Missions and Preaching: Connected and Decompartmentalised Perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (19th-21st Century)

Based on a connected, relational and multidisciplinary approach (history, ethnography, political science, and theology), Mission and Preaching tackles the notion of mission through the analysis of preaching activities and religious dynamics across Christianity, Islam and Judaism, in the Middle East and North Africa, from the late 19th century until today. The 13 chapters reveal points of contact, exchange, and circulation, considering the MENA region as a central observatory. The volume offers a new chronology of the missionary phenomenon and calls for further cross-cutting approaches to decompartmentalise it, arguing that these approaches constitute useful entry points to shed new light on religious dynamics and social transformations in the MENA region.

Contributors
Necati Alkan, Federico Alpi, Gabrielle Angey, Armand Aupiais, Katia Boissevain, Naima Bouras, Philippe Bourmaud, Gaetan du Roy, Séverine Gabry-Thienpont, Maria-Chiara Giorda, Bernard Heyberger, Emir Mahieddin, Michael Marten, Norig Neveu, Maria Chiara Rioli, Karène Sanchez Summerer, Heather Sharkey, Ester Sigillò, Sébastien Tank Storper, Emanuela Trevisan Semi, Annalaura Turiano and Vincent Vilmain.

Norig Neveu is a research fellow at CNRS (IREMAM), member of the research projects Lajeh (ANR) and MAGYC (H2020), and MisSMO (EFR). Her research focuses on social dynamics around holy sites and religious politics in southern Jordan, a connected history of Christian and Muslim religious authorities in Jordan, Palestine and Irak (19th -21st c.).

Karène Sanchez Summerer is Associate Professor at Leiden University (Professor of Middle Eastern studies at Groningen University from Sept. 2022), and PI of the NWO project CrossRoads (2017-2022) and MisSMO (EFR). Her research considers interactions between European linguistic and cultural policies and Arab communities (1860-1960) in the Levant, missionaries’ modalities and impact, and Arab Catholic communities in Palestine.

Annalaura Turiano is a postdoctoral researcher, member of the research network EGY-Class (CNRS), MisSMO (EFR), and the coordinator of Philanthropic action and development in the Middle East: actors, practices and expertise, 20th -21st c. (IFAO). Her research interests include missionary education, trans-Mediterranean migrations, and philanthropy in the Middle East.

Contributors
Necati Alkan, Federico Alpi, Gabrielle Angey, Armand Aupiais, Katia Boissevain, Naima Bouras, Philippe Bourmaud, Gaetan du Roy, Séverine Gabry-Thienpont, Maria-Chiara Giorda, Bernard Heyberger, Emir Mahieddin, Michael Marten, Norig Neveu, Maria Chiara Rioli, Karène Sanchez Summerer, Heather Sharkey, Ester Sigillò, Sébastien Tank Storper, Emanuela Trevisan Semi, Annalaura Turiano and Vincent Vilmain.