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No / This paper assesses the economic and political determinants of IMF and World Bank program loans to the Middle East and North Africa. First we assess what is already known about the geo-political influences on aid flows to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the potential for this to operate via the IMF and World Bank. From this we conclude that there is scope for IMF and World Bank lending in the region to respond to the political interests of their major shareholders, particularly the United States. We support these arguments with both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the determinants of World Bank and IMF program lending to the region, focusing on both economic need in the MENA countries and the politics of donor interest before concluding.

Yes / Despite more than two centuries of almost uninterrupted surveys and studies of Algerian lichenology, the history and lichen diversity of Algeria are still poorly understood. During the preparation of a forthcoming checklist of Algerian lichens it was considered necessary to provide the present historical overview of lichenological exploration of the country from 1799 to 2013, supported by a reasonably comprehensive annotated bibliography of 171 titles.

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This dissertation explores the relationship between land tenure and livelihoods in pre-Saharan Morocco as an ethical struggle over subsistence rights and the definition of community. Research in an oasis valley of southern Morocco indicated how changing land use practices framed contestations over community, political authority, and social hierarchies. The dissertation specifically examines the extension of settlement and cultivation from the oasis into the arid steppe. The research methodology contextualizes household decision-making around land use and livelihood strategies within the framework of land tenure regimes and other regional, national, and global processes. Households with the resources and prestige to navigate customary tenure regimes in their favor used these institutions to facilitate land acquisition and investments in commercial agricultural production. Rather than push for capitalist land markets, they invoked a discourse of communalism in support of customary regimes. In contrast, marginalized families without access to land mobilized to divide collective lands and secure individual freehold tenure. This complicates a prominent critique in agrarian studies that privatization signals the immersion of peripheral lands into neoliberal tenure regimes. The research shows that in southern Morocco, resistance to communal tenure regimes favoring elites was rooted in a discourse of subsistence rights and ethical claims to membership in a just community rather than a simple acquiescence to the power of neoliberal property relations. The dissertation therefore explores the shifting fault lines of social differentiation and the political and cultural embeddedness of land in processes of "repeasantization," the resurgence of rural peasantries in the context of the growing industrialization of global food production. The research draws on cultural anthropology, geography, and political economy to explore an understudied issue in the anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: the economic and environmental dimensions of agrarian livelihoods and rural social dynamics from a critical theoretical perspective.

The present research aims at examining the interaction between transition from centrally planned economies to market based economies and its subsequent effects on populations’ happiness and life satisfaction in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. It also aims at advising policy makers on how economic policies may affect population’s subjective well-being. It is widely accepted that economic reforms affect individuals’ lives. In contrast, the populations’ values, attitudes and perceptions may also play a major role in the success of these reforms. The first study examines the determinants of happiness and life satisfaction by gender in Algeria and their attitudes and perceptions towards economic policies’ reforms. The survey reports that the female population in Algeria is happier and more satisfied with life than its male counterpart. It has been found that healthier individuals and those in the medium level of income are most likely to be happier and satisfied with their lives. Also, happiness is inversely “U-shaped” in age for the female population contradicting previous studies. Although, both genders believe that rapid market reforms do not have a negative impact on national stability, and are confident with the major companies, privatisation is found to be most likely having a negative effect on the life satisfaction among the male population. The second study examines the changes in the levels of life satisfaction in Egypt and Morocco over the first decade of the present century. It has been found that Egyptian women’ satisfaction with life is “U-shaped” in age, whereas in income that applies only to those at the medium, upper-medium and high levels of income. By contrast, Egyptian men are satisfied at all income levels. In Morocco, unemployed men and women are found to be satisfied with their lives in the beginning of the decade contradicting previous findings. While in the late 2000s, among the employed populations, females and males at the medium and the upper medium levels of income are satisfied, along with the lower level for women and the higher level for men. The third study examines the effect of relative income on individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction, assuming that the individual’s subjective judgement of his or her life satisfaction depends on both absolute and relative incomes. Absolute refers to the individual’s income, relative is the income of others around him or her called a reference group. The findings are that Algerians and Moroccans feel ambitious when self-reporting their levels of life satisfaction and referring their income to others’ income, but Egyptians feel jealous.

This dissertation uses all of the available evidence provided by coins to construct a numismatic history of the early Islamic precious metal coinage of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. The dissertation begins with a review of the analysis undertaken by earlier scholars, followed by an explanation of the adopted methodology, including the approach to the primary and secondary sources and the description of the methods used in the metrological, metallurgical, and die estimation analyses. The balance of the dissertation is divided into three sections. The first section is the typology, which divides the coinage into four series: Series 1, the Two Imperial Bust type; Series 2, the Latin Epigraphic type; Series 3, the Bilingual type; and Series 4, the Post-Reform type. The typology analyses each series in detail. This section also discusses the iconographical elements of the coinage, with a further chapter providing an analysis of certain anomalous examples that do not readily fit into the typology. The second section encompasses the analysis of the metrological and metallurgical aspects of the coinage and the estimation of the number of dies for each series. The final section combines the numismatic evidence and the historical record provided by a variety of secondary sources into a numismatic history of the two regions. This section includes a discussion of the historical context prior to, during, and after the Muslim conquest of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as a discussion of find spots and circulation. The dissertation concludes with a comparison of the evolution of the precious metal coinage in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula to the evolution of Islamic coinage in other regions of the Umayyad Caliphate and an exploration of the underlying nature of the coinage (i.e. regional, Imperial, etc.).

