Craig Larkin
Biographic Data
| ID | 370488 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Craig Larkin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Craig |
| FAMILY NAME | Larkin |
| SIGNATURE | LARKIN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institute of Religious Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6670-4209 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
More Than Bargaining Chips: How Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State Kidnapped and Used Hostages in Lebanon
This paper presents an empirical examination of the Arsal hostage crisis in Lebanon, when Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State kidnapped over 35 soldiers and police officers in 2014. Following interviews with 30 hostages’ families and analysis of the jihadists’ propaganda, three themes emerge. First, the hostage-taking had intrinsic emotional value for the jihadists and was not only a means to secure extrinsic concessions. Second, the crisis was oft…
Memory, violence and post-conflict reconstruction: Rebuilding and reimagining Mosul
How can and should post-conflict cities be rebuilt after traumatic violence and forced displacement? Five years following Mosul’s liberation from the extremist reign of Islamic State, controversy surrounds attempts to revive the city’s rich cultural heritage and pluralistic past. This paper examines Mosul’s ongoing reconstruction initiatives, shaped by competing memory narratives and actors (local and international) vying for the right to reimagi…
Iraqi heritage restoration, grassroots interventions and post-conflict recovery: Reflections from Mosul
The deliberate targeting and violent destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq’s ancient city of Mosul by the Islamic State (2014–17) has recently given way to the emergence of heritage initiatives aimed at restoring its urban character and reviving its cosmopolitan spirit. Such restoration projects invariably stir debates over timing, funding and local consultation, as well as their potential to contribute to post-war social cohesion and communal…
Negotiating Lebanon’s urban boundaries and sectarian space: Syrian refugees in Beirut and Tripoli
As Syrian refugee numbers in Lebanon have increased, so has the hostility directed towards them, with targeted attacks against informal encampments and public restrictions on Syrian mobility through localized curfews and military checkpoints. The Syrian experience is constrained by both their precarity as refugees and the volatility of Lebanese urban politics. Syrians must navigate the complex terrain of moral and socio-spatial Lebanese boundarie…
Spiritual ambiguity in interfaith humanitarianism: Local faith communities, Syrian refugees, and Muslim–Christian encounters in Lebanon and Jordan
Literature on faith-based responses to forced displacement has described, but not fully unpacked or theorized cross-religion humanitarian aid in ‘South–South’ contexts. This article interrogates the various ambiguities, particularly spiritual ambiguities, inherent in faith-based humanitarianism where local providers are the minority religion. In unpacking these, we identify three modes of faith-based aid to Muslim Syrian refugees by local churche…
The “inclusion-moderation” illusion: Re-framing the Islamic movement inside Israel
The inclusion-moderation thesis posits that radical movements can be moderated through participation in democratic pluralist politics. Repeatedly applied to Islamist movements questions remain over its conceptual ambiguity and empirical veracity. Despite such weaknesses this thesis continues to be utilized to explain the diverging trajectories of the Islamic movement within Israel–its Southern accommodationist parliamentary branch (IMSB) and its …
School Choice and Conflict Narratives: Representative Bureaucracy at the Street Level in East Jerusalem
In representative bureaucracy research, the dominant view holds that passive representation leads to active representation. Much of the research to date has focused on the conditions that influence this process. In this research, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the manifestation of active representation, rather than simply its presence. We find that although passive representation may indeed lead to active representation, the nat…
War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance
This article examines three museums that address Lebanon’s history of conflict: the newly opened Beit Beirut on the capital’s former Green Line, the Hezbollah-run Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark in south Lebanon, and Umam Documentation and Research’s online archive “Memory at Work.” Each testing the parameters of what the term museum can mean in Lebanon today, these cases highlight the still-contested nature of war narratives. While many Leban…
The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant
