Cities are not passive spaces, they are an active space through which people create and contest identities, form community, and impose/reject social orders and hierarchies. Cities thus actively contribute to the formation of identities. An important dimension of urban identity is the relationship to national space. Jordan is often dismissed as a modern construct without natural borders that would not have become a nation without western interference. However, since the first King of Jordan rose to the throne, the government has sought to create a group identity of Jordanian people loyal to the Hashemites. Jordan is a complicated space in which to attempt to create a unified imagined community, as so many people have come to Jordan as refugees with their own pre-existing national imaginaries. My research delves into this complexity by examining the role of nationalism in belonging in Amman.
Indeed, my study of urban youth challenges western scholars who emphasize a primary role of the nation-state in determining how young people think of themselves in the context of their feeling of citizenship and belonging. Neither of the two leading schools of nationalist thought: (1) the primordial approach which views the nation as an unchangeable group of people based on shared linguistic, cultural, and historical legacies; nor the (2) modernist approach which focuses on the nation-state as a primary unifying source of identity with shared citizenship rights and responsibilities, effectively addresses how nationalism unfolded in the MENA. The abrupt disbanding of the Ottoman Empire
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and the formation of heterogeneous nations into new nation-states designed by the European imperial powers simply require different perspectives than the concept of shared ancient roots which generate a bottom up formation of a national identity.
Likewise, the approach of modernists who envision a contract between the state and the nation which encompasses a negotiated identity is ill-suited to the imposed states and rulers who suffered challenges to their legitimacy. Colonial powers actively worked to implant national identities, which were only partially founded on history. They also created borders incongruent with linguistic or ethnic divisions. Anderson’s discursive analysis of the imagined community is rooted in South East Asia, and has less
applicability with regard to nationalist movements of the MENA, which feature simultaneously layered and often contradictory identities. Another striking feature of nationalism elided by the focus on the culturally negotiated nature of national identity is the emergence of powerful dictators whose imprints on national personalities are difficult to comprehend fully with the scant attention that modernist theory pays to the role of the state. Several scholars who focus on the region identify weaknesses of traditional
nationalism literature and propose alternative approaches.
I will briefly outline the leading theories of nationalism in Middle East Studies before returning to the urban citizenship approaches. In Jankowski’s anthology, the authors seek to frame Middle Eastern nationalism as more than simple reactions to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, or the diffusion of the global new order instead of looking at the internal drives to modernize and claim new identities and the psychological
motivations of locals (Jankowski, 1997). The authors in this anthology argue that a grand theory of Middle Eastern Nationalism is elusive precisely because each nation reacted
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differently to the process. They conclude the strength of “invented nations” can be traced to the historical roots of shared identities, and they argue that identities are still fluid and contested.
Khalidi’s anthology encapsulates both the diverse reasons for and reactions to nationalism in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. This collection moves away from the narrative of the Arab Awakening as a uniform event by studying Arab nationalism at local levels. Analysis of the political use of Arab nationalism in the Hijaz, where the Arab Revolt began, demonstrates that original reasons for revolt were more religious than nationalist. These authors argue that local motivations were based primarily on resistance to Ottoman secularization, a sentiment epitomized by a local newspaper slogan popular on the eve on the Arab Revolt, “love of country is part of faith” (Khalidi, 1991, 197). They also highlight a division between urban towns-people who were more content to be part of the Ottoman Empire and nomadic people who were focused on religious
autonomy. In a bid to establish familial monarchies, the Hashemites entered into
agreements with the colonial powers in political calculations which reflected nationalism as a tool and not the goal. Both of these anthologies call us to complicate Middle Eastern nationalism by examining multiple scales, motivations, and identities which provide better analysis than either classic approach for Middle Eastern nationalism. These more nuanced approaches to Middle Eastern nationalism align well with the critical approaches offered by the urban citizenship literature, to which I now return.
As discussed previously in the literature review, the critical geopolitical approach interrogates how cultural processes and state power combine to create meanings about place and belonging (Agnew 1994; Rose 2007). Contemporary state efforts to foster
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national identity in Jordan are complicated by the extra-national status imposed upon most urban residents in Amman. Yet, critical citizenship scholars applying an urban framing allow us to understand how residents of a city experience their national and local identities. Holston’s work in Brazil illuminates how urban residents resist social
hierarchies by constructing their homes as spaces of belonging within the city and the nation. In contrast, Ammanis claim belonging by situating their identities outside of the city (Holtson, 2008). Thus, building physical structures and laying claim to urban infrastructure does not necessarily help Ammani youth to advance in the social layers of Jordanian society (or even of Amman itself). Holston’s notion of insurgent citizenship, in its focus on the oppressed urban citizen who must fight for equal legal rights, likewise does not apply directly to the case of Jordan.
