Symposia and Lectures

Book Talk - States of Subsistence: The Politics of Bread in Contemporary Jordan will be held on Monday, October 16.

Short introduction to book:
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.
Drawing on more than a year working as a baker in Amman, Mart?nez probes the practices that underpin subsidized bread. Following bakers and bureaucrats, he offers an immersive examination of social welfare provision. Mart?nez 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.