SOAS Middle East Institute

The coming global food crisis | Op-ed by SOAS MEI Director Adam Hanieh for the Financial Times.

The coming global food crisis Hunger and even famine are foreseeable consequences of the war on Iran. Now the world must act to shield the poorest from effects that will continue long after the fighting stops

This panel discussion at SOAS on 11th May brings together Syrian initiatives engaged in different forms of archival practice, from documenting prison histories to tracing the afterlives of violence, as well as preserving agricultural and environmental knowledge and the lived realities of displacement.

Archiving the Future: Syrian Archival Activism in Times of Displacement This public event brings together Syrian initiatives engaged in different forms of archival practice.

SOAS Middle East Institute Director Adam Hanieh was interviewed by The New York Review of Books:

A Widening Gulf | Adam Hanieh, Nawal Arjini “It would be a mistake to treat the Gulf as politically homogeneous. The war has clearly shown the weight of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but it has not eliminated the different calculations of other Gulf states.”

If oil price shocks weren’t bad enough, Trump’s war could have other unintended consequences | Op-ed by Adam Hanieh, Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute, for The Guardian

If oil price shocks weren’t bad enough, Trump’s war could have other unintended consequences | Adam Hanieh China consumes around 90% of Iran’s oil exports, so could be forced to rely on alternative suppliers – particularly Russia, says Adam Hanieh of the Soas Middle East Institute

SMEI Research Fellow Maria Gloria Polimeno spoke to France 24 about the inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum GEM and the structural, political-economic meaning for Al-Sisi's regime.

Grand Egyptian Museum: challenges for world’s largest museum dedicated to a single civilization Egypt was inaugurating the long-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) on Saturday, the world’s largest museum dedicated to its ancient civilization. World lead...

The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective (2025, Saqi Books) | Book Launch at SOAS

The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective | Book Launch at SOAS From a foremost expert on the Middle East, The Gaza Catastrophe is a searing indictment of the forces that led to the genocidal war on Gaza and its reverbera...

📢 Submissions are OPEN for our conference: War, Empire and Sabotage in an Age of Genocide

📅 23-25 June 2026

📍SOAS University of London

Co-hosted with the SOAS Middle East Institute

Call for papers: https://shorturl.at/Bnm0N

Please share widely!

SOAS is pleased to announce Adam Hanieh, Professor of Political Economy and Global Development, as the new Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute.

Professor Hanieh will be in post from February 2026.

SOAS Middle East Institute names new Director Adam Hanieh - Professor of Political Economy and Global Development, has been announced as the new Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute (SMEI).

Reframing Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

Dina Matar (Anthology Editor)
Publisher: I.B. Tauris /Bloomsbury (2025)

A decade on from the Arab uprisings, debates continue to reiterate exceptionalist discourses about the region and its peoples which tend to deny individual agency. They also neglect long collective histories of mediated political cultures that have emerged within colonial and post-colonial structures and outside peripheries of formal power and politics.

Further information: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/reframing-political-communication-and-media-practices-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-9780755653812/

This publication is part of the book series on Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa.

Egypt's growing Civic Participation: Navigating Reform, Sustainability, and Political Legitimacy | By Maria Gloria Polimeno for Arab Barometer

Part 1: The Authoritarian Impact: Does Political Mitigation Really Matter to Egyptians?

The Authoritarian Impact: Does Political Mitigation Really Matter to Egyptians? – Arab Barometer Arab Pulse Blog Posts The Authoritarian Impact: Does Political Mitigation Really Matter to Egyptians? January 17, 2025By Dr. Maria Gloria Polimeno Since Egypt promoted sustainable development and industrialization as part of the 2030 Agenda and combined this vision with the ambitious plan for megapr...