Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are becoming increasingly prevalent in peoples’ daily lives due to the presence of e-government. This research aims to identify and understand factors affecting the adoption and use of e-government services in a public sector organisation in a developing country, in this case, Abu Dhabi Police Force (ADPF) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). For this purpose a theoretical framework based on existing e-government and e-services literature was developed. To determine its applicability, a qualitative approach involving 200 participants’ interviews was used in this study. The questions for the interviews were based on the constructs derived from classic theories in the literature. The theories are: Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DOI), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) and e-Commerce’s Trustworthiness models. The research study results revealed that departments that had roles and responsibilities aligned with government online products and services, adopted e-services better. Where training and awareness was provided, individuals adopted e-services better, and where trust in the provision of e-services was divided in two. The first relates to e-services being better than a manual service as e-services provide clarity and transparency. The second form of trust aligns with confidentiality and privacy. A subset of the research revealed that demographic factors that include, an organisational structure position and the role that one has, inhibit or encourages the use and adoption of e-services. The contributions from this research are anticipated to be a better understanding of the adoption, diffusion and use of e-services in the UAE region. For theory, this research study provided a diverse approach (qualitative research) in an organisational context, the development of a conceptual framework specific to Abu Dhabi’s public sector department and finally, there is research conducted on government to employee e-services in Abu Dhabi, a rare occurrence. For policymakers, the contribution of this research is that the research can understand the impacts of policies and strategies used for developing and implementing e-services. For practice the contribution can be in the form of results that organisations providing external consultancy services in the UAE can identify and understand. Therefore, results such as, lower positions individuals in departments not utilising e-services emerged and suggest that awareness should be inherent within the organisation. By doing so, fewer risks and waste of resources in the form of time and personnel can be avoided.

Drawing on empirical data from the two Palestinian Arab villages of Abu Ghosh and Umm al Fahem, this dissertation assesses the nature of relationship between the Israeli state and its Palestinian Arab citizens from a Gramscian perspective. In this respect, a particular emphasis is given to the analysis of impact of local socio-economic and political structures on the relationship between the villagers and Israeli state and dominant classes especially following a hegemonic crisis during post-al Aqsa Intifada. Based on Gramscian methodology and empirical data, it is concluded that hamula structures could act as an agent of hegemony in internalization and reproduction of of consent based Israeli hegemony. Conditions, dynamics and consequences of this agent-structure relationship is also assessed in detail.

This dissertation is guided by three central questions: Why did the Abu Ghraib photographs fail to generate widespread opposition to the Iraq War among U.S. citizens? How did U.S. political leaders, news media, and entertainment media rhetorically manage the impact of the violence at Abu Ghraib? Finally, what can the tortures at Abu Ghraib tell us about commitment to national identity and justifications for violence? I argue that the primary rhetorical, ideological work of national violence against a foreign other is to create and protect national identification that deflects potential critique of national policy and discourages alternative allegiances (e.g., those of race and class). In support of this argument, I analyze four sets of texts surrounding the scandal. First, I analyze the Abu Ghraib photographs. These photographs, revealing torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops, posed a serious challenge to American national identity and the prevailing rationale for war: namely, that the U.S. would liberate Iraqis from a torturous dictator and the threat of terrorism. The remaining types of discourse, then, can be seen as rhetorical attempts at damage control, containing and softening the edges of the visual records of violence against an enemy Other. For example, the second set of discourses I examine contains the legal memoranda outlining U.S. "coercive interrogation practices" dating back to September 2001. I compare these documents to the political speeches made by public officials during the 2004 presidential campaign. These texts, I argue, provide insight into the Abu Ghraib scandal's political context and illustrate how the scandal was ultimately managed by the Bush administration as a matter of private authority and prerogative rather than public accountability. Third, I explore mainstream media reports concerning Abu Ghraib in order to come to a better understanding of how violence is framed for public consumption. And finally, I analyze depictions of the torture within the popular television series 24. Because 24's plotline deals with issues of torture and terrorist threat, I argue that it can help us better understand both the social climate in which the Abu Ghraib scandal emerged and our current climate in which torture is still very much an issue. / text

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Aging as a physical, aesthetic and intellectual process gained, after muhdath poetry, a position of prominence in Classical Arabic poetry and poetics. Despite its relevance to the development of subgenres such as that of shayb (white hair) and zuhd (ascetic poetry), Arabic verse on aging received little attention by major contemporary critics. This study focuses on the verses on aging penned by the Andalusian poet Abu Ishaq al-Ilbiri and the Sicilian 'Abd al-Jabbar Ibn Hamdis in the XI and XII centuries, arguing for the creative processes through which these two poets reworked the motif of old age, together with other poetic subgenres, fashioning a 'poetics of aging.' By means of such a poetics, al-Ilbiri and Ibn Hamdis voiced their apprehension for the end of their lives, and at once, for the end of Islam's political supremacy in their homelands. Both al-Ilbiri and Ibn Hamdis, as they aged, became more and more preoccupied with the political decline of Islam in Muslim Spain and Sicily. They addressed the prominent political figures of their times, inciting them to a restore Maghribi Islam to its former glory. At the same time, they devoted a significant part of their overall production to subgenres such as the elegiac and the ascetic, in which they reflected upon their physical decay and advocated a withdrawal from worldly pursuits. My study questions this apparent contrast. It is my contention that al-Ilbiri's and Ibn Hamdis's poetics of aging does not imply of personal withdrawal from public life. Such a poetics should instead be read as part and parcel with their public verses of tahrid (public instigation). In what follows I illustrate how al-Ilbiri and Ibn Hamdis combined verses on physical decline, elegies and ascetic verses, in order to convey their late-life reflections as two first-hand witnesses to the end of Islam's social and political cohesion in the Muslim West. Emerging from these verses is a fascinating combination of a political documentation for later Maghribi Muslim history and a quasi-autobiographical voicing of the anxieties these poets experienced living at both the temporal and spatial margins. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Zugl.: Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 2005/06

Texte remanié de Thèse Lettres Paris 1966. / Contient une trad. du "Kitāb mi'rāj al-tashawwuf ilā ḥaqā'iq al-taṣawwuf" d'Ibn 'Ajība. Bibliogr. p. 293-303. Index.

