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This paper provides a conclusion to a special issue of Mediterranean Politics that has sought to promote critical approaches for a better understanding of spatial process in some of the Middle East region's most prominent in-between spaces. Following recent efforts to observe bordering processes in and around the region, this collection develops the possibility that a subtly different process of territorialization is taking place in those spaces where state power is most challenged, compromised, and uncertain–frontierization. In assessing its possibilities, this paper highlights the significant record of past geographical approaches to borderlands but also selectively explores the established phenomenon of in-betweenness in the evolution of the regional territorial framework. It concludes by suggesting that any fresh consideration of contemporary spatial process should engage with geography's long tradition of studying borderlands as cooperative features and more recent multidisciplinary coverage that tends to view them today as spaces of insecurity in state margins beyond the reach of state authority. Any reinvigorated borderland studies–to which the idea of frontierization might well have something to say–needs to be multidisciplinary but also would do well to further develop agendas for exploring these regions that have been around for some time.

Sociologists often imagine society as spaces, yet how social spaces are related remains ambiguous in most theories. In developing his field theory, Bourdieu used extensively the concept of homology to describe the structural similarities across fields, but he had not taken seriously the spaces between fields or how fields are related to each other. Adopting the Simmelian approach of formal sociology, this article outlines six basic social forms by which social spaces are related. It argues that relations between social spaces can be understood along two dimensions: heterogeneity and social distance. In terms of heterogeneity, social spaces can be kindred, symbiotic or oppositional. In terms of social distance, they can be linked, nested or overlapping. These social forms of interspatial relations are constituted by the boundary work of a variety of actors, including guardians, brokers and space travellers. The article provides a general vocabulary for thinking about how social spaces are related and how they interact across boundaries.

The courtyard form of the traditional Arab house responded to both climate and the culture of its inhabitants. Islamic values, as well as socioeconomic factors, played crucial roles in the design. However, the mid-20th century marked the beginning of Saudi Arabia's first rapid economic growth as a result of the discovery of oil; which dramatically increased the wealth and prosperity of the population, and resulted in new lifestyles. This period witnessed the introduction of the grid layout street pattern and the detached villa house. This type became the prevalent style in Saudi Arabia, the central province, and Riyadh in particular. While the traditional courtyard house more than satisfied cultural needs, increasingly it was viewed inappropriate for affluent 21st-century lifestyles. Yet this research confirmed that the villa style is creating fundamental problems for Saudi families. The theoretical framework is set in sustainability theory, and investigates the principles of home through human needs, place, and house. The methodology uses a survey strategy with questionnaires, interviews, and building analysis to determine which aspects of home are satisfied by each type. The dilemma is that Saudi families will not return to the courtyard type because it does not meet important requirements of status; whereas the villa type does not meet significant criteria such as privacy. The context is increasing climatic temperatures, which are making both types increasingly uncomfortable. This study highlights the need for a specific contemporary home style that would satisfy 21st-century aspirations, respect Islamic culture, and respond to changing climate.

AbstractThough in many ways the demographics and other characteristics of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf follow the proscribed pathways to modernity, the Arab societies in the region have not completely abandoned their traditional characteristics in the wake of modernization and globalization forces. These societies have found a way to consolidate the external and internal pressures and exist somewhere on a four-way spectrum between "modern traditionalism" and "traditional modernism" on one axis, and between "global traditionalism" and "traditionalized globalization" on the other. The Arab societies of the Persian Gulf fit neither into the "cultural maintenance" nor "modernization" category, but exist and thrive in some space in between, making it an interesting area of study in need of more research.

Abstract
Buchanan and Powell hope to rescue optimism about moral perfectibility from the 'received view' of human evolution, by tweaking our view of the innate character of morality. I argue that their intervention is hampered by an unnecessary commitment to nativism, by gender bias within the received view, and by liberal presuppositions.

All of the contributors to this special issue have reflected on the stakes involved in negotiating differences in language and culture. In their research and professional practice they inhabit the 'space between': the space between languages, the space between cultures, and the space between academic disciplines. While many of our contributors are located in the Australian university system, we also have contributors from outside that system, as well as contributors who are theorising disparate sites for the negotiation of difference. The most exciting aspect of the papers presented here is the ability to move between the spheres of cultural theory and the everyday. Analytical techniques originally developed for literary and cultural analysis are brought to bear on the texts and practices of everyday life. The loci for these investigations include the classroom, the police station, the streets, local government and the university itself. The practices examined include translating and interpreting, language teaching, academic writing, literary production and critique, language planning and small business and shadow economies. The academic disciplines drawn on include theoretical and applied linguistics, discourse analysis, language teaching pedagogy, policy studies, cultural studies, literary studies, political science, gender studies and postcolonial theory.

This is the story of one of the great visionary achievements of the 20th century. In June 1967 the Arab/Israeli war closed the Suez Canal and ships that formerly would have navigated the Canal were forced to take the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. At the same time, demand in the West for oil and petrol was steadily increasing and the tankers built to transport oil from the Arabian Gulf to Europe and the Western Hemisphere, by force of circumstance no longer restricted by the limited width of the Canal, were dramatically growing in size. Shipowners and shipyards competed with e

This personal diary of six months of diplomacy and travel in Arabia represents and impressive document to the quiet ability and resourcefulness of one of Great Britain's leading officials in the Middle East in the 1920's. The sudden expansion of the Arabian Sultanate of Najd under the leadership of 'Abd-al-'Aziz ibn Sa'ud after the First World War presented a clear danger to British interests in the Middle East and threatened the strategically important Arabia