Introduction: Sami Zubaida, modernity, politics and a social Middle East

• Published in: Economy and Society
• Main Author: Styan, David
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Taylor and Francis 2012
• Subjects: Politics; sami
• Online Access: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/8684/; https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2012.744243

This special section of Economy and Society is a tribute to Sami Zubaida. He was one of the journal's original founders and has been its longest serving editorial board member. As with several other intellectual ventures whose birth he has assisted, E&S would not have evolved in its current form without his calm, persistently critical presence. The feature comprises five papers written by colleagues honouring his influence; all but one are edited versions of texts first presented at a conference convened jointly by Economy and Society and Birkbeck College in December 2010. This sought to evaluate and celebrate his work in equal measure. The conference brought together scholars, critics, friends and students, with many in the audience having embraced each of these relationships across the decades. The papers and debates of that winter day partially traced the impact of this work on the study of political sociology, above all in the study of the societies and states of the Middle East. Each paper presented here engages with an aspect of social and political change in that much misunderstood region, illustrating intellectual and political legacies that Sami's substantial body of work continues to provide. The tributes are complemented by a new text from Sami himself, situating the tumultuous events of 2011–2012 in Arab states within his longer-term analytical framework. This introduction presents each of the papers, noting their context relative to themes from Sami's biography and major works. It then draws attention to other key aspects of Sami's oeuvre, several of which were centre-stage in the conference debates, but which - due to the vagaries of academic deadlines and editorial commitments - are absent from this collection. The most obvious omission from this intellectual menu is his erudition and works on the history and cultures of food.