Throughout the turbulent history of the Levant the Alawis — a secretive, resilient and ancient Muslim sect — have aroused suspicion and animosity, including accusations of religious heresy. More recently they have been tarred with the brush of political separatism and complicity in the excesses of the Assad regime, claims that have gained greater traction since the onset of the Syrian uprising and subsequent devastating civil war. The contributor…
Speaking in the Silence: Youthful Negotiations of Beirut’s Post-War Spaces and Memories
The familiar Lebanese riposte am bihki bil Sokout (I’m speaking in the silence) carries multiple, and at times contradictory, meanings. In some instances it may be used to avoid politically sensitive conversations or convey an unspoken judgement, in other contexts it suggests a sense of dislocation or powerlessness. Among Beirut’s youth this phrase encapsulates the ambiguity and tension of life in a post-war city — the uneasy negotiation of publi…
Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the Past
This book examines the legacy of Lebanon's civil war and how the population, and the youth in particular, are dealing with their national past. Drawing on extensive qualitative research and social observation, the author explores the efforts of those who wish to remember, so as not to repeat past mistakes, and those who wish to forget. In considering how the Lebanese youth are negotiating this collective memory, Larkin addresses issues of: Lebane…
Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the Past
1. Introduction: Beyond the War? 2. Locating a Postmemory Generation 3. Contesting Lebanon: History, Identity and Co-existence 4. (Re)Imagining the Nation: School, Street and the 'Independence Intifada' 5. Space, Place and Site: Inhabiting Postwar Memoryscapes 6. Time, Story and Myth: Narrating Lebanon's Future 7. Conclusions
In Defense of Al-Aqsa: The Islamic Movement Inside Israel and the Battle for Jerusalem
The past ten years have witnessed the collapse of Palestinian political authority and leadership in East Jerusalem. Evidence suggests that the Islamic Movement is beginning to fill this vacuum from within Israel. This article examines the growing involvement of the Islamic Movement of Israel in Jerusalem, both in terms of discourse and specific facts on the ground. It explores how the al-Aqsa mosque has been employed, particularly by Shaykh Ra'id…
The politics of heritage and the limitations of international agency in contested cities: A study of the role of Unesco in Jerusalem's Old City
This article problematises international heritage interventions in divided cities through exploring UNESCO's role in Jerusalem's Old City. It examines the tension between universal heritage values and protocols and nationalist agendas which often involve politicised archaeological responses. Drawing on comparative case studies of UNESCO-affiliated projects in Fez and Aleppo, and in the violently divided cities and regions of Mostar and Kosovo, it…
Remaking Beirut: Contesting Memory, Space, and the Urban Imaginary of Lebanese Youth
Throughout the centuries Beirut has had an endless capacity for reinvention and transformation, a consequence of migration, conquest, trade, and internal conflict. the last three decades have witnessed the city center's violent self–destruction, its commercial resurrection, and most recently its national contestation, as oppositional political forces have sought to mobilize mass demonstrations and occupy strategic space. While research has been d…
Beyond the War? The Lebanese Postmemory Experience
This article seeks to address how Lebanese youth are dealing with the legacy of civil war (1975–90), given the national backdrop of official silence, persisting injustice, and competing memory discourses. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory, it explores the memory of a generation of Lebanese who have grown up dominated not by traumatic events but by narrative accounts of events that preceded their birth. This residual form of memor…
Unesco and Jerusalem: Constraints, Challenges and Opportunities
Deconstructing Jerusalem
Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the Past
This book examines the legacy of Lebanon's civil war and how the population, and the youth in particular, are dealing with their national past. Drawing on extensive qualitative research and social observation, the author explores the efforts of those who wish to remember, so as not to repeat past mistakes, and those who wish to forget. In considering how the Lebanese youth are negotiating this collective memory, Larkin addresses issues of: Lebane…
The politics of heritage and the limitations of international agency in contested cities: A study of the role of Unesco in Jerusalem's Old City
