Deconstructing the Sykes-Picot Myth: Frontiers, Boundaries, Borders and the Evolution of Ottoman Territoriality (original) (raw)
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The Sykes-Picot metaphor has incrementally become firmly associated with almost all the geopolitical predicaments the Middle Eastern states had to face. Added to this, increasing challenges to the established territorial order of the Middle Eastern countries combined with the complicated structure of the Syrian civil war have once again centered the Sykes-Picot narrative on the academic and popular discussions about the future of the Middle Eastern order. However, despite a recently emerged trend attempting to unclose the historical continuity of the interplay between local, regional and international factors, they neither provide deeper insights about the historical interplay between different factors nor bring new analytical assessments. Departing from this lacuna in the literature, this study attempts to find answers to the following main research questions: How did the interplay of the array of domestic, regional, and international factors laid the groundwork for the formation of the Sykes-Picot territorial order? What are the types of borders and how can they be theoretically categorized for being used as an analytical tool? How was the administrative structure and divisions of the regions before the Sykes-Picot agreement and to which border categorizations do these structures correspond? Drawing largely on the existing theoretical assumptions of border studies, this study attempts to apply a three-tracked typology of borders (fronties, boundaries, borders) to the historical interplay between local, regional and international factors during the process of the formation of modern Middle Eastern borders. Arguing that the Sykes-Picot agreement constitutes only one of the aspects of the Middle Eastern border formation, this study concludes that there is a historical linkage between the evolution of the Ottoman domestic territorial administrative system with the adjustments of the subsequent regional and international developments regarding the formation of the Middle Eastern borders.
History Compass, 2015
This is the first of two connected articles examining the evolution of historical scholarship on borderlands within the field of Middle East studies. In both articles, I pay particular attention to how historians have addressed the relationship between borderland identities and modern territorializing empires and nation-states. I argue throughout both that analyzing what I call the "lived experience of territoriality" in border-land regions ought to take precedence over approaches that presume the ultimate imposition of fixed nation-state boundaries by the mid-20th century. The adoption of borderlands as an analytical category along these lines presents an exciting opportunity for future research in modern Middle Eastern history precisely for its malleability. Historians who take a conceptually nuanced approach to borderlands and relate their work to new scholarship on territoriality will be able to explore a range of ways to understand local as well as state experiences and practices of power and politics, sovereignty and authority, and identity and belonging. In Part I, I begin by providing a general overview of key terminology that is prevalent across interdisciplinary scholarship on borderlands, before laying out my own framework for conceptualizing the relationship between borderland identities and modern discourses and practices of territoriality. I end this first installment by tracing the emergence of scholarship on Middle East borderlands within Ottoman historiography, focusing on one key work that pointed in important new directions for historians seeking to examine social and political life in the margins of modern Middle Eastern empires and nation-states.
History Compass, 2015
This is the second of two connected articles examining the evolution of historical scholarship on border-lands within the field of Middle East studies. In both articles, I pay particular attention to how historians have addressed the relationship between borderland identities and modern territorializing empires and nation-states. I argue throughout both parts that analyzing what I call the "lived experience of territori-ality" in borderland regions ought to take precedence over approaches that presume the ultimate imposition of fixed nation-state boundaries by the mid-twentieth century. The adoption of borderlands as an analytical category along these lines presents an exciting opportunity for future research in modern Middle Eastern history precisely for its malleability. Historians who take a conceptually nuanced approach to borderlands and relate their work to new scholarship on territoriality will be able to explore a range of ways to understand local as well as state experiences and practices of power and politics; sovereignty and authority; and identity and belonging. In Part I, I focused primarily on laying out a framework for conceptualizing the relationship between borderland identities and the lived experience of modern territori-ality. In Part II, I push this framework further by surveying two large themes that have defined the work of Middle East borderland historians over the last two decades-critical cartography and the visual representation of borderland identities and borderlands as sites of contestation and negotiation. In the final section , I sketch out some possibilities for future research, drawing largely on new scholarship from within Middle East studies.
Middle Eastern Studies, 2018
This article proposes to re-examine the Turkish–Iraqi Frontier dispute by observing the strategies and attitudes of local populations, in particular in the border areas, between 1918 and 1925, a time when the region became a battleground of British and Turkish agents seeking to secure the loyalties of the local community leaders. The latter played a relevant role in two fundamental and complementary ways. First, by playing different sides, local leaders helped to inform the discourse that served to justify the opposing claims over Mosul province. Second, borderlanders pushed British and Turkish authorities to come to the conclusion that an international agreement was the best solution for both countries. I argue the socio-historical process that led Turkey and Great Britain to accept the Brussels line cannot be fully apprehended without taking into account local players and their interactions with a variety of both state and non-state actors.
Borders, Boundaries and Belonging in Post-Ottoman Space in the Interwar Period (Leiden: Brill, 2023)
Borders, Boundaries and Belonging in Post-Ottoman Space in the Interwar Period, 2023
Focusing on new nation states and mandates in post-Ottoman territories, Borders, Boundaries and Belonging in Post-Ottoman Space in the Interwar Period examines how people negotiated, imagined or ignored new state borders and how they conceived of or constructed belonging. Through investigations of border crossing, population transfer, exile and emigration, this book explores the intricacies of survival within and beyond newly imposed state borders, the exploitation of opportunities and the human cost of political partition. Contributors are Toufoul Abou-Hodeib, Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular, Amit Bein, Ebru Boyar, Kate Fleet, Onur İşçi, Liat Kozma, Brian McLaren, Nikola Minov, Eli Osheroff, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan, Michael Provence, Jordi Tejel and Peter Wien.