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This article presents a scoping and conceptual literature review on environmental politics in North and East Syria/Rojava. Publication written by Pinar Dinc, Maria Andrea Nardi, Mo Hamza.External link to publication.ABSTRACTThis article presents a scoping and conceptual literature review on environmental politics in North and East Syria/Rojava. The review aims to synthesize existing academic resea
How citizen engagement and satellite data are helping researchers understand wildfires in the Middle East. Q&A with Lina Eklund, Researcher at CMES.Q: What is a Mapathon?A Mapathon is an event where participants gather to map a specific topic. Sometimes it’s used to chart disaster-hit areas, such as floods or earthquakes. In other cases, it helps generate data for research projects. Q: How did the
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/mapping-fires - 2025-12-17
CMES researcher Adam Almqvist, has recently published an article in The Journal of Comparative Politics. Read the full article here. External link.AbstractAutocracies have increasingly begun to clothe themselves in the guise of hybrid, semi-official institutions that exhibit a degree of autonomy from the state, such as Government-Organized NGOs (GONGOs), “zombie” election observers, regime-run thi
Yesterday afternoon, CMES researcher PhD candidate Joel W. Abdelmoez marked a major milestone in his academic journey by performing the traditional ritual known as "spikning"—the nailing of a dissertation. The ceremony takes place on the ground floor of Eden, and colleagues and friends gathered to witness the event. Following the ceremony, guests enjoy refreshments in the Political Science departm
On November 20, the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at Lund University hosted a highly topical seminar titled “It’s Time to Think About the Future of Palestine-Israel.” The event brought together over 50 participants and featured two distinguished speakers: Professor Haim Yacobi and Dr Rami Nasrallah, from University College London. “We are living in very challenging times, but t
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-seminar-explores-shared-homeland-paradigm-palestine-israel - 2025-12-17
CMES is proud to announce that CMES researcher, Rami Zalfou, PhD Candidate in Economic History, has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at Lund University. The defense took place on December 1, 2025.Rami’s dissertation, titled:Borders and Pathways. Essays on Syrian Economic Development and Migrant Integration, explores economic development patterns, conflict, and demographic changes in
The ECO-Syria research team at the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), Lund University, held its second and final workshop on 15–16 September 2025.Titled “ECO-Syria: Exploring Conflict–Environment Interactions for Sustainable Development and Conservation,” the event was part of the ECO-Syria research project funded by the Strategic Research Area Middle East in the Contemporary World
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/eco-syria-workshop-report-now-available-arabic-and-kurdish - 2025-12-17
New article from CMES. Title: Improving the performance of daily pan evaporation (Evp) prediction using the ensemble empirical mode decomposition combined with deep learning modelsRead the article here (external link)AbstractThis study presents a novel approach for the prediction of daily pan evaporation (Evp) based on identifying an optimal combination of model inputs. The Kardeh Dam catchment ar
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/improving-performance-daily-pan-evaporation-evp-prediction - 2025-12-17
Yemen is home to religious and sectarian minorities who represent about 0.5% of the total population. In addition to Muslims, there is a minority of Jews, who’s presence has drastically shrunk over the years due to the multiple violations and displacement they were subjected to. Yemen also has a Bahai minority, who are currently estimated to number around 2,000 individuals. They also have been sub
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/book-minorities-yemen-reality-and-challenges - 2025-12-17
Middle Eastern research news from Lund University. Words from the director: The covid-19 will transform the ways we work and socialize in a manner we can still not oversee. Already now most research and higher teaching are done by distance mode. Even so, many of the planned research activities and meetings during the spring have had to be cancelled or postponed. Also, the Middle East is preparing
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-9-march-2020 - 2025-12-17
CyberOrient welcomes Anders Ackfeldt at Lund University in Sweden as a new Managing Editor along with Vit Sisler at Charles University. An expanded CyberOrient, an official open-access journal of the American Anthropological Association, is now up and ready for surfing. The renewed website, cyberorient.net, now has archived all past articles in PDF. CyberOrient is devoted to research on the impact
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-anders-ackfeldt-new-editor-journal-cyberorient - 2025-12-17
In January-February 2020, three researchers affiliated with CMES travelled to Khartoum, Sudan for the official kick-off seminar and workshop of a 3-year project that is funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR), FORMAS and SIDA and entitled: "Resilience in Urban Sudan (RUS): An Interdisciplinary Spatial and Temporal Study of Social Cohesion and Resilience to Tackle the Consequences of Climate an
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/cmes-affiliated-researchers-launch-climate-research-project-sudan - 2025-12-17
This book analyses the tensions that emerge within strong welfare states when faced with large migration flows. It also interrogates the phenomenon of the 2015 'refugee crisis' and its foreplay and aftermath in the context of Northern Europe and challenges the notion of crisis as a feature of contemporary realities. "With an eye to the daily strategies and experiences of newly settled populations,
The rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and North Africa after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has led to a new conceptual category – arguably as political as it is religious – which Rola El-Husseini has previously termed the ‘new Shi’a’. In this formulation, groups not traditionally associated with Twelver Shiism, such as the ‘Alawis of Syria or the Zaydis of Yemen, were suddenly deemed by jou
This article compares the discourses of building nations and national identities fostered in the content of school textbooks in the Republic of Turkey—a modern, territorial nation‐state—and the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (hereafter Rojava)—an alternative state system model established in the power vacuum proceeding Bashar al‐Assad regime withdrawal from expansive territor
Middle Eastern research news from Lund University Message from the director The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an exceptionally dynamic area that has undergone great changes politically as well as economically during the latest decades. The region is likely to continue to display rapid and sudden developments during coming decades. Demographically the region will almost double its populati
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/middle-east-forum-newsletter-8-february-2020 - 2025-12-17
An innovative project has received support from the Swedish Institute under its “support for cooperation with academics from Turkey” scheme. “Turkey Beyond Borders: Critical Voices, New Perspectives” aims to foster collaboration between academics in Sweden and scholars from Turkey whose academic freedoms are implicitly or explicitly curtailed and violated. The website is now launched, with 2 vodca
New article by CMES researcher Orwa Ajjoub in The Conflict Archives - a platform created to showcase work focused on conflict, insurgency and politics across the globe including the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Central America. The website is a collection of news, articles, insights and analyses supported by in-depth analysis and research of contemporary conflict zones by several researcher
New article by CMES Mohammed Almahfali & James Root in The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies - an independent think-tank that seeks to foster change through knowledge production with a focus on Yemen and the surrounding region. The Center’s publications and programs, offered in both Arabic and English, cover political, social, economic and security related developments, aiming to impact policy l
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/how-irans-islamic-revolution-does-and-does-not-influence-houthi-rule-northern-yemen - 2025-12-17
Having just marked two months since its launch, #rethinkingPopulism has already published 9 articles and an interactive map tracing the topography of research on populism and gender. Continuing to pursue the project’s aim to contribute to a vigorous and constructive, yet widely accessible debate for a non-academic and younger public as well as populism researchers, #rethinkingPopulism has now prod
https://www.cmes.lu.se/article/research-populism-published-cartoons - 2025-12-17
