Professor Hannu Juusola’s research focus has changed over the years.

– During my study years in the 1980s the Middle East was still very far away, and our studies concentrated mostly on the classical cultures of the area, which I went on to specialise in.

Since his doctoral dissertation, Juusola has re-trained himself to become an expert and researcher of the modern societies and politics of the Middle East.

– I don’t feel that the diverse language skills and knowledge of the classical Middle East I gained earlier are any kind of impediment; on the contrary, it is important to understand the long cultural development of the area, also in light of the contemporary situation. Cultural reading skills are very important when you specialise in societies where there is a palpable sense of the past in the present day. I was shocked for example when I happened to meet a scholar of the contemporary Middle East in Syria who did not know what an Umayyad mosque is.

Professor Juusola’s current research interests are democratisation, secularisation and the relationships between different citizenship discourses in Arab countries and in Israel, as well as the significance of sectarianism in the politics of the region. Other interests of his are the relationship between the middle classes and democracy and the role of water as a political question in the Middle East crises. Juusola explains:

– This interest was aroused when I lived in Syria and saw with my own eyes how drought affects people’s lives. The Syrian civil war has been most detrimental in areas affected most by drought as well as the slums surrounding cities, where poor people from the withering countryside have settled. In recent years I have done fieldwork, especially in Lebanon. It’s a lesson in humility trying to get to grips with another society using a language with such a huge array of dialects. Putting the boot on the other foot, I have often wondered how a foreign scholar would feel about going to Ostrobothnia for example to research the supporters of the Centre Party who speak nothing but Finnish. I believe–or at any rate hope–that an outsider can see things that local researchers might have overlooked, says Juusola.