Struggles for Dignity by Leyla Dakhli

Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
World of Books

At World of Books, you’ll find millions of preloved reads at great prices, from bestsellers to hidden gems. Every book you buy saves money and helps reduce waste, so you can read more for less while giving stories a second life.

The feel-good place to buy books
  • Free US shipping over $15
  • Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
  • Millions of affordable books
  • Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!

Struggles for Dignity by Leyla Dakhli

The question of dignity is central to the popular revolts and revolutions that have characterized the Mediterranean Arab world from the 1950s to the present. Whether demanded, declared or chanted, dignity – karama in Arabic – stirs up emotions and political aspirations. It also reveals the intrusion of the political into the personal, and the multiple forms of dispossession faced by populations attempting to live their lives (or merely survive) under authoritarian regimes. Yet if we look at the literature on the Arab revolts, there is very little discussion of dignity. Commentators focus mostly on the pursuit of freedom, democracy and justice, while the desire for dignity has been largely ignored.

The aim of this book is to redress this neglect by exploring the revolts in the Mediterranean Arab world through the lens of struggles for dignity. The volume includes a wide range of case studies, from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt to Tunisia and Algeria, and offers a rich and illuminating perspective on the struggles for dignity in the region, both in the dramatic moments of revolutionary upheaval and in the cooler times of everyday struggles. All the contributors to this volume adopt a micro-historical approach, observing the relations between places and experiences of revolt and using maps to show how revolts are embedded in people's lives. By giving a central place to the spatial dimension, this mode of representation proves to be particularly effective as a means for grasping the multiplicity of entanglements between the terrain of life, territory and revolt. By placing life experiences at the centre, it thereby offers a novel way for observing and describing the meanings of a dignified life.
Leyla Dakhli is a Research Fellow at the CNRS (Centre d'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Contemporains, Aubervilliers).

Laurence Dufresne Aubertin holds a doctorate in political science and is currently a lecturer and researcher at Toulouse Capitole University.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781509571796
Title Struggles for Dignity
Author Leyla Dakhli
Series Critical South
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Polity Press
Year published 2026-11-27
Number of pages 352
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.