Research & Publications

Only a few years back, the idea of an independent Kurdistan bordering Turkey would have had Ankara up in arms. Not anymore. Past tensions have been supplanted by a new energy partnership and Turkey seems far less worried about the prospect of an independent Kurdistan. In May 2012, Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cut a deal to build one gas and two oil pipelines directly from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to Turkey without the approval of Baghdad, taking the rapprochement started between the two in 2009 one step further.

Since the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power in 2002, Turkey has cultivated close ties with Syria, Iran, and Iraq; engaged in mediation efforts in regional conflicts; forged strategic relationships with regional actors; assumed a leadership position in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC); and become involved in other multilateral regional platforms. This new activism has been accompanied by a change in Arab perceptions of the Ottoman past and of Turkey.

This essay focuses on the creative practices of artists who live and work in the Arab diaspora of London. The author explores the diversity of their practices, referring to specific examples of their work and the differing ways in which they reconfigure, image, and negotiate their multiple positionings as Arab women and artists working across at least two cultures, while refusing to be defined by race or gender.

Currently in the Middle East, analysts use women’s attainments in the economic, political, and educational spheres to measures female equality. This article argues that women’s participation in the cultural field has begun to gain recognition as an important barometer of female empowerment.