Thesis (M.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Glenn Robinson, Jeanne Giraldo. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-62). Also available online.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Bradford, 1986. / BLDSC reference no.: D71575.

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This dissertation examines Islamic banking in Jordan. It is argued that institutions perceived as culturally authentic may play important political roles in a post-colonial society. Islamic banking in particular can both function in a modern, globalized economy and express cultural tradition. It may help to legitimate Jordan’s political structures and overcome social and economic bifurcations between traditional and modern sectors of society. Jordan is a part of a region of the world in which the colonial experience continues to have an enduring legacy. What had previously been a tribal Bedouin society was transformed almost overnight. Its modern banking system transgressed Islamic norms and laws and excluded huge portions of the population who continued to see meaning in the religious values and principles rooted in the social and cultural institutions that had just been trampled upon. This dissertation looks into how Islamic banks that interact in a global economy while remaining true to culturally authentic beliefs and practices can begin to close the gaps between state practice and popular beliefs. The strongest opposition to the monarchy in Jordan has come from political Islamists who feed upon popular discontent and alienation caused by the practices and actions of a ruling elite that does not share the same cultural values as the majority of the population. Much of what the Islamists espouse, while culturally authentic, is removed from the political, financial, and economic realities of the modern era. Islamic banking thus has the potential to play a mediating role between a modernizing elite and this Islamist backlash. This dissertation will test the extent to which cultural authenticity matters by observing how Islamic banks in Jordan have been able to tap into a latent demand for alternative financial practices and how the Islamic financial movement relates to Islamist political movements. Although Islamic banking has not achieved its full potential, the dissertation presents strong evidence of its capacity to bridge divisions between state and society. / text

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In this thesis, women who identify as both queer and Muslims living in North America tell their stories of family, religion, and home. These immigrants and first generation Westerners describe their identities in an effort to acknowledge the difficulties that can accompany being both Muslim in the diaspora in a time when religious and political tensions are aimed at the Middle East. While each has a unique life history, the participants represented here challenge assumptions about the "inherent" contradictions that are assume to exist for those who are both Muslim and queer due to constructions of Islam as sexually and socially conservative. They also offer insight into the usefulness of the current international LGBTQ movement for Muslim lesbians. Using the in-depth interviews from eight women, as well as several first-person published narratives, the aim of this research is to explore how each of these individuals to experience their identities in the diaspora.

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In 2003, the Israeli government announced plans to transfer a large army base from the centre of the country to the Negev (al-Naqab in Arabic), 8 kilometers downwind from the Ramat Hovav industrial zone and national hazardous waste treatment site. Since its creation in 1975, Ramat Hovav has been a major centre for bio-chemical production, hazardous waste treatment and consequently, pollution. For decades, Bedouin residents from Wadi Naam had been living adjacent to the industrial zone, their concerns and protests remaining unheard. However, when the health of Israeli soldiers serving at the prospective site was at stake, local environmental disputes shifted into the national spotlight. The decision to move the army base was a catalyst for a prolonged struggle over conflicting interpretations of environmental health risks. Using a narrative-based case study methodology, this research examines both the local environmental knowledge and the organizational strategies that inform the contested environmental illness struggles that took place at the Ramat Hovav industrial zone between 1997 and 2011. It illustrates how environmental organizations, policymakers, and industrial representatives, through protracted challenges and counter-challenges, found an interim approach for addressing pollution, thereby clearing the way for the construction of the army base. It also illuminates the differential treatment of contested environmental illness by state, municipal, and organizational actors when the subjects at risk are Jewish Israeli youth, as opposed to Bedouin residents, thus uncovering institutionalized environmental discrimination toward the Bedouin of Wadi Naam that is symptomatic of prejudicial public policies dating back to the establishment of the state. The first formal study of contested environmental illness in the Middle East, this case contributes broader insight into the institutional dynamics of environmental injustice, the relationship between local knowledge and political pressure, and the organizational tactics underlying environmental risk management.

This thesis is comprised of a critical component and a creative component. The creative component consists of a portfolio of creative writing drawn from a fictionalized memoir, and the critical component consists of three interconnected chapters analyzing the creative component. The creative component, titled The Accidental Peacemaker, has been written alongside my recently published (and related) book, How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment. It is a satirical, first-person fictionalized memoir about how the Middle East conflict manifests in North America, told from the point of view of a North American Jewish narrator. The critical component contextualizes the creative component by situating it within the disparate genres of creative writing that inform it, and by exploring its descent from them. Together, the three critical chapters argue that the creative component stands at the intersection of life writing, North American Jewish Writing, and humourous political writing. The first critical chapter, on life writing, examines the overlaps between fiction and memoir, and argues, in part, that from a creative writer's point of view, a sharp distinction is challenging to pinpoint. The second critical chapter, on North American Jewish writing, explores some efforts that have been made to determine what characteristics identify “Jewish writing,” and which identifying marks are germane to this particular piece of creative work. The third critical chapter, on humourous political writing, argues that humour and politics are particularly intertwined in North American writing and media today, and that by using humour and first-person life writing, an author can probe into sensitive political terrain without as much risk of needlessly offending as they might have if they used other approaches.

This thesis addresses two main gaps within social science research: the relative neglect of the household within general labour market theories and the relative neglect of the impact of life course changes in approaches to female labour force participation. In empirical terms, nowhere is the later gap more clear than the current research on female employment in the Middle East. Therefore, this thesis aims to identify changing female employment patterns in Jordan with particular reference to young single urban women. Unlike previous generations, women currently marry at a later age, have relatively high education levels and have access to expanding employment opportunities. The result is that women are experiencing a new life course trajectory: single employed adulthood. Given that Jordanian society has traditionally been based on rigid gender and generation hierarchies, the study explores the implications of the new trends at two main and inter-related levels: the workplace and the household. The research methodology utilises both quantitative and qualitative tools and consists of an employer survey of 36 private sector institutions, a questionnaire survey of 302 households, and a sub-sample of 40 semi-structured interviews with young women. At the workplace level it explores the bases of gender differentiated recruitment and occupational segregation and how this structures young women's work opportunities. At the household level the investigation assesses the characteristics that are likely to influence young female labour supply and considers inter-generational patterns of household income management. Synthesising these perspectives, the research then goes on to explore the ways in which normative patriarchal relations are responding to young women's prolonged single adulthood as well as young women's perceptions of their work. One of the main findings of the research is that single adulthood may have expanded opportunities and the aspirational horizon for some young women but it had not brought about a significant redistribution of either power relations or gender divisions in society at large.