Books by Robbert Woltering
How has the West been represented in the Egyptian public debate since the fall of President Mubar... more How has the West been represented in the Egyptian public debate since the fall of President Mubarak? What role does Islamic discourse play in this process, and has the Islamic position undergone significant change or radicalisation? These questions were the focus of a recent study conducted in the periode october 2013 till february 2014. he post-Mubarak period has seen the gradual emergence of a new status quo whereby two sides dominate the public debate: the Muslim Brotherhood on one side of the divide, and their opponents on the other. Woltering: ‘Interestingly enough, both parties accuse each other of being Western pawns in an effort to delegitimise their opponents. As a part of this rhetorical battle, the West is accused of seeking to dominate and weaken Egypt. In this sense, the West has taken on the role of a stereotypical enemy in the public debate. However, our research has shown that the parties are mainly using the West as an instrument to emphasise their own nationalism and authenticity. Rather than at the West itself, their accusations are therefore more aimed at domestic, political opponents who can be discredited when presented as lackeys of the Western powers.’
Despite the complete and sudden loss of power suffered by the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013, the research did not identify any signs that the group is radicalising at an institutional level. Based on an analysis of extensive source material, the researchers determined that the Muslim Brotherhood's narrative is not characterised by hostility towards the West as a culture or civilisation. The other Islamic groups assessed as a part of the research project also showed no signs of radicalisation in terms of their representations of the West.
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While the Western perception of the 'the Orient' has become a well-worn topic in the field of Asi... more While the Western perception of the 'the Orient' has become a well-worn topic in the field of Asian and Middle Eastern studies, the way in which the Arab world has come to perceive the West has been largely neglected. "Occidentalisms in the Arab World" not only presents a comprehensive overview and pointed commentary on recent works in the emerging field of Occidentalist studies, but also provides new insight on the interplay between ideology and image in the formulation of 'the West'. Robbert Woltering provides an in-depth look at the ways in which multiple representations - occidentalisms - of the West have developed in Egypt since the end of the Cold War. Through the rigorous analysis of political speeches, popular literature and recurrent images, Woltering examines the ideological foundations that continue to shape the image of the Occident in the twenty-first century. "Occidentalisms in the Arab World" provides an unparalleled and original commentary in an emerging field at the intersection of Middle East Studies, Political Science, and Media Studies.
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Papers by Robbert Woltering
International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, 2018
The Arab cultural awakening (Nahḍa) was one of the most pervasive and consequential intellectual ... more The Arab cultural awakening (Nahḍa) was one of the most pervasive and consequential intellectual movements in modern history. A key figure within this movement was the Egyptian civil servant, educator, translator and Islamic scholar Rifāʿa Rāfiʿ al-Ṭahṭāwī (1801-1873). Having visited Paris, he developed an interest in the moral, social and political ideas that were prevalent in nineteenth-century France. However, most current scholarship agrees that because of their secular nature, these ideas were of limited use for a devout Muslim such as Ṭahṭāwī in his own cultural and political context. In 1850 Ṭahṭāwī translated François Fénelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque(1699), and while it has been suggested that this novel may have influenced Ṭahṭāwī’s later works, his translation of it has been mostly ignored by modern researchers. In this paper we demonstrate that Ṭahṭāwīfound Télémaqueto contain many potentially suitable moral and political lessons to translate into the modernizing Arabic-Islamic culture of the late nineteenth century. First, we present a history of the reception and cultural position of Fénelon’s Télémaquein France. This will help scholars understand it as a popular text across ideologies and philosophical movements. Then we discuss Ṭahṭāwī’s ideological makeup, specifically in relation to modernity. Lastly, we offer a discussion of passages from Ṭahṭāwī’s translation of Télémaque. This allows us to expose some of Ṭahṭāwī’s discursive strategies in Islamizing and Arabizing the concepts and ideas present in the novel, thus laying the conceptual groundwork for his later philosophical writings. On a broader level, this paper examines if and how Ṭahṭāwī’s own ideas and his appropriation of those of Fénelon as present in Télémaquecan be plausibly included in the category of a ‘global Counter-Enlightenment’.
