The SWANA region is often described as a “complex” region mired with intractable problems from “Time Immemorial”… We have reason to doubt that this is the case. The SWANA region is as complex as any other, it is just that we haven’t given space to voices from the region or taken the time to tell the story without fetishizing its inhabitants or its conflicts. So, we’ve decided to create a set of resources crafted by graduate students and vetted by Oxford professors to give you a quick rundown on the dynamics of the region, people you should follow to stay informed and ways to start engaging with it.

Note: Sometimes, as in the case of Palestine it’s not more knowledge we need to take a stance. The right thing to do is pretty clear, so leave this section and get involved. Here are ways to help.

Graduates of the Middle Eastern Studies department have found a new way to procrastinate! That is, writing up two page description of each country in the region so that you can start framing and understanding the stories and stakes behind each country’s politics, history and art.

Curious about why the region south of Morocco never gets any data in World Maps, or why it is that European powers are just considering counting Palestine as a State? Click here and find out.

A lot of people have written about the region which kind of makes it hard to know what to read. We’ve made a list of the books, twitter accounts, and articles that we consider most important to help you out. We’ve also provided a small description of each so that you can choose which one fits your interests.

It’s a grueling, and sometimes arbitrary task to canonize certain books. This is why Oxford Professors have helped us get it right.

You have a dissertation to write don’t you? But archives are spread out, you don’t know where the material you’re looking for is stored or if it even exists. Alright, you know exactly where they are because you have a great mind, a great supervisor or both… Don’t brag about it. Maybe you don’t really know how to access those archives or what you need to do to become a reader of that repository. We’ve got you covered. Here’s a map of the major archives with a description of what they hold and what you need to do to access them.

Also, we live in the digital era and some of you psychos like data, so we made a digital of where you can find archives and data repositories online.