On any given day in Jordan, more than nine million residents eat approximately ten million loaves of khubz 'arabi—the slightly leavened flatbread known to many as pita. Some rely on this bread to avoid starvation; for others it is a customary pleasure. Yet despite its ubiquity in accounts of Middle East politics and society, rarely do scholarly accounts consider how bread is prepared, consumed, discussed, and circulated—and how, in turn, we can theorise from such ordinary processes. Drawing on more than a year working as a baker in Amman, José Ciro Martínez will probe the practices that underpin subsidised bread before expanding upon some of the insights this methodology of observant participation brought to the fore. Following bakers and bureaucrats, he offers an immersive examination of social welfare provision and the varied political dynamics that surround it.

José Ciro Martínez is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of York. His research explores the politics of food, welfare, contention, and state formation in the Middle East and North Africa, drawing on archival and ethnographic methods. He is committed to modes of political inquiry attentive to the seemingly ordinary and mundane.

This is a hybrid seminar: if you are on campus please join us at Seminar Room 3.72 in the RSSS Building.

To join online: https://anu.zoom.us/j/3364169330?pwd=ZStOdm4vTWpwS1RMbmFYUisxWVB2UT09

Seminars are 1 hour in duration.

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