Lacking a recent native population with greater intrinsic urban citizenship, the entire city is placed relatively low on a national hierarchy. Within the city a single oppressed minority group is harder to identify due to the multitude of migrants and diverse groups who live in the city. Access to the city and better developed infrastructure is instead determined by economics. Young people are ascribed with identities which inform how they think about themselves, with national identities often occupying a supporting role, while other affiliations are foregrounded. My ethnographic interviews with Ammani youth reveal nuanced attachments to people and places based on shared geographies, to identity concepts from a complex history of migrations, and to senses of belonging at a variety of scales which challenge the importance of nationally bonded identities.
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applies not just to Nayef, but to the majority of Ammanis who are born in Amman and are both Jordanian, and yet not fully Jordanian at the same time. To understand this seeming contradiction which is lived by Ammani youth in hundreds of tiny ways throughout their daily lives, we need to understand how the entire city of Amman is situated along an imagined continuum of Jordanian-ness as less Jordanian than tribal areas. When I asked respondents to describe Amman many explained that Amman was not Jordanian or detailed how certain parts of Amman are not Jordanian. There answers were often in direct contradiction with one another, and which parts of the city are labeled as more or less Jordanian are based on individual perceptions and are not
universally felt the same way. I expand upon this concept more fully in Chapter 8 as part of my discussion of how some youth are attempting to embrace their Ammani roots.
After asking about the city, I asked how they think of themselves in the city. Some of their answers reveal both the situated and sometimes paradoxical identity of Amman and the city’s residents. This is exemplified by 26-year-old Sanaa’ who stated, “Abdounis (a wealthy area of West Amman) are not Jordanian, they are mainly from the Gulf and they are joked about in the rest of Jordan since they are all about money and can’t do anything for themselves.” Sanaa’ works as an Arabic teacher for English speakers and spends most of her work day in West Amman. Yet, despite proposing that we conduct our interview in a coffee shop in Abdoun, she later shared that she is uncomfortable spending time there outside of work and looked forward to returning to her own neighborhood after we finished our interview. Coming from a tribe she has wasta (cultural connections which afford privileges) but prefers to limit her time in the wealthy parts of Amman which make her feel like an outsider.
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Meanwhile, an upper-class woman I met at book club took virtually the opposite perspective as Sanaa.’ Sitting in a sushi restaurant decorated with elaborate origami swans hanging like chandeliers at the top of one of the city’s most expensive hotels 28- year-old Shereen shared, “Segregation by gender is not Jordanian- my people are Bedouin and we don’t do that. They do that in East Amman and that isn’t Jordanian.” During our interview Shereen lamented that life used to be simpler, that when her mother and grandmother were living in the village they were never segregated by gender. She expressed frustration that although she and her sister have relative financial freedom that they are constrained by social norms which didn’t exist for previous generations in her family who didn’t live in the city. Being in the city therefore both offers additional access to spaces like this exclusive sushi restaurant and also imposes limits due to her gender. While she can claim urban citizenship in places like the book club and high-end restaurants, further opportunities for such claims would be limited in other parts of the city.
Sitting in a humble home in East Amman, which served as my interview site for the entire neighborhood and was facilitated by my affiliation with Hamzet Wasel, I settled into a pristinely clean room adjacent to a small and basic kitchen. The doorway to the small home was decorated with twinkly lights and although the furniture was built of solid wood, the fabric was faded and worn. Treating the home as though it was her own, 22-year-old Ayat entered without knocking and when I asked her to tell me about herself, she also referenced arriving to the city from elsewhere by explaining, “I am part Ammani but not Jordanian, since I am mixed and part of me is Palestinian.”
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as a way of understanding feelings of belonging to two cultures. Bhabha proposes
hybridity is an empowering way people being colonized adopt elements of the colonizers, particularly language, to subvert their complete “othering” (Bhabha, 1994). Critics of Bhabha’s hybridity have argued that it does not consider how the violence perpetrated by colonizers motivates these acts (Acheraiou, 2011). Despite the criticism of hybridity, it is still being discussed by scholars as a way of understanding the impacts of cultural
globalization on identity formation (Kraidy, 2005). Given the close proximity and mutual linguistic and cultural norms shared between Palestinians and Jordanians applying
hybridity in Bhabha’s empowering post-colonial approach doesn’t offer much analytical benefit. Likewise, hybridity as an impact of globalization on these two identities fails to offer valuable insights since the cultural bonds in the Levant are of a regional nature and not a global nature. Still, the feeling of being partially from two cultures was raised again in multiple interviews and understanding the broader concept of hybridity, despite the criticisms of it enhances my application of situated citizenship which allows Ammanis to identify themselves and to be identified by multiple cultures simultaneously within the scale of the city. I explore this more in chapter 6 when discussing the term “Urdastini.”
