximized their individual fitness regardless of the impact on the environment. For humans, conservation is seldom an evolutionarily stable strategy. By limiting ungulate numbers and purposefully modifying the vegetation with fire, Native Americans structured entire plant and animal communities. Because ecosystems with native peoples are entirely different than those lacking aboriginal populations, a “hands-off” or “natural regulation” approach by today’s land managers will not duplicate the ecological conditions under which those ecosystems developed. The modern concept of wilderness as areas without human influence is a myth. North America was not a “wilderness” waiting to be discovered, instead it was home to tens of millions of aboriginal peoples before European-introduced diseases decimated their numbers.     

Ethnic inequalities in mortality: the case of Arab-Americans

Background

Although nearly 112 million residents of the United States belong to a non-white ethnic group, the literature about differences in health indicators across ethnic groups is limited almost exclusively to Hispanics. Features of the social experience of many ethnic groups including immigration, discrimination, and acculturation may plausibly influence mortality risk. We explored life expectancy and age-adjusted mortality risk of Arab-Americans (AAs), relative to non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites in Michigan, the state with the largest per capita population of AAs in the US.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Data were collected about all deaths to AAs and non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites in Michigan between 1990 and 2007, and year 2000 census data were collected for population denominators. We calculated life expectancy, age-adjusted all-cause, cause-specific, and age-specific mortality rates stratified by ethnicity and gender among AAs and non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites. Among AAs, life expectancies among men and women were 2.0 and 1.4 years lower than among non-Arab and non-Hispanic White men and women, respectively. AA men had higher mortality than non-Arab and non-Hispanic White men due to infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and homicide. AA women had higher mortality than non-Arab and non-Hispanic White women due to chronic diseases.

Conclusions/Significance

Despite better education and higher income, AAs have higher age-adjusted mortality risk than non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites, particularly due to chronic diseases. Features specific to AA culture may explain some of these findings.     

Picturing women,class, and community in Arab Detroit: The strange case of Eva Habib

This essay explores the on‐going struggle to reveal and conceal the image of Eva Habib, an Arab American woman who worked in a Detroit factory and was photographed in her coveralls circa 1925. Eva's image has been a source of controversy in Detroit's Arab community since it first became public in the 1980s. I chart the evolution of this controversy, examine the interests of the parties involved, and draw conclusions about how this controversial image simultaneously undermines and reinforces popular notions of women, work, and class among Arab Americans.