July 9 2020: this week I’m posting threads on the Syrian and Lebanese mahjar over at the historical twitter account: @Tweetistorian. Created by Khodadad Rezakhan and Torsten Wollina in 2019, the Tweetistorian is a roving account that a new historian takes over every Monday. In order to keep track of this week’s threads on the mahjar, I’ll post each thread link below:

Origin Stories: on the difficulties of doing migration history through traditional archives, and some of the traps of the sedentary bias:  https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1280175832737038348

Quantifying the Mahjar: the basics in Syrian emigration to the Americas, plus a discussion of the politics of quantifying the Syrian diaspora over the last 100 years:  https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1280190639104090112

Mahjari Print Culture: on the Arabic periodicals of the Americas, starting in the late 19th century, and on the politics of the Syrian Americans press before the First World War: https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1280533364223512577

World War I in the Mahjar: this one is on the politics of the First World War, with a focus on Syrian diasporic resistance to the Ottoman Empire:  https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1280903978226614272

Military Mobilization in the Mahjar: on the recruitment of Arab Americans into the French and US armies, and links with nationalist politics: https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1280924303685369857

Mandating the Mahjar: on the fall of the Ottomans, the rise of the European Mandates, and the role Syrian and Lebanese abroad played in Mandate politics. Also, diaspora anticolonialism: https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1281290299776528384

Work and Livelihoods in the Mahjar: on the diaspora’s labor economies and the kinds of work Syrians did upon arriving abroad. Also, some discussion about the politics of mutual aid and immigrant welfare orgs: https://twitter.com/Tweetistorian/status/1281615926949892097