Workers and Working Classes in the Middle East: Struggles, Histories, Historiographies

373 Pages·1993·5.26 MB·English

by  Zachary Lockman

Workers and Working Classes
in the Middle East
SUNY Series in
the Social and Economic History of the Middle East
Donald Quataert, Editor
Issa Khalaf, Politicis in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration, i939-i948
Rifa'at Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth
to Eighteenth Centuries
M. Fuad Kopriilii, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire, translated and edited by
Gary Leiser
Guilian Denoeux, Urban Unrest in the Middle East: A Comparative Study of Informal
Networks in Egypt, Iran and Lebanon
Zachary Lockman, Workers and Working Classes in the Middle East: Struggles, Histories,
Historiographies
Workers and Working Classes
in the Middle East
Struggles, Histories, Historiographies
Edited by
Zachary Lockman
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Cover Photograph: Istanbul flannel factory, c. 1891.
Production by Ruth Fisher
Marketing by Bernadette LaManna
Published by
State University of New \ork Press, Albany
© 1994 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced
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except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
For information, address the State University of New Y?rk Press,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Workers and working classes in the Middle East : struggles, histories,
historiographies / edited by Zachary Lockman.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in the social and economic history of
the Middle East)
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7914'1665'8 (acid-free). - ISBN 0-7914-1666-6 (pbk. : acid
-free)
1. Working class—Middle East—History—19th century. 2. Labor
movement—Middle East—History—19th century. 3. Working dass-
-Middle East—Historiography. I. Lockman, Zachary. II. Series.
HD8656.W67 1994
305.5 '62 '0956—dc20 92-42701
CIP
For Melinda
-Z L

Contents
Acknowledgments jx
Introduction xi
Zachary Lockman
1. Militant Journeymen in Nineteenth-Century
Damascus: Implications for the Middle Eastern
Labor History Agenda 1
Sherry Vatter
2. Ottoman Workers and the State, 1826-1914 21
Donald Quataert
3. Other Workers: A Critical Reading of Representations
of Egyptian Petty Commodity Production
at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 41
Kristin Koptiuch
4. “Worker” and “Working Class” in pre-1914 Egypt:
A Rereading 71
Zachary Lockman
5. Worker’s Voice and Labor Productivity in Egypt 111
Ellis Goldberg
6. The Development of Working-Class
Consciousness in Turkey 133
Feroz Ahmad
7. Historiography, Class, and Iranian Workers 165
Assef Bayat
Contents / viii
8. Collective Action and Workers’ Consciousness in
Contemporary Egypt 211
Marsha Pripstein Posusney
9. Will the Real Egyptian Working Class
Please Stand Up? 247
Joel Beinin
10. History for the Many or History for the Few?
The Historiography of the Iraqi Working Class 271
Eric Davis
11. The History of the Working Classes in the
Middle East: Some Methodological Considerations 303
Edmund Burke III
12. Labor History and the Politics of Theory:
An Indian Angle on the Middle East 321
Dipesh Chakrabarty
About the Contributors 335
Index 339
Acknowledgments
The workshop at which all but one of the essays in this volume
were originally presented as papers was sponsored and funded by Harvard
University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. 1 would like to thank
Roy Mottahedeh, who was then serving as director, for generously
extending to me the center's financial and logistical support. My thanks,
too, to the center's staff, for their assistance in organizing the workshop.
I must also thank the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical
Studies, Department of History, Princeton University, and particularly
its director, Natalie Zemon Davis. A year's Visiting Fellowship at the
Davis Center during 1991-92 provided not only a stimulating intellectual
environment but also enough time away from teaching to prepare this
manuscript for publication and write the introduction.
On behalf of all the contributors to this volume, 1 would also like
to thank the three anonymous individuals who reviewed the manuscript
for the State University of New York Press and provided helpful
comments and criticisms. They should not be blamed if we did not always
choose to accept their advice.
Zachary Lockman