This essay analyzes destruction of cultural heritage, and its impact on future archaeological research. A qualitative case study on four different events of destruction on cultural heritage to evaluate whether it can be positive or negative. It explores if this phenomenon is new or old. Hopefully, the essay also contributes to the knowledge gap that exists in today's analysis of systematic destruction of cultural heritage. First, the concept of cultural heritage and systematic destruction is analyzed. Thereafter, a variety of cases are considered to finally arrive at four different events to be analyzed. In these four different events, a case study is made that aims to contribute to a deeper understanding on destruction of culture heritage. If it contributes to something positive or negative to the people in that society, and a possible outcome on how we look back on history. The events that form the case study are the destruction of the Baalshamin Temple, the demolition of the southern state statues, the transplantation of the Abu simbel monuments from Egypt and the destruction of the Sami drums. The results found that systematic destruction of cultural heritage is a complex issue and does not have an absolute explanation. Destruction of cultural heritage usually affects archaeologists negatively as it prevents future research and results in a less nuanced image of history. Destruction of cultural heritage is usually considered negative, however, moving objects is considered to be more positive.

L’anticipation de l’après-pétrole est, depuis le milieu des années 2000, le leitmotiv du gouvernement des Émirats arabes unis. Au-delà de l’objectif de diversification économique, ce projet passe par des politiques de développement urbain et le contrôle des populations étrangères qui représentent 88 % des résidents. Souvent considérés comme la génération ayant bénéficié des revenus pétroliers, les jeunes adultes nés aux Émirats sont les premiers à subir les effets de ces politiques. Fondée sur une ethnographie des jeunes Émiriens et expatriés arabes ayant grandi à Abou Dhabi, cette thèse prend le contrepied d’analyses souvent centrées sur la division entre citoyens et non-citoyens. Une telle approche permet d’explorer la complexité des hiérarchies statutaires et de leur traduction dans l’espace public. Elle permet surtout de les confronter avec les identifications en termes d’âge et de génération qui se dessinent à travers les sociabilités urbaines de ces jeunesses arabes. Du cosmopolitisme consumériste mis en scène dans les shopping malls, à l’investissement des marges urbaines, en passant par des formes spécifiques d’anonymat, ces jeunes adultes investissent des temporalités et des territoires qui leur sont propres. Ils y façonnent des subjectivités singulières s’exprimant à travers des répertoires communs, notamment une langue arabe réinventée et les usages d’internet. Parmi les imaginaires ainsi partagés, la nostalgie pour les espaces urbains dans lesquels ils ont grandi participe à l’élaboration de leur sentiment commun d’appartenance à la société urbaine. L’étude des pratiques sociales et des processus de subjectivation des jeunesses arabes d’Abou Dhabi ouvre ainsi la voie à l’analyse anthropologique des modes de structuration sociale et de l’urbanité spécifique de la société émirienne contemporaine. / Since the mid-2000s, anticipating the post-oil era has been the leitmotiv of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government. Beyond the project of economic diversification, it has translated to policies of urban development and to the control of foreign residents, who constitute 88 % of the country’s population. Although seen as the generation who benefitted from oil revenues, the young adults who were born in the UAE are subjected first-hand to the consequences of these policies. Based on the ethnographic study of young Emiratis and Arab expatriates who grew up in Abu Dhabi, this thesis detracts from analyses often focused on the divide between citizens and non-citizens. Through an in-depth exploration of the complexities of status hierarchies, it shows how these are translated to public space, but most of all how they are confronted to identifications in terms of age or generation emerging from young adults’ urban sociabilities. From a consumerist cosmopolitanism played out in shopping malls to the appropriation of urban margins and particular forms of anonymity, the Arab youths of Abu Dhabi indeed appropriate specific temporalities and territories. Within them, they model idiosyncratic subjectivities which are expressed through shared practices and modes of communication, including a reinvented Arab language and Internet uses. Among the imaginaries which are thus produced, nostalgia for the urban spaces in which they grew up contributes to shaping their feeling of belonging to urban society. The analysis of social practices and the shaping of subjectivities of the Arab youths in Abu Dhabi thus brings about an anthropological understanding of the specific urbanity of contemporary Emirati society, as well as it sheds light on the processes which shape its social structure.

Since 2010 The Islamic State (IS) has resurrected from virtual extinction and has conquered vast territories in Iraq and Syria. It has transformed from a simple group of insurgents to a conventional army which has claimed to be a state of its own since it announced the for-mation of the Caliphate in mid-2014. Researchers have used many different theories to un-derstand the success of IS which has increased our knowledge of the phenomenon. Even so there are still questions that need to be answered in order to fully understand what we are facing in the Middle East (ME) today and what we might encounter in other parts of the world tomorrow. This essay uses revolutionary theories about Communism and Nationalism with the intent to expand our view of modern insurgencies. More precisely it investigates why IS has been so successful in its conquests, which are done through the narrative of its attitude towards the population of Iraq and Syria. The result reveals that IS uses a combination of the two above-mentioned ideologies. IS keeps conflicts going through constant terror against specific groups thus creating a gap be-tween the governments and the Sunnis in the region. Simultaneously it is trying to create an environment where the inhabitants can experience normal living conditions. The future of the ME is worrying since IS and its way of gaining conquests is hard to battle for whoever is intervening.