Description
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 we consider how bread is prepared, consumed, discussed, and circulated-and what this all represents. With this book, José Ciro Martínez examines khubz 'arabi to unpack the effects of the welfare program that ensures its widespread availability.
Drawing on more than a year working as a baker in Amman, Martínez probes the practices that underpin subsidized bread. Following bakers and bureaucrats, he offers an immersive examination of social welfare provision. Martínez argues that the state is best understood as the product of routine practices and actions, through which it becomes a stable truth in the lives of citizens. States of Subsistence not only describes logics of rule in contemporary Jordan-and the place of bread within them-but also unpacks how the state endures through forms, sensations, and practices amid the seemingly unglamorous and unspectacular day-to-day.
Author: José Ciro Martínez
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 04/12/2022
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9781503631328
ISBN10: 150363132X
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | World | Middle Eastern
- Political Science | Comparative Politics
- Social Science | Agriculture & Food (see also Political Science | Public Poli
About the Author
José Ciro Martínez is Lecturer in Politics at the University of York and Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge.