Matching Items (45)
Description
Islamist groups in Somalia define themselves by their opposition. From the pre-Islamist movement of Mohammed Hassan in the nineteenth century to al-Itihaad al-Islaami in the twentieth to al-Shabaab in the twenty-first, Islamism exists as a form of resistance against the dominant power of the era. Furthermore these Islamist groups have all been influenced by the type of state in which they exist, be it colonial, independent, or failed. This work seeks to examine the relationship between the uniquely Somali form of Islamism and the state. Through use of historical records, modern media, and existing scholarship this dissertation will chart the development of Islamism in Somalia from the colonial period to the present and explore the relationship Somali Islamism has with various forms of state.
ContributorsFurlow, Richard Bennett (Author) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Thesis advisor) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
ABSTRACT In this thesis, I probe into the ways in which the much-debated word Jihad lends itself to multifarious meanings within the Mourid Sufi Order and examine the foundations of the principles of peace and non-violence that informed the relationships between Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, the founder of Mouridism (1853 ca - 1927) and the French colonial state from 1883 to 1927. As a matter of fact, unlike some Senegalese Muslim leaders who had waged a violent Jihad during the colonial conquest and expansion, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba promoted peaceful forms of Jihad which partook of his reform and revival movement in the Senegalese society. Yet, it is worth pointing out that the Mourid leader's ethics of peace and philosophy of non-violence as methods of struggle (the etymological sense of the word Jihad) during colonial times have been largely unexplored within academia. The contours of these new forms of resistance were grounded on a peaceful and non-violent approach which, according to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, was the only way to reach his spiritual, educational and social goals. This thesis proffers a counter-example to religious violence often associated with and perpetrated in the name of Islam. I argue in this thesis that a close investigation into Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba's epistemology of Jihad evidences that the term Jihad has spiritual, educational, social, cultural and economic functions which naturally contrast with its one-sided and violent connotation spotlighted over the last two decades. In conducting research for this work, I used a transdisciplinary approach that can allow me to address the complex issues of Jihad, peace and non-violence in a more comprehensive way. Accordingly, I have used a methodology that crosses the boundaries of several disciplines (historical, anthropological, sociological and literary).
ContributorsSeye, Cheikh (Author) / Haines, Charles (Thesis advisor) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Committee member) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Saikia, Yasmin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this dissertation is to study not only relations between Latin America and the United States, but also Latin American states with each other. It specifically aims to examine the extent to which the United States, the principal hegemonic power in the Americas, can play a constructive role by providing regional public goods. These goods include conflict resolution and economic progress. Although the United States has the potential to create such goods, it also has the potential to create public bads in the form of regional instability, political terror, and economic stagnation. This raises two fundamental research questions: Under what conditions can Washington play a positive role and if these conditions cannot be met, under what conditions can Latin American nations bypass the United States and create their own economic progress and conflict resolution strategies? Drawing upon qualitative research methods and case studies that have attracted scant academic attention, this dissertation finds that through regional multilateral diplomatic negotiations, the United States can play a positive role. However, due to U.S. parochial economic interests and the marginalization of diplomacy as a foreign policy tool, these conditions rarely occur. This research further finds, however, that through flexible regionalization Latin American nations can bypass the United States and create their own goods. Supported by an alternative regional power, flexible regionalization relies upon supranational institutions that exclude the United States, emphasize permanent political and economic integration, and avoid inflexible monetary unions. Through this type of regionalization, Latin America can decrease U.S. interference, sustain political and economic autonomy, and open space for alternative conflict resolution strategies and economic policies that Washington would otherwise oppose. This dissertation is academically significant and policy relevant. First, it reconsiders diplomacy as an instrumental variable for peace and offers generalizable results that can be applied to additional cases. Moreover, finding that Latin American countries can address their own regional issues, this study recognizes the positive agency of Latin America and counters the negative essentialization commonly found in U.S. academic and policy research. Finally, this research offers policy advice for both the United States and Latin America.