Dans la nature actuelle, l'ordre Chiroptera constitue l'un des groupes de mammifères placentaires les plus diversifié. La particularité des chiroptères réside dans leur capacité au vol actif et à l'écholocation, deux adaptations clés qui prédisposent ces mammifères à la migration et à la colonisation de niches écologiques exclusives. La radiation initiale, dite « explosive », des chiroptères implique un ensemble de familles primitives éocènes retrouvées sur tous les continents excepté l'Antarctique. De manière quasi synchrone, plusieurs représentants appartenant aux deux principaux groupes de chiroptères actuels (c.-à-d., Rhinolophoidea et Vespertilionoidea) sont attestés dans l'Éocène inférieur terminal – Éocène moyen basal de Tunisie (Chambi). La rareté du matériel fossile pour les chiroptères paléogènes soulève de nombreuses questions sur les modalités évolutives de la radiation et de la dispersion des premières formes modernes. Cette étude intègre des faunes inédites de chiroptères fossiles issues de plusieurs campagnes de terrain réalisées en Afrique du Nord et en Asie du Sud. Il s'agit de localités fossilifères datées de l'Éocène inférieur et moyen de Tunisie (Chambi), d'Algérie (El Kohol et Glib Zegdou), et de Chine (Shanghuang). Les différentes analyses systématiques et cladistiques réalisées sur le matériel fossile, essentiellement constitué de dents isolées, ont permis d'apporter de nombreux éclaircissements sur les modalités évolutives qui ont défini la radiation des premiers microchiroptères modernes. Ces nouvelles faunes ont révélé pas moins de sept familles modernes (Rhinolophidae, Rhinopomatidae, Hipposideridae, Necromantidae, Emballonuridae, Nycteridae, Philisidae et Vespertilionidae) ainsi qu'une forme primitive, le plus ancien chiroptère d'Afrique, provenant de l'Éocène inférieur d'Algérie (El Kohol). Une approche phylogénétique met en évidence deux axes majeures de dispersions de ces chiroptères qui ont pris place durant l'Éocène moyen : une phase Est-Ouest depuis l'Asie de l'Est jusqu'en Europe, et une phase Nord-Sud depuis l'Afrique du Nord jusqu'en Europe. L'étude de la morphologie dentaire de chacune des espèces étudiées, de leur taille estimée et de la taphonomie des sites fossilifères a permis de mieux cerner le contexte paléoécologique de ces chiroptères paléogènes. Dans des conditions paléoclimatiques tropicales ou subtropicales favorables à la prolifération d'insectes, les microchiroptères, pour la plupart insectivores, avaient à disposition une ressource abondante. Mais une telle richesse spécifique, parfois très localisée comme à Chambi, devait également entrainer une forte compétition interspécifique qui a probablement été un facteur déterminant dans les événements de radiation et de dispersion. / In nature today, the order Chiroptera is one of the most diversified placental mammalian groups. The particularity of bats is their ability to fly and to echolocate, two key adaptations which allow them to migrate over long distances and to colonize exclusive ecological niches. The initial radiation of bat, described as explosive, involves primitive Eocene families that are found in all continents except Antarctica. Almost simultaneously, several representatives of the two main modern groups of chiroptera (i.e., Rhinolophoidea and Vespertilionoidea) occur in the late Early – early Middle Eocene of Tunisia (Chambi). The scarcity of fossil material for Paleogene bats raises many questions about the early evolutionary history of modern forms. This study incorporates new bat fossil faunas from several fieldwork campaigns in North Africa and South Asia. The fossiliferous localities include those of the Early – Middle Eocene of Tunisia (Chambi), Algeria (El Kohol and Glib Zegdou), and China (Shanghuang). Different systematic and cladistic analyses, carried out on fossil material principally made up of isolated teeth, allow us to highlight the modalities of the radiation of the first modern microbats. These new faunas reveal seven modern families of bats (Rhinolophidae, Rhinopomatidae, Hipposideridae, Necromantidae, Emballonuridae, Nycteridae, Philisidae and Vespertilionidae) and also a primitive form from the Early Eocene of El Kohol that is the oldest representative of the order in Africa. A phylogenetic approach highlights two major axes of dispersion that took place during the Middle Eocene: one East-West from East Asia towards Europe, the second one North-South from North Africa to Europe. The study of dental morphology, size and taphonomy provide us with a better grasp on the paleoecological context of these modern Paleogene microbats. The tropical or subtropical paleoclimatic conditions probably favoured the proliferation of insects that constituted an abundant resource for mostly insectivorous bats. But such richness, sometimes very localized as in Chambi, would also have led to strong interspecific competition, which was probably an important factor for the events of radiation and dispersion.

This diploma thesis examines the burial architecture of selected Berber tribes of Northern Africa, namely the Garamantian and Numidian ones, within a period from 4th century B. C. to 5th century A. D. First, the Garamantian tribe and its history is introduced. Afterwards I focus on garamantian burial customes and architecture. Further I describe each types of tombs and individual monuments , thein proportions and decoration. The other important part is devoted to the Numidian tribe. Again, its history, types of burial structures and individual important monuments are described in detail. In this diploma thesis there is also a mention about tribes and monuments which influenced funeral structures and architecture of tribes in North Africa and also about buildings which were the models for these tombs. Keywords architecture, burial customs, Berbers, north Africa, tombs

This project foregrounds the work and perspectives of spoken word poets of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in connection to the NYC slam poetry scene. I trace the parallel racialization of MENA diaspora communities in the US and the development of slam poetry as a space for raising “othered” voices. Through ethnographic analysis, I consider slam poetry as a site of intersectional struggle, arguing that the engagement of MENA diaspora poets with this scene reveals the ways in which poetry both constitutes resistance to discursive violence through representation and works to mobilize audiences against tangible structures of violence.