Shatha Abu-Khafajah
Biographic Data
| ID | 256902 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shatha Abu-Khafajah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shatha |
| FAMILY NAME | Abu-Khafajah |
| SIGNATURE | ABU-KHAFAJAH S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hashemite University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8118-673X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Determinants and practical dimensions of smart heritage fruition: The case of Umm Qais, Jordan
Purpose The paper explores the strategic opportunities in smart heritage fruition (SHF) by taking Umm Qais as a case study since its cultural heritage has yet to be explored through digitization. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interview was used, along with observation and document analysis. The empirical data were analyzed thematically using NVivo Findings This paper explores the determinants and practical dimensions in digitized he…
Leveraging Digitized Heritage Technologies for Smart Fruition: Heritage Understanding and Enhancement Framework
Digitized heritage is regarded as an emerging field, with existing studies primarily focusing on one case study, technological aspect, or a methodological approach. Thus, there remains a notable gap in the literature regarding the understanding of how these technologies and methodologies can be utilized in smart heritage fruition. Approaches that harness technological advancements to enhance the decision-making process regarding the use of approp…
Heritage, modernity and the Muhajirin in Amman: Decolonising urban knowledge in Ras-Al-Ein
Authoritative urban knowledge (AUK) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a neocolonial construct firmly rooted in oriental imaginaries and colonial/modern urbanism. It informs the managerial epistemology of neoliberal ‘development’ projects, where urban studies are confined to diagnostic analysis and optimistic calls for local inclusion to counteract state authority and foreign hegemony. This study critically examines the epistemic produ…
Materiality of Divinity in an Atypical Flat-Roofed Apsidal Aula Ecclesiae
Aulae ecclesiae occupy a space between secular and sacred church architecture and can be considered a post-domus and pre-basilica version of the ecclesia. This article examines the origin of the representation of divinity in the Lubbēn Large Church as an aula ecclesiae and presents a contextual reading of the historical, regional, and local conditions that led to its final incarnation. The church is located in one of Syria’s largest lava fields—a…
The history of Jordan: Biblical archaeology and local heritage-making within a discourse on epistemological (dis)continuity
The history of Jordan is an epistemological construction of the colonial past with Biblical archaeology at its core. At the same time, vernacular heritage is addressed by many foreign scholars as decaying, disappearing and accidental. This article takes issue with the foreign Biblical formation of the past and introduces local heritage-making as part of a decolonising construction. We debate the historical continuity of Biblical epistemology whil…
Liberating genealogies in Amman: Urban histories between a colonizing legacy and a decolonizing illusion
Colonialism operated in Amman through a matrix of power generated from a Western emphasis on its biblical and classical pasts. The cultural dominance of this matrix persisted in the postcolonial period. It perpetuated the coloniality of knowledge and the coloniality of being as it accentuated Western imperial pasts and marked the local - whether heritage or something else - as marginal. Coloniality is reflected in the successive planning and rege…
Prejudice, military intelligence, and neoliberalism: Examining the local within archaeology and heritage practices in Jordan
A particular theme dominates contemporary heritage projects in the neoliberal context of Jordan: sustainable development on the basis of participatory approaches. Although these approaches are celebrated in academic and governmental circles, the history and power dynamics within which they operate remain underexplored. We aim to establish a theoretical framework that examines why and how local communities in the Arab region shifted from periphery…
Hands-On Heritage! Establishing Soft Authority over Heritage through Architectural Experiment: A Case Study from Jordan
This study identifies ‘heritage as practice’ as an alternative to ‘authorized’ heritage engagement. Heritage, in this sense, is perceived as a source of inspiration and creativity rather than just an asset to be preserved. ‘Heritage as practice’ is informed by the conventional identification and evaluation of heritage, coupled with the architectural and artistic instincts, capacities, creativity, and commitment found in the field of architecture,…
Urban heritage 'space' under neoliberal development: A tale of a Jordanian plaza
What happens when urban heritage spaces within developing countries, such as Jordan, are subject to touristic development funded by international bodies, such as the World Bank? This question is explored theoretically and practically by considering a popular local plaza in the secondary Jordanian city of Jerash that has been subject to three tourism development projects funded by the World Bank. The study, which incorporates and critiques the dis…
Urban heritage governance within the context of emerging decentralization discourses in Jordan
The "Jordanian" Roman Complex: Reinventing Urban Landscape to Accommodate Globalization
