Mashriq and Mahjar, a biannual academic journal, focusing on Middle East and North African migration studies, published its first volume earlier this year. Published by NC State’s Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese and Diaspora studies, the journal features peer-reviewed articles that provide original research on the lives of those from the Middle East and North Africa.

Kathryn Schinabeck, a graduate student earning a doctorate in public history, serves as the managing editor of Mashriq and Mahjar. Technician spoke with her about what Mashriq and Mahjar hopes to accomplish as a publication, and its importance to the university.

In a nutshell, what is Mashriq and Mahjar?

Mashriq and Mahjar is an academic journal that publishes scholarship on Middle East and North African diaspora studies. The publication an online, peer-reviewed academic journal. It’s published by the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, which is a research center on campus that aims to conduct and disseminate research on the Middle East diaspora. Mashriq and Mahjar is one of the ways that it fulfills that mission.

What is the objective of Mashriq and Mahjar? What do you most hope the journal

accomplishes through the articles and journals it features?

Mashriq and Mahjar’s mission is to disseminate original research on the Middle East and North African diaspora. The journal was established to fill a void in academic literature, which tends to use national, bounded frameworks of analysis. By using diaspora and movement, rather than fixed areas, as a central theme of analysis, the journal hopes to open up new avenues and approaches for research.

Why is the publication of Mashriq and Mahjar at NC State a valuable step for our

school as an institution?

Mashriq and Mahjar highlights a very relevant current topic, that of migration within and out of the Middle East. At the Khayrallah Center, one of our main goals is to emphasize the vast and

complex history of migration to, from and within the Middle East and North Africa. That our university is contributing to current debate by offering quality research on all aspects of the Middle East diaspora is a testament to our commitment to historical knowledge and to adding valuable context to current issue.

What does “Mashriq and Mahjar” mean?

“Mashriq and Mahjar” encapsulates the idea of movement within and out of the Middle East. “Mashriq” is the region of the Arab world that the Khayrallah Center focuses on, which includes Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. “Mahjar” is the lands and people of the Arab diaspora itself. Both are important because we publish works on the diaspora’s influence on countries receiving those immigrants, but we are also interested in how Diasporas within the Middle East affect countries in the Middle East and the countries that immigrants leave.

Do you believe that Mashriq and Mahjar is especially important now given our

political climate?

In short, yes. In our last editorial foreword, the editors of Mashriq and Mahjar reaffirmed “its

commitment to being a source of factual information and up-to-date research on immigrants, displaced peoples, and the worlds that they make.”

Who is Mashriq and Mahjar’s audience?

Mashriq and Mahjar is an academic journal, and we do keep an academic audience in mind, while also encouraging authors to ensure that their works are accessible to broad audiences as well. This is a difficult balance, because in academic writing, authors often write under the assumption that their fellow academics understand a lot of the subtext of their work. This enables them to get to the meat of their argument sooner and therefore have an overall more comprehensive argument. This is good for academics, but not necessarily lay readers. So we attempt to strike a balance in the journal, because we do believe that it is important to serve

both audiences.

Can anyone submit to Mashriq and Mahjar? 

Yes, anyone can technically submit to Mashriq and Mahjar. All submissions are then peer-reviewed by scholars in their field. If the reviewers recommend it be published, then we proceed. Typically, the people who publish in Mashriq and Mahjar are scholars and professors or graduate students.

When will Mashriq and Mahjar publish its next volume?

Mashriq and Mahjar will publish its next issue soon! You should plan to see an issue on “Arabs in Australia” by the end of July. I’m especially excited about this issue because, along with academic works on researching Arabs in Australia and Australian literature, we’re publishing short stories and a play that are both simply wonderful, and that fit beautifully with the more academic works.