Britain, the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood: Where "east" meets "west"

该奖学金项目将研究1928年（穆斯林兄弟会诞生之日）至21世纪之交，英国、美国和穆斯林兄弟会之间的历史关系。它还将调查穆兄会意识形态的特点和演变。这个项目有可能改变目前学术界对穆斯林兄弟会的理解。一个关键的论点是，在更广泛的中东地区，与霸权帝国和“新帝国”大国英国和美国的交锋，对穆兄会的形成和发展至关重要，尤其是在意识形态上。因此，该项目将为这场运动提供一个全新的视角，将其视为政治文化“中间”的产物，正是在“西方”和“东方”的交叉点上出现的。在现有的关于穆兄会的文献中，意识形态的问题常常被低估；穆兄会的世界观通常被描述为本质化的，缺乏细微差别（作为伊斯兰宗教的内生产物）。认识到这一点，该项目将寻求提供对穆斯林兄弟会更为全面的理解——尤其是它与它所理解的“西方”的关系。同样，该项目将试图了解英国和美国的外交政策制定者如何理解穆兄会和更广泛的政治伊斯兰/伊斯兰主义现象。分析这种经常被忽视的关系，可以显著增强我们对英美与中东接触的看法；它也是最近事态发展的关键背景。通过这种方式，该奖学金将成为一个与更广泛的非学术受众接触的平台，为有关穆兄会的性质以及西方国家应如何应对穆兄会在“阿拉伯之春”后上台的问题的现代辩论注入历史视角。评论员和实践者都面临着如何在“西方”和非暴力伊斯兰主义之间建立适当关系的挑战。然而，很少考虑历史背景和经验；本项目将力求将这场辩论历史化。为此，我将在学习期间运用一系列的研究方法。这将包括传统的基于实证档案的研究，在美国、英国、以色列和埃及的收藏和学术网络中进行比较，跨国设置。与此同时，我将使用口述历史技术采访一系列人物，包括穆兄会内部人士和外交政策制定界人士。通过这种方法，研究金将用于创作一系列重要的新作品，这些作品将在学术界和非学术界都产生重大影响。

The fellowship project will examine the historical relationship between the UK, the US and the Muslim Brotherhood between 1928 (the birth of the Brotherhood) and the turn of the twenty-first century. It will also investigate the character and evolution of the Brotherhood's ideology. This project has the potential to transform current academic understandings of the Muslim Brotherhood. A key contention is that encounters with Britain and the United States, the hegemonic imperial and "neo-imperial" powers in the broader Middle East region, proved crucial to the formation and development of the Brotherhood, especially ideologically.The project will thus offer a fresh perspective on the movement, seeing it as a product of politico-cultural "in-betweenness", which emerged precisely at the points of intersection between "west" and "east". Too often, the question of ideology has been underplayed in the existing literature on the Brotherhood; the worldview of the Brotherhood has usually been described in essentialised fashion, lacking in nuance (as an endogenous outgrowth of the Islamic religion). In recognition of this, this project will seek to provide a vastly more comprehensive understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood - and in particular, its relationship with what it has understood as "the west". Equally, the project will seek to understand how British and American foreign-policy makers have understood the Brotherhood and the broader phenomenon of political Islam/Islamism. Analysis of this often-neglected relationship can significantly enhance our view of Anglo-American engagement with the Middle East; it also serves as a crucial backdrop to recent developments. In this way, the fellowship will serve as a platform for engagement with a broader, non-academic audience, injecting a historic perspective into modern debates about both the character of the Brotherhood and the question of how western states should respond to its post-"Arab Spring" rise to power. Commentators and practitioners alike have been faced with the challenge of how to construct an appropriate relationship between "the west" and non-violent Islamism. Yet, there has been little consideration of the historical context and experience; this project will seek to historicise precisely that debate.To these ends, I will utilise a range of research methods during the fellowship. This will include traditional empirical archive-based research, conducted in a comparative, transnational setting, across US, UK, Israeli and Egyptian collections and scholarly networks. At the same time, I will use oral history techniques to interview a range of figures, both from within the Brotherhood and from within the foreign-policy making world. Through such an approach, the fellowship will be used to produce a major new set of works that will have a significant impact in both the academic and non-academic world alike.