The central urban landscape of Amman, including the archaeological sites of the Roman Theatre, Odeon and Forum, has played an essential cultural, political, social, and economic role in local identity and memory since the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921. This research is an ethnographic study of this urban landscape. It combines local people's responses to recent governmental interventions to develop the downtown area around t…
Meaning-Making Process of Cultural Heritage in Jordan: The Local Communities, the Contexts, and the Archaeological Sites in the Citadel of Amman
Streets of memory: Landscape, tolerance and national identity in Istanbul
by Amy Mills, Athens, GA, University of Georgia Press, 2010, xii + 308 pp., US$64.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8203-3573-5, US$24.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8203-3574-2 Despite globalisation, urban space
Meaning-making and cultural heritage in Jordan: The local community, the contexts and the archaeological sites in Khreibt al-Suq
This is an ethnographic study based on a fieldwork carried out in Khriebt al‐Suq, in Jordan, in the time between 1 June and 14 September 2004. In this paper, the meaning of archaeological sites is investigated as a ‘structure of understanding and attachments’ (Marris 1986, p. 4), through which individuals interpret the time and the place of the past. The paper suggests that values and meanings that individuals ascribe to material of the past deri…
Prejudice, military intelligence, and neoliberalism: Examining the local within archaeology and heritage practices in Jordan
A particular theme dominates contemporary heritage projects in the neoliberal context of Jordan: sustainable development on the basis of participatory approaches. Although these approaches are celebrated in academic and governmental circles, the history and power dynamics within which they operate remain underexplored. We aim to establish a theoretical framework that examines why and how local communities in the Arab region shifted from periphery…
Meaning-making and cultural heritage in Jordan: The local community, the contexts and the archaeological sites in Khreibt al-Suq
This is an ethnographic study based on a fieldwork carried out in Khriebt al‐Suq, in Jordan, in the time between 1 June and 14 September 2004. In this paper, the meaning of archaeological sites is investigated as a ‘structure of understanding and attachments’ (Marris 1986, p. 4), through which individuals interpret the time and the place of the past. The paper suggests that values and meanings that individuals ascribe to material of the past deri…
Hands-On Heritage! Establishing Soft Authority over Heritage through Architectural Experiment: A Case Study from Jordan
This study identifies ‘heritage as practice’ as an alternative to ‘authorized’ heritage engagement. Heritage, in this sense, is perceived as a source of inspiration and creativity rather than just an asset to be preserved. ‘Heritage as practice’ is informed by the conventional identification and evaluation of heritage, coupled with the architectural and artistic instincts, capacities, creativity, and commitment found in the field of architecture,…
The "Jordanian" Roman Complex: Reinventing Urban Landscape to Accommodate Globalization
The central urban landscape of Amman, including the archaeological sites of the Roman Theatre, Odeon and Forum, has played an essential cultural, political, social, and economic role in local identity and memory since the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921. This research is an ethnographic study of this urban landscape. It combines local people's responses to recent governmental interventions to develop the downtown area around t…
Urban heritage governance within the context of emerging decentralization discourses in Jordan
Urban heritage 'space' under neoliberal development: A tale of a Jordanian plaza
What happens when urban heritage spaces within developing countries, such as Jordan, are subject to touristic development funded by international bodies, such as the World Bank? This question is explored theoretically and practically by considering a popular local plaza in the secondary Jordanian city of Jerash that has been subject to three tourism development projects funded by the World Bank. The study, which incorporates and critiques the dis…
Meaning-making and cultural heritage in Jordan: The local community, the contexts and the archaeological sites in Khreibt al-Suq
This is an ethnographic study based on a fieldwork carried out in Khriebt al‐Suq, in Jordan, in the time between 1 June and 14 September 2004. In this paper, the meaning of archaeological sites is investigated as a ‘structure of understanding and attachments’ (Marris 1986, p. 4), through which individuals interpret the time and the place of the past. The paper suggests that values and meanings that individuals ascribe to material of the past deri…
Meaning-Making Process of Cultural Heritage in Jordan: The Local Communities, the Contexts, and the Archaeological Sites in the Citadel of Amman
Streets of memory: Landscape, tolerance and national identity in Istanbul
by Amy Mills, Athens, GA, University of Georgia Press, 2010, xii + 308 pp., US$64.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8203-3573-5, US$24.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8203-3574-2 Despite globalisation, urban space
The "Jordanian" Roman Complex: Reinventing Urban Landscape to Accommodate Globalization