ContributorsRipley, Charles (Author) / Doty, Roxanne L (Thesis advisor) / Stoner, Lynn (Committee member) / Simon, Sheldon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study is based on a submission of anthropological, historical, and literary approaches. The ethnographic study of the Shi'a holy shrines between November 2011 and January 2012 is based on my visit to Iraq. The study lasted almost ten weeks, to include the two events under discussion: `Ashurā and Al-Arb`ain, in Karbala of that year. This thesis argues that the mourning rituals of `Ashurā and the Forty Day Visitation Zyarat Al-Arb`ain contribute to the social or individual life of Iraqi Shi'a. They also make significant contributions through creating a symbolic language to communicate for the community, as well as communicating with their essential symbolic structure. Second, the Forty Day Visitation Zyarat Al-Arb`ain is one of the most significant collective mourning rituals, one that expresses unity and solidarity of the Iraqi Shi'a community, and helps them to represent their collective power, and maintain their collective existence. This study uses two of Victor Turner's tripartite models. For `Ashurā the rite of passage rituals is used, which consists of the separation, margin, and re-aggregation phase. Through this process of entering and leaving time and social structure, it helps in changing the social status of the participants. The other model used for Al-Arb`ain is pilgrimage as a social process, which includes three levels of communitas: existential, normative, and ideological communitas. The Shi'a in Iraq are holding a position similar to Turner's notion of communitas since they are living within a society that is Muslim and yet even though they are a larger population of the society, they still become marginalized by the Sunni population socially, economically, and politically. Social relations and links play a significant role for Shi'a in `Ashurā and Al-Arb`ain as a reflection between their social status as an undefined communitas and the general structure of Iraqi society.
ContributorsHamdan, Faraj Hattab (Author) / Talebi, Shahla (Thesis advisor) / Ali, Souad T. (Thesis advisor) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Committee member) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis explores some of the ways in which Egyptian men and women changed certain aspects of their reality through collective actions in public spaces during and after the 2011 Revolution. This thesis argues that the power of collective action which Egyptian men and women successfully employed in 2011 to bring down the thirty year regime of Hosni Mubarak carried over into the post-Revolutionary era to express itself in three unique ways: the combatting of women's sexual harassment in public spaces, the creation of graffiti with distinct Revolutionary themes, and the creation of protest music which drew from historical precedent while also creating new songs. The methodology of this study of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution lies is the use of newspaper reporting and online sources as primary source material. These sources include Egyptian newspapers such as Egypt Independent and Al Ahram, as well as scholarly websites like Jadaliyya, and also personal blogs. These accounts provide topical and up to the minute accounts of history as it unfolded. Primary source material is also drawn from oral interviews done during the summer of 2012 by the author and others in Egypt. The theoretical grounding lies in social movement theories that are centered on the Middle Eastern context in particular. Drawing from newspaper accounts and social movement theories this thesis is built around a notion of collective action expressed in unique ways in post-2011 Revolution Egypt. This thesis is also solidly grounded in the history of Egypt as relevant to each of the topics which it explores: combatting sexual harassment and the creation of graffiti and music. Relevant scholarly books help to inform the historical material presented here as context. This thesis is situated within the existing literature on the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and public history while also contributing something new to this area of study by examining the actions of ordinary men and women acting in public spaces in new ways during and after the Revolution. The existing literature on the 2011 Revolution generally neglects micro-level changes of the sort discussed in the topical areas to follow. The ordinary men and women who contributed to the Revolution are now part of the historical record, an example of the public making history par excellence.
ContributorsSchmidl, Hannah (Author) / El Hamel, Chouki (Thesis advisor) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Committee member) / Dallett, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This thesis is an ethnographic account of the religious practices of the Ammatoa, a Konjo-speaking community of approximately 4600 people living in the southeast uplands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It examines aspects of Ammatoan rituals, cosmology, culture, economy, and politics that, from their point of view, are also considered religious. For the purpose of this dissertation, I understand religion to be ways of relationship between human beings and their fellow humans: the living and the dead, other beings, such as animals, plants, forests, mountains, rivers, and invisible entities such as gods and spirits. This conception of religion provides a better framework for understanding Ammatoan religion because for them religion includes many aspects of everyday life. The Ammatoans divide their land into an inner and an outer territory. The former is the constrained domains for their indigenous religion and the latter is more open to interaction with the outside world. The politics of territorial division has enabled Ammatoans to preserve their indigenous religion and navigate pressures from outside powers (i.e., Islam and modernity). The politics is, in part, a religious manifestation of Ammatoan oral tradition, the Pasang ri Kajang, which is the authoritative reference for all elements of everyday life. By following the tenets of the Pasang, Ammatoans seek to lead a life of kamase-masea, a life of simplicity. I explore how Ammatoans apply, challenge, and manipulate their understandings of the Pasang. Ammatoans demonstrate their religiosity and commitment to the Pasang through participation in rituals. This dissertation explores the diversity of Ammatoan rituals, and examines the connections between these rituals and the values of the Pasang through an extended analysis of one particular large-scale ritual, akkatterek (haircut). This ritual serves to incorporate a child into the wider Ammatoan cosmos. I also explore the encounters between Ammatoan indigenous religion, Islam, and modernity. I argue that the local manifestation of the concepts of Islam and modernity have both influenced and been influenced by Ammatoan indigenous religion. I conclude that despite their conversion to Islam and the intrusion of modernity, Ammatoan indigenous religion persists, albeit as an element of a hybrid cultural complex.