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Arab Studies Quarterly, 2018
This article looks into the meaning of Tahrir Square before, during, and after the January 25 rev... more This article looks into the meaning of Tahrir Square before, during, and after the January 25 revolution. We employ Lefebvre's conceptual triad of space to understand how space is not merely a physical form, but also the product of relations between natural and social objects in this space. To understand how these relations changed dramatically after January 25, we will draw on Sewell's insight into how space is a constituent aspect of contentious politics. We discuss the way in which the political space of Tahrir Square went through distinct phases during and after the Egyptian revolution, from counter-space, to eventually a change in the conceived space of Tahrir Square, but not according to the principles of the newly created lived space during the 18 days.
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This paper discusses the empirical, Application Programming Interface (API)-based analysis of ver... more This paper discusses the empirical, Application Programming Interface (API)-based analysis of very large Facebook Pages.
Looking in detail at the technical characteristics, conventions, and peculiarities of Facebook’s architecture and data
interface, we argue that such technical fieldwork is essential to data-driven research, both as a crucial form of data
critique and as a way to identify analytical opportunities. Using the ‘‘We are all Khaled Said’’ Facebook Page, which
hosted the activities of nearly 1.9 million users during the Egyptian Revolution and beyond, as empirical example, we
show how Facebook’s API raises important questions about data detail, completeness, consistency over time, and
architectural complexity. We then outline an exploratory approach and a number of analytical techniques that take
the API and its idiosyncrasies as a starting point for the concrete investigation of a large dataset. Our goal is to close the
gap between Big Data research and research about Big Data by showing that the critical investigation of technicity is
essential for empirical research and that attention to the particularities of empirical work can provide a deeper understanding of the various issues Big Data research is entangled with.
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This article challenges the idea that social media protest
mobilization and communication are pri... more This article challenges the idea that social media protest
mobilization and communication are primarily propelled by the
self-motivated sharing of ideas, plans, images, and resources. It
shows that leadership plays a vital role in steering popular
contention on key social platforms. This argument is developed
through a detailed case study on the interaction between the
administrators and users of the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook
page, the most popular online platform during the Egyptian
revolution of early 2011. The analysis specifically focuses on the
period from 1 January until 15 February 2011. It draws from 1629 admin posts and 1,465,696 user comments, extracted via a customized version of Netvizz. For each day during this period, the three most engaged with posts, as well as the 10 most engaged with comments, have been translated and coded, making it possible to systematically examine how the
administrators tried to shape the communication on the page,
and how users responded to these efforts. This analysis is pursued from a sociotechnical perspective. It traces how the exchanges on the page are simultaneously shaped by the admins’ marketing strategies and the technological architecture of the Facebook page. On the basis of this exploration, we argue that the page administrators should be understood as ‘connective leaders’. Rather than directing protest activity through formal organizations and collective identity frames, as social movement leaders have traditionally done, connective leaders invite and steer user participation by employing sophisticated marketing strategies to connect users in online communication streams and networks.
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Middle Eastern Literatures 17:1, 25-42
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Arab Studies Quarterly: 35:3, 2013
The Egyptian revolution that started on January 25 engaged many people who theretofore had not be... more The Egyptian revolution that started on January 25 engaged many people who theretofore had not been considered political actors. Among them were the Ultras, a particular type of football fans who are widely credited to have played a part in the more physical aspects of the uprising. In this article the Ultras are studied by means of an analysis of their own written material, their internet presence and fieldwork conducted in Cairo. It is argued that the Ultras have quite naturally developed into a revolutionary social movement.
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Books by Robbert Woltering
Despite the complete and sudden loss of power suffered by the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013, the research did not identify any signs that the group is radicalising at an institutional level. Based on an analysis of extensive source material, the researchers determined that the Muslim Brotherhood's narrative is not characterised by hostility towards the West as a culture or civilisation. The other Islamic groups assessed as a part of the research project also showed no signs of radicalisation in terms of their representations of the West.
