Walking on the Jordan Trail: A cultural politics of Jordan

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My doctoral research makes a substantial contribution to political geography, cultural geography and Middle Eastern studies by bringing together cultural and political geographical work on place and movement, which have traditionally been disparate. My thesis contrasted political geographical research focused on state controlled movement, borders, and territory with cultural geographical research that engages with practices of movement, such as walking, and everyday and lived engagements with place. This pairing of sub-disciplines created new ways to study the Middle East conceptually and methodologically, by focusing on lived experiences and everyday practices. My PhD examiners noted the 'originality of contribution fusing thematic concerns from political and cultural geography' and the novelty of 'pairing sub-disciplinary traditions'. To do this, my thesis engaged with a long-distance walking trail in Jordan, the Jordan Trail. The Jordan Trail runs the length of Jordan and is a tourism product, a cultural practice, but also a nation-building tool. My research asks important questions about how cultural heritage and tourism practices can engage better with everyday sites and how intangible aspects of heritage such as movement can be captured. I argued that most studies of the Middle East focus on the state scale of analysis or else focus solely on migration, conflict or refugees. My research highlights the need to explore everyday cultural practices in order to understand how everyday identities and relationships with place in areas of conflict, such as Jordan, are being shaped by these broader geopolitical questions. Urgent questions regarding the need to explore the interactions between political decisions concerning the state, identity borders, and colonial practices, and cultural practices relating to movement and place were explored through my research.My research intervenes in a series of timely debates around the impacts of geopolitical events on everyday spaces in the Middle East (see Fregonese, 2019; Joronen and Griffiths, 2019; Culcasi, 2016; Ramadan, 2013). The Jordan Trail offers an important site to explore such questions as a cultural heritage project aimed at both Jordanians and tourists. Jordan's economy is largely dependent on tourism, as such the examination of projects related to tourism is important (Buda, 2016). Tourism is one of Jordan's largest employers and sources of economic income. However, since the outbreak of the Syrian War tourist numbers visiting Jordan have declined by 40% (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2018). My research addresses these key relationships between tourism, cultural heritage and conflict by exploring how political decisions alter them and how cultural heritage practices are used to create certain ideas about identity and citizenship within times of conflict. The relationship between culture and politics in the Middle East is a key contribution my thesis makes to academic debates. The opportunity to disseminate my PhD research findings to groups in Jordan as well as academic audiences will enable me to develop the next stage of my academic career in two important ways: firstly, the dissemination of my research back to the communities I worked with during my PhD will allow me to maintain these relationships, which secondly, will ensure the foundations for a new research project. The new project will build on and develop work from my PhD thesis, by expanding its geographical scope and moving to a new focus on indigeneity and displacement. My research plans aim towards making three key contributions to the literature and policy: 1) fusing together cultural and political geography and Middle Eastern studies; 2) altering the sites and scales through which the Middle East is studied; 3) generating important policy implications for how state level decisions around tourism and displacement impact the lived experiences of citizens in areas of conflict.