ContributorsMaarif, Samsul (Author) / Duncan, Christopher (Thesis advisor) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Committee member) / Woodward, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis examines the advent of the Egyptian women's movement from the late nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century. Continuous negotiations for control between the secular and the religious institutions of Egypt led to the state's domination over the public jurisdiction and the Islamists maintaining a grip over the Egyptian private sphere, which includes family laws and matters of the home. The Egyptian women's movement contested and resisted against the secular nationalists (the state) and conservative Islamists for just and equal society in general, and political rights, and educational, marriage, and divorce reform specifically, which were assurances made to the women's movement by both. Groups formed within the movement joined together and converged to collaborate on key concerns that involved Egyptian women as a collective group such as education and political rights. Using the written works of scholars and leaders of these movements, this study investigates and observes the unique unity achieved through the diversity and disunity of the Egyptian women's movement; as well as explores the individual activism of significant leaders and pioneers of the movement in the midst of cultural encounters resulting from imperialism, political revolutions, and other major societal and political developments of nineteenth and twentieth century Egypt. It explores the ideas and actions of the Egyptian women as they emerged from a veil of silence which shadowed women's existence in Egypt's crucial years of nationalization eventually leading to a unique emergence of an incorporation of Islamism and feminism.
ContributorsJazzar, Ream (Author) / El Hamel, Chouki (Thesis advisor) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Committee member) / Stoner, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Scholars have identified the mass media plays a crucial role in the dissemination of terror messages. Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, much attention has been paid to terrorism in the global television landscape. More recently, the discourse surrounding acts of terror has changed, in part due to the people behind the attacks. This study seeks to understand how global television news broadcasts frame acts of terror based on two current threats: the individual terrorist (the Lone Wolf) and the organized group (the Islamic State). Using the theoretical framework of Entman’s framing theory and Altheide’s (1987) notion of a global drama, this research identifies the ways global news organizations frame acts of terror both visually and verbally based on the classification of the attacker. Using content analysis methodology, this study analyzed six terror attacks that took place between November, 2015 and December, 2016. Three of these attacks were classified as “Lone Wolves” and three were carried out by the terrorist organization called the Islamic State. This study looked at 562 stories on six global news channels and examined 9,479 images. Through a comparative analysis, three American and three International news channels were examined. It was discovered global news networks contain visual differences in framing, but similarities in verbal framing. Although it was expected to find vast differences in global news’ framing of acts of terror, this study finds a homogenization of the television news narrative following terrorist attacks. This study builds on existing research and suggests a global script for covering acts of terror that has several implications from a theoretical and practical standpoint. Findings indicate global coverage of Islamic State attacks employ and “Us vs. Them” frame, while Lone Wolf attacks are framed as “Us vs. Us”, a new frame presented in this study. The results advance the literature focused on framing theory, comparative journalism research and global television news coverage of terrorism. As terrorism has garnered extensive media attention, understanding the ways that global news frames terrorism has vast implications.
ContributorsGimbal, Ashley L (Author) / Silcock, Burton William (Thesis advisor) / Craft, John (Committee member) / Chadha, Monica (Committee member) / Doig, Steve (Committee member) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The unprecedented rise of terrorist network ISIL has brought the revolutionary Salafi agenda to the forefront of global politics. This thesis provides an analysis of the ideology and an overview of ISIL. The research is comprised of reports on the organization from prominent think-tanks, books analyzing the tenets and thinkers of Salafi radicalism and original source material confiscated from ISIL's predecessor al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). An international coalition is posited as a solution to the threat as well as the Middle Eastern terrorist threat more broadly. However, the likelihood of such international cooperation is minimal, and the commitment it would require may make it unfeasible.
ContributorsSims, Alyssa Gabrielle (Author) / Simon, Sheldon (Thesis director) / Ripley, Charles (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Within sixty years, the People’s Republic of China has risen from a struggling post-civil war state to the second largest economy in the world, comprising of 16.71 percent of the global economy as of 2015. While China has grown, its presence internationally has grown as well—China has utilized its capital to foment important relationships and foster soft power dynamics, making billions available in development aid and investment projects across the globe, most notably in Africa and Latin America, where Chinese goods have begun to dominate the markets there as they have in American counterparts. However, within Latin America China has been investing in countries that are traditionally seen as “risky” financial investments. This paper hypothesizes that the returns on Chinese investments in Latin America are not financial, but political—that China is investing in expansion of its soft-power and legitimizing its beginnings of global hegemony. The paper also explores the success of these initiatives by comparing the level of Chinese investment to changes in Latin American foreign policy alignment, discourse, and agreements through utilizing case studies of Venezuela and Bolivia.
ContributorsHochhaus, Natalie (Co-author) / Yan, Jaylia (Co-author) / Thomson, Henry (Thesis director) / Ripley, Charles (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05