Papers by Robbert Woltering
Looking in detail at the technical characteristics, conventions, and peculiarities of Facebook’s architecture and data
interface, we argue that such technical fieldwork is essential to data-driven research, both as a crucial form of data
critique and as a way to identify analytical opportunities. Using the ‘‘We are all Khaled Said’’ Facebook Page, which
hosted the activities of nearly 1.9 million users during the Egyptian Revolution and beyond, as empirical example, we
show how Facebook’s API raises important questions about data detail, completeness, consistency over time, and
architectural complexity. We then outline an exploratory approach and a number of analytical techniques that take
the API and its idiosyncrasies as a starting point for the concrete investigation of a large dataset. Our goal is to close the
gap between Big Data research and research about Big Data by showing that the critical investigation of technicity is
essential for empirical research and that attention to the particularities of empirical work can provide a deeper understanding of the various issues Big Data research is entangled with.
mobilization and communication are primarily propelled by the
self-motivated sharing of ideas, plans, images, and resources. It
shows that leadership plays a vital role in steering popular
contention on key social platforms. This argument is developed
through a detailed case study on the interaction between the
administrators and users of the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook
page, the most popular online platform during the Egyptian
revolution of early 2011. The analysis specifically focuses on the
period from 1 January until 15 February 2011. It draws from 1629 admin posts and 1,465,696 user comments, extracted via a customized version of Netvizz. For each day during this period, the three most engaged with posts, as well as the 10 most engaged with comments, have been translated and coded, making it possible to systematically examine how the
administrators tried to shape the communication on the page,
and how users responded to these efforts. This analysis is pursued from a sociotechnical perspective. It traces how the exchanges on the page are simultaneously shaped by the admins’ marketing strategies and the technological architecture of the Facebook page. On the basis of this exploration, we argue that the page administrators should be understood as ‘connective leaders’. Rather than directing protest activity through formal organizations and collective identity frames, as social movement leaders have traditionally done, connective leaders invite and steer user participation by employing sophisticated marketing strategies to connect users in online communication streams and networks.
Despite the complete and sudden loss of power suffered by the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013, the research did not identify any signs that the group is radicalising at an institutional level. Based on an analysis of extensive source material, the researchers determined that the Muslim Brotherhood's narrative is not characterised by hostility towards the West as a culture or civilisation. The other Islamic groups assessed as a part of the research project also showed no signs of radicalisation in terms of their representations of the West.
Looking in detail at the technical characteristics, conventions, and peculiarities of Facebook’s architecture and data
interface, we argue that such technical fieldwork is essential to data-driven research, both as a crucial form of data
critique and as a way to identify analytical opportunities. Using the ‘‘We are all Khaled Said’’ Facebook Page, which
hosted the activities of nearly 1.9 million users during the Egyptian Revolution and beyond, as empirical example, we
show how Facebook’s API raises important questions about data detail, completeness, consistency over time, and
architectural complexity. We then outline an exploratory approach and a number of analytical techniques that take
the API and its idiosyncrasies as a starting point for the concrete investigation of a large dataset. Our goal is to close the
gap between Big Data research and research about Big Data by showing that the critical investigation of technicity is
essential for empirical research and that attention to the particularities of empirical work can provide a deeper understanding of the various issues Big Data research is entangled with.
mobilization and communication are primarily propelled by the
self-motivated sharing of ideas, plans, images, and resources. It
shows that leadership plays a vital role in steering popular
contention on key social platforms. This argument is developed
through a detailed case study on the interaction between the
administrators and users of the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook
page, the most popular online platform during the Egyptian
revolution of early 2011. The analysis specifically focuses on the
period from 1 January until 15 February 2011. It draws from 1629 admin posts and 1,465,696 user comments, extracted via a customized version of Netvizz. For each day during this period, the three most engaged with posts, as well as the 10 most engaged with comments, have been translated and coded, making it possible to systematically examine how the
administrators tried to shape the communication on the page,
and how users responded to these efforts. This analysis is pursued from a sociotechnical perspective. It traces how the exchanges on the page are simultaneously shaped by the admins’ marketing strategies and the technological architecture of the Facebook page. On the basis of this exploration, we argue that the page administrators should be understood as ‘connective leaders’. Rather than directing protest activity through formal organizations and collective identity frames, as social movement leaders have traditionally done, connective leaders invite and steer user participation by employing sophisticated marketing strategies to connect users in online communication streams and networks.