This article problematises international heritage interventions in divided cities through exploring UNESCO's role in Jerusalem's Old City. It examines the tension between universal heritage values and protocols and nationalist agendas which often involve politicised archaeological responses. Drawing on comparative case studies of UNESCO-affiliated projects in Fez and Aleppo, and in the violently divided cities and regions of Mostar and Kosovo, it…
Beyond the War? The Lebanese Postmemory Experience
This article seeks to address how Lebanese youth are dealing with the legacy of civil war (1975–90), given the national backdrop of official silence, persisting injustice, and competing memory discourses. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory, it explores the memory of a generation of Lebanese who have grown up dominated not by traumatic events but by narrative accounts of events that preceded their birth. This residual form of memor…
In Defense of Al-Aqsa: The Islamic Movement Inside Israel and the Battle for Jerusalem
The past ten years have witnessed the collapse of Palestinian political authority and leadership in East Jerusalem. Evidence suggests that the Islamic Movement is beginning to fill this vacuum from within Israel. This article examines the growing involvement of the Islamic Movement of Israel in Jerusalem, both in terms of discourse and specific facts on the ground. It explores how the al-Aqsa mosque has been employed, particularly by Shaykh Ra'id…
Remaking Beirut: Contesting Memory, Space, and the Urban Imaginary of Lebanese Youth
Throughout the centuries Beirut has had an endless capacity for reinvention and transformation, a consequence of migration, conquest, trade, and internal conflict. the last three decades have witnessed the city center's violent self–destruction, its commercial resurrection, and most recently its national contestation, as oppositional political forces have sought to mobilize mass demonstrations and occupy strategic space. While research has been d…
Iraqi heritage restoration, grassroots interventions and post-conflict recovery: Reflections from Mosul
The deliberate targeting and violent destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq’s ancient city of Mosul by the Islamic State (2014–17) has recently given way to the emergence of heritage initiatives aimed at restoring its urban character and reviving its cosmopolitan spirit. Such restoration projects invariably stir debates over timing, funding and local consultation, as well as their potential to contribute to post-war social cohesion and communal…
The “inclusion-moderation” illusion: Re-framing the Islamic movement inside Israel
The inclusion-moderation thesis posits that radical movements can be moderated through participation in democratic pluralist politics. Repeatedly applied to Islamist movements questions remain over its conceptual ambiguity and empirical veracity. Despite such weaknesses this thesis continues to be utilized to explain the diverging trajectories of the Islamic movement within Israel–its Southern accommodationist parliamentary branch (IMSB) and its …
Memory, violence and post-conflict reconstruction: Rebuilding and reimagining Mosul
How can and should post-conflict cities be rebuilt after traumatic violence and forced displacement? Five years following Mosul’s liberation from the extremist reign of Islamic State, controversy surrounds attempts to revive the city’s rich cultural heritage and pluralistic past. This paper examines Mosul’s ongoing reconstruction initiatives, shaped by competing memory narratives and actors (local and international) vying for the right to reimagi…
Negotiating Lebanon’s urban boundaries and sectarian space: Syrian refugees in Beirut and Tripoli
As Syrian refugee numbers in Lebanon have increased, so has the hostility directed towards them, with targeted attacks against informal encampments and public restrictions on Syrian mobility through localized curfews and military checkpoints. The Syrian experience is constrained by both their precarity as refugees and the volatility of Lebanese urban politics. Syrians must navigate the complex terrain of moral and socio-spatial Lebanese boundarie…
Spiritual ambiguity in interfaith humanitarianism: Local faith communities, Syrian refugees, and Muslim–Christian encounters in Lebanon and Jordan
Literature on faith-based responses to forced displacement has described, but not fully unpacked or theorized cross-religion humanitarian aid in ‘South–South’ contexts. This article interrogates the various ambiguities, particularly spiritual ambiguities, inherent in faith-based humanitarianism where local providers are the minority religion. In unpacking these, we identify three modes of faith-based aid to Muslim Syrian refugees by local churche…
War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance
