TY - JOUR

T1 - Seeing the future through a rear-view mirror

T2 - On the politics of revitalizing secular bio-icons in the Middle East

AU - Crone, Christine Aster

AU - Windfeld, Frederik Carl

AU - Warrington, Anna

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - This paper investigates secular bio-icons’ political revitalization, illustrating their application as critical interventions into contemporary political struggles in the Middle East. To elucidate this phenomenon, we introduce the concept politics of revitalization to address how memory entrepreneurs can manage the past in ways that legitimize their involvement in particular visions of the future, thereby holding the potential to consolidate the position of political elites in power. Based on an analysis of three secular bio-icons: Jamila Bouhired, Leila Khaled and Hilarion Capucci, we argue that the mobilizing, resistive and aspirational potential of secular bio-icons can be utilized strategically by political actors to boost and legitimize existing (and widely contested) regimes or ideological beliefs by anchoring them in mediated renditions of historical narratives. We hold that secular bio-icons’ political application constitutes a distinct social technique applied by Iran, Syria and Hizbollah to (re)activate nostalgic collective memories, pointing towards particular futures in which they entrench their political status and undermine opposing actors.

AB - This paper investigates secular bio-icons’ political revitalization, illustrating their application as critical interventions into contemporary political struggles in the Middle East. To elucidate this phenomenon, we introduce the concept politics of revitalization to address how memory entrepreneurs can manage the past in ways that legitimize their involvement in particular visions of the future, thereby holding the potential to consolidate the position of political elites in power. Based on an analysis of three secular bio-icons: Jamila Bouhired, Leila Khaled and Hilarion Capucci, we argue that the mobilizing, resistive and aspirational potential of secular bio-icons can be utilized strategically by political actors to boost and legitimize existing (and widely contested) regimes or ideological beliefs by anchoring them in mediated renditions of historical narratives. We hold that secular bio-icons’ political application constitutes a distinct social technique applied by Iran, Syria and Hizbollah to (re)activate nostalgic collective memories, pointing towards particular futures in which they entrench their political status and undermine opposing actors.

U2 - 10.1080/13629395.2022.2028495

DO - 10.1080/13629395.2022.2028495

M3 - Journal article

VL - 28

SP - 639

EP - 661

JO - Meditteranean Politics

JF - Meditteranean Politics

SN - 1362-9395

IS - 4

ER -