This sentiment was shared again in the same home about an hour later when an aspiring pastry chef and I were sharing tea and sweets he baked and brought to the interview in the same modest home. 19-year-old Sa’eed described himself by saying, “I have a Jordanian heart whose beats are Palestinian.” Sa’eed explained that since he has never been to Palestine his heart is Jordanian, but that he has learned about his homeland from his family and lives feeling this connection to this homeland he hopes to someday see. Later, Sa’eed called me to share the happy news that he had been hired as an
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apprentice in a pastry shop. When I went to the shop to visit him, he was delighted to show off his chef’s hat and told me that he was planning to open a bakery in his neighborhood after he learned and saved enough from his current job.
After Sa’eed left, another young woman, 20-year-old Rafara, entered and gave the woman I had begun to think of as the neighborhood mom an update on her day before sitting down for our interview. Compellingly she described explained herself as, “Not Jordanian enough to work for the Government of Jordan.” Just like Ayat and Sa’eed Rafara was born in Jordan but has Palestinian roots and she is expressing that her lack of Jordanian wasta and her heritage would prevent her from working for the public sector. Although she said she dreams of being a policewoman, she feels excluded from pursuing this dream since she is Jordanian, but not ‘Jordanian’ enough since her paternal roots are not Jordanian-Jordanian. Her situated citizenship limits her career goals due to social practices.
Yazan, a 31-year-old became a key respondent almost immediately after our initial interview. Before leaving our first interview Yazan opened his contact list and sent five texts to his closest friends asking them to consider meeting with me since it would be a rare opportunity to have someone listen to them. He went further and said that I am non-threatening and funny so they would enjoy their time with me. His texts led to four additional interviews, exposure to the LGBTQ activist community in Amman, and an elder generation interview with his parents in his own home once my youth interviews were complete. Additionally, when his artwork was being debuted at an exhibit shortly before I left, I was honored to receive an invitation and to go support his work at opening night. Yazan tied his own identity directly to what he sees as Amman’s struggle with
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identity by saying, “The older generation doesn’t think Amman is Jordanian, but this generation thinks parts of it are Jordanian.”
Since his paternal roots are Jordanian, he doesn’t personally feel the impacts of being considered not Jordanian enough like Rafara. However, he explained that he has many friends who his parents and grandparents don’t consider Jordanian, and indeed his Mother is Palestinian-Jordanian, and it bothers him that she is not considered Jordanian. The generational movement is not monolithic however as some young people including 23-year-old Shireen differ from Yazan when stating, “Amman is not Jordanian.”
Shireen and I met near the University of Jordan where she explained that although Jordan’s top universities are in the city and that she lives in the city, she is Jordanian, and Amman is not Jordanian. For Shireen, Jordan’s best houses of education can be situated in Amman but simply being in Amman excludes them from belonging to Jordan’s true national character. Moussa, 32 compared himself to his mother by stating, “My Mom considers herself more Jordanian than Ammani, but I am more Ammani than Jordanian.” I met Moussa through an interview connection I made through Yazan. As an activist with the LGBTQ community in Amman, Moussa explained that he couldn’t be himself or do the work that he does in other parts of the country. We met at a café on Rainbow Street which prominently displays that is it a safe zone for people of all sexual preferences on a sign near the front door. While his mother supports him and his lifestyle, he feels that other Jordanians outside of the city would dismiss him as too Ammani and he prefers that label over being too Jordanian. For Moussa being too Jordanian represents conservative values which would not welcome him. But he is able to leverage the city to claim belonging among people who are framed as minorities.
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Critically this case study diverges from the rest of the critical citizenship literature since Palestinian-Jordanians comprise the majority of Ammani residents and therefore are not the primary minorities who are the central focus of most critical citizenship
scholarship. Instead of focusing on just Palestinian-Jordanians, this study examines how Ammanis must define themselves by other locations to be situated in the national discourse of belonging.
Since belonging to the city situates one’s citizenship as less Jordanian than if one is from the rural areas, the social hierarchy privileges group belonging beginning with tribal Jordanians followed by other classifications of social and economic capital. Therefore, a wealthy Iraqi can belong to Amman since their wealth situates them as non- threatening to the delicate balance in the national population. Likewise, educated
Lebanese can belong to Amman as their social capital situates them as having something to offer without challenging the status quos. Thus, Nayef’s seeming contradiction reveals the larger dilemma which inspires so many Jordanians like Ghaida, 24 to declare, “No one is from Amman- we are all from somewhere else.”
By the time I entered my third-year in Amman my dialect was improving to the point that when people asked me where I was from, I felt comfortable using my
knowledge of situated citizenship in Amman to make a statement ensured to start a deeper conversation than if I simply answered that I am American. My go-to
conversation starter was, I am originally from Salt and I cook mansef35 better than your Mom!” This statement showed that I not only understood the importance of belonging to somewhere other than Amman, but that I could identify important tribal centers and could