This article examines three museums that address Lebanon’s history of conflict: the newly opened Beit Beirut on the capital’s former Green Line, the Hezbollah-run Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark in south Lebanon, and Umam Documentation and Research’s online archive “Memory at Work.” Each testing the parameters of what the term museum can mean in Lebanon today, these cases highlight the still-contested nature of war narratives. While many Leban…
School Choice and Conflict Narratives: Representative Bureaucracy at the Street Level in East Jerusalem
In representative bureaucracy research, the dominant view holds that passive representation leads to active representation. Much of the research to date has focused on the conditions that influence this process. In this research, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the manifestation of active representation, rather than simply its presence. We find that although passive representation may indeed lead to active representation, the nat…
Unesco and Jerusalem: Constraints, Challenges and Opportunities
Unesco and Jerusalem: Constraints, Challenges and Opportunities
Deconstructing Jerusalem
Remaking Beirut: Contesting Memory, Space, and the Urban Imaginary of Lebanese Youth
Throughout the centuries Beirut has had an endless capacity for reinvention and transformation, a consequence of migration, conquest, trade, and internal conflict. the last three decades have witnessed the city center's violent self–destruction, its commercial resurrection, and most recently its national contestation, as oppositional political forces have sought to mobilize mass demonstrations and occupy strategic space. While research has been d…
Beyond the War? The Lebanese Postmemory Experience
This article seeks to address how Lebanese youth are dealing with the legacy of civil war (1975–90), given the national backdrop of official silence, persisting injustice, and competing memory discourses. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory, it explores the memory of a generation of Lebanese who have grown up dominated not by traumatic events but by narrative accounts of events that preceded their birth. This residual form of memor…
The politics of heritage and the limitations of international agency in contested cities: A study of the role of Unesco in Jerusalem's Old City
This article problematises international heritage interventions in divided cities through exploring UNESCO's role in Jerusalem's Old City. It examines the tension between universal heritage values and protocols and nationalist agendas which often involve politicised archaeological responses. Drawing on comparative case studies of UNESCO-affiliated projects in Fez and Aleppo, and in the violently divided cities and regions of Mostar and Kosovo, it…
Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the Past
This book examines the legacy of Lebanon's civil war and how the population, and the youth in particular, are dealing with their national past. Drawing on extensive qualitative research and social observation, the author explores the efforts of those who wish to remember, so as not to repeat past mistakes, and those who wish to forget. In considering how the Lebanese youth are negotiating this collective memory, Larkin addresses issues of: Lebane…
Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the Past
1. Introduction: Beyond the War? 2. Locating a Postmemory Generation 3. Contesting Lebanon: History, Identity and Co-existence 4. (Re)Imagining the Nation: School, Street and the 'Independence Intifada' 5. Space, Place and Site: Inhabiting Postwar Memoryscapes 6. Time, Story and Myth: Narrating Lebanon's Future 7. Conclusions
In Defense of Al-Aqsa: The Islamic Movement Inside Israel and the Battle for Jerusalem
The past ten years have witnessed the collapse of Palestinian political authority and leadership in East Jerusalem. Evidence suggests that the Islamic Movement is beginning to fill this vacuum from within Israel. This article examines the growing involvement of the Islamic Movement of Israel in Jerusalem, both in terms of discourse and specific facts on the ground. It explores how the al-Aqsa mosque has been employed, particularly by Shaykh Ra'id…
Speaking in the Silence: Youthful Negotiations of Beirut’s Post-War Spaces and Memories
The familiar Lebanese riposte am bihki bil Sokout (I’m speaking in the silence) carries multiple, and at times contradictory, meanings. In some instances it may be used to avoid politically sensitive conversations or convey an unspoken judgement, in other contexts it suggests a sense of dislocation or powerlessness. Among Beirut’s youth this phrase encapsulates the ambiguity and tension of life in a post-war city — the uneasy negotiation of publi…
The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant
