Prof. Dr. Bethany J. Walker

The agency of dependent social groups to negotiate advantages, carve out niches of autonomy and make decisions on a local level that had the potential to impact imperial regimes is at the heart of Bethany Walker’s research. The political focus is the Mamluk Sultanate, a Muslim state founded and maintained by a political elite of manumitted military slaves in Egypt and Syria in the 13th through early 16th centuries. In a system where a particular form of slavery, which has deep roots in the medieval Islamic world, created a ruling elite, peasants, the poor, foreigners, religious minorities and women could redefine their social class to their benefit by molding economic institutions and imperial policies and forming alternative socio-political networks.

1 book, 3 edited volumes, 70 articles, 15 reviews, and more than 60 invited talks, lectures, and presentations; 1 finished and 11 ongoing doctorate supervisions, 2 as external reviewer, numerous B.A. and M.A. theses supervision

Project Phase 2

Tied to the Land? Coercive Labor and Resource Management in Late Medieval and Ottoman Syria

Unlike peasants in Europe, those in the medieval Islamic world were not by legal definition
"tied to the land." They did not belong to the estate, and could not legally be forced to remain
there. However, the realities of practice were quite different, as different kinds of SADs developed between agrarian laborer and estate-owner. Scholarship on peasant society in Mamluk and Ottoman studies has tended to focus on land tenure as the defining factor in this relationship. This view, however, has simplified the complex dynamics that existed in medieval society, and leaves out many agents of coercion and SAD that also came into play.

Rather than conceptualizing the struggle for control over critical resources as a binary conflict between peasants and the state, this project is designed to identify as many factors as possible that influenced decision-making, determined priorities, and defined the SADs that developed, and at times disappeared, between human sources of labor and land owners. The
focus is on holistic behavioral systems, and will use ABMs (agent-based modeling) as a tool
to understand the complex mechanisms behind these relationships. As computer simulations of systems that help to replicate the interactions among people and things, ABM will be an important tool in painting a more detailed picture of peasant SADs over time and across spaces. The data sets for the modeling will come from two main sources: the PI’s archaeological excavations in Israel (funded by the DFG) and Jordan, which are rich in environmental data, as well as medieval Arabic texts related to land use, land tenure, and peasant life.

1992–1998
Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, Canada

1989–1992
M.A. at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

1985–1989
B.A. at Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA

since 2013
Professor for Middle Eastern History, University of Bonn, Germany

2008–2013
Professor and Full Professor for Middle Eastern History, Department of History, Missouri State University, USA

2004–2008
Assistant and Associate Professor for Middle Eastern History, Department of History, Grand Valley State University, USA

1999–2004
Visiting Assistant Professor/Assistant Professor for Middle Eastern History, Department of History, Oklahoma State University, USA

since 2015
Member of the editorial board, "Comparative Islamic Studies"

since 2014
Senior editor, "Journal of Islamic Archaeology"

since 2013
Member of the editorial board, "Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research"

since 2007
Member of the editorial board, "Bulletin d’ Études Orientales"

2005–2008
Research participant in the Norwegian project "Global Moments in the Levant: Towards an Understanding of a Contact Zone between Peoples, Cultures, and States," sponsored by the University of Bergen and funded by the Norwegian Research Council (for $ 2.6 million)

2005–2007
Board of Directors, Middle East Medievalists

since 2004
Member of the editorial board, "Mamluk Studies Review," University of Chicago, USA

2004–2012
Member of editorial board "Near Eastern Archaeology"

since 2014
Co-Director – Khirbet Beit Mazmil Archaeological and Development Project, Jerusalem

since 2003
Senior Director – Northern Jordan Project

2001–2003
Ceramics consultant (medieval and post-medieval) – University of Warsaw – Polis-Pyrgos Archaeological Project, Cyprus

since 1998
Director of Excavations – Excavations at Tall Hisban, Madaba Plains Project, Jordan

1995, 2008
Ceramics consultant (medieval and post-medieval) – Vasilikos Valley Project, Cyprus – directed by Ian Todd and Alison South

1994–1997
Ceramics specialist - Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (Toronto, ON) - excavations of medieval Zaraka, Stymphalos, Greece