The central urban landscape of Amman, including the archaeological sites of the Roman Theatre, Odeon and Forum, has played an essential cultural, political, social, and economic role in local identity and memory since the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921. This research is an ethnographic study of this urban landscape. It combines local people's responses to recent governmental interventions to develop the downtown area around t…
Urban heritage governance within the context of emerging decentralization discourses in Jordan
Hands-On Heritage! Establishing Soft Authority over Heritage through Architectural Experiment: A Case Study from Jordan
This study identifies ‘heritage as practice’ as an alternative to ‘authorized’ heritage engagement. Heritage, in this sense, is perceived as a source of inspiration and creativity rather than just an asset to be preserved. ‘Heritage as practice’ is informed by the conventional identification and evaluation of heritage, coupled with the architectural and artistic instincts, capacities, creativity, and commitment found in the field of architecture,…
Urban heritage 'space' under neoliberal development: A tale of a Jordanian plaza
What happens when urban heritage spaces within developing countries, such as Jordan, are subject to touristic development funded by international bodies, such as the World Bank? This question is explored theoretically and practically by considering a popular local plaza in the secondary Jordanian city of Jerash that has been subject to three tourism development projects funded by the World Bank. The study, which incorporates and critiques the dis…
Prejudice, military intelligence, and neoliberalism: Examining the local within archaeology and heritage practices in Jordan
A particular theme dominates contemporary heritage projects in the neoliberal context of Jordan: sustainable development on the basis of participatory approaches. Although these approaches are celebrated in academic and governmental circles, the history and power dynamics within which they operate remain underexplored. We aim to establish a theoretical framework that examines why and how local communities in the Arab region shifted from periphery…
Liberating genealogies in Amman: Urban histories between a colonizing legacy and a decolonizing illusion
Colonialism operated in Amman through a matrix of power generated from a Western emphasis on its biblical and classical pasts. The cultural dominance of this matrix persisted in the postcolonial period. It perpetuated the coloniality of knowledge and the coloniality of being as it accentuated Western imperial pasts and marked the local - whether heritage or something else - as marginal. Coloniality is reflected in the successive planning and rege…
Materiality of Divinity in an Atypical Flat-Roofed Apsidal Aula Ecclesiae
Aulae ecclesiae occupy a space between secular and sacred church architecture and can be considered a post-domus and pre-basilica version of the ecclesia. This article examines the origin of the representation of divinity in the Lubbēn Large Church as an aula ecclesiae and presents a contextual reading of the historical, regional, and local conditions that led to its final incarnation. The church is located in one of Syria’s largest lava fields—a…
The history of Jordan: Biblical archaeology and local heritage-making within a discourse on epistemological (dis)continuity
The history of Jordan is an epistemological construction of the colonial past with Biblical archaeology at its core. At the same time, vernacular heritage is addressed by many foreign scholars as decaying, disappearing and accidental. This article takes issue with the foreign Biblical formation of the past and introduces local heritage-making as part of a decolonising construction. We debate the historical continuity of Biblical epistemology whil…
Leveraging Digitized Heritage Technologies for Smart Fruition: Heritage Understanding and Enhancement Framework
Digitized heritage is regarded as an emerging field, with existing studies primarily focusing on one case study, technological aspect, or a methodological approach. Thus, there remains a notable gap in the literature regarding the understanding of how these technologies and methodologies can be utilized in smart heritage fruition. Approaches that harness technological advancements to enhance the decision-making process regarding the use of approp…
Heritage, modernity and the Muhajirin in Amman: Decolonising urban knowledge in Ras-Al-Ein
Authoritative urban knowledge (AUK) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a neocolonial construct firmly rooted in oriental imaginaries and colonial/modern urbanism. It informs the managerial epistemology of neoliberal ‘development’ projects, where urban studies are confined to diagnostic analysis and optimistic calls for local inclusion to counteract state authority and foreign hegemony. This study critically examines the epistemic produ…
Determinants and practical dimensions of smart heritage fruition: The case of Umm Qais, Jordan
Purpose The paper explores the strategic opportunities in smart heritage fruition (SHF) by taking Umm Qais as a case study since its cultural heritage has yet to be explored through digitization. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interview was used, along with observation and document analysis. The empirical data were analyzed thematically using NVivo Findings This paper explores the determinants and practical dimensions in digitized he…
Archaeology (10 works) · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Cultural heritage (8 works) · History (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · Archaeological Research and Protection (5 works) · History (5 works)