Throughout the turbulent history of the Levant the Alawis — a secretive, resilient and ancient Muslim sect — have aroused suspicion and animosity, including accusations of religious heresy. More recently they have been tarred with the brush of political separatism and complicity in the excesses of the Assad regime, claims that have gained greater traction since the onset of the Syrian uprising and subsequent devastating civil war. The contributor…
War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance
This article examines three museums that address Lebanon’s history of conflict: the newly opened Beit Beirut on the capital’s former Green Line, the Hezbollah-run Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark in south Lebanon, and Umam Documentation and Research’s online archive “Memory at Work.” Each testing the parameters of what the term museum can mean in Lebanon today, these cases highlight the still-contested nature of war narratives. While many Leban…
School Choice and Conflict Narratives: Representative Bureaucracy at the Street Level in East Jerusalem
In representative bureaucracy research, the dominant view holds that passive representation leads to active representation. Much of the research to date has focused on the conditions that influence this process. In this research, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the manifestation of active representation, rather than simply its presence. We find that although passive representation may indeed lead to active representation, the nat…
Spiritual ambiguity in interfaith humanitarianism: Local faith communities, Syrian refugees, and Muslim–Christian encounters in Lebanon and Jordan
Literature on faith-based responses to forced displacement has described, but not fully unpacked or theorized cross-religion humanitarian aid in ‘South–South’ contexts. This article interrogates the various ambiguities, particularly spiritual ambiguities, inherent in faith-based humanitarianism where local providers are the minority religion. In unpacking these, we identify three modes of faith-based aid to Muslim Syrian refugees by local churche…
The “inclusion-moderation” illusion: Re-framing the Islamic movement inside Israel
The inclusion-moderation thesis posits that radical movements can be moderated through participation in democratic pluralist politics. Repeatedly applied to Islamist movements questions remain over its conceptual ambiguity and empirical veracity. Despite such weaknesses this thesis continues to be utilized to explain the diverging trajectories of the Islamic movement within Israel–its Southern accommodationist parliamentary branch (IMSB) and its …
Negotiating Lebanon’s urban boundaries and sectarian space: Syrian refugees in Beirut and Tripoli
As Syrian refugee numbers in Lebanon have increased, so has the hostility directed towards them, with targeted attacks against informal encampments and public restrictions on Syrian mobility through localized curfews and military checkpoints. The Syrian experience is constrained by both their precarity as refugees and the volatility of Lebanese urban politics. Syrians must navigate the complex terrain of moral and socio-spatial Lebanese boundarie…
Memory, violence and post-conflict reconstruction: Rebuilding and reimagining Mosul
How can and should post-conflict cities be rebuilt after traumatic violence and forced displacement? Five years following Mosul’s liberation from the extremist reign of Islamic State, controversy surrounds attempts to revive the city’s rich cultural heritage and pluralistic past. This paper examines Mosul’s ongoing reconstruction initiatives, shaped by competing memory narratives and actors (local and international) vying for the right to reimagi…
Iraqi heritage restoration, grassroots interventions and post-conflict recovery: Reflections from Mosul
The deliberate targeting and violent destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq’s ancient city of Mosul by the Islamic State (2014–17) has recently given way to the emergence of heritage initiatives aimed at restoring its urban character and reviving its cosmopolitan spirit. Such restoration projects invariably stir debates over timing, funding and local consultation, as well as their potential to contribute to post-war social cohesion and communal…
More Than Bargaining Chips: How Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State Kidnapped and Used Hostages in Lebanon
This paper presents an empirical examination of the Arsal hostage crisis in Lebanon, when Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State kidnapped over 35 soldiers and police officers in 2014. Following interviews with 30 hostages’ families and analysis of the jihadists’ propaganda, three themes emerge. First, the hostage-taking had intrinsic emotional value for the jihadists and was not only a means to secure extrinsic concessions. Second, the crisis was oft…
Political science (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Middle East Politics and Society (11 works) · History (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · History (7 works) · Art (6 works)