In February 2007, a conference was held at the British Institute in Amman to explore the impact of constructions of the East/West dichotomy on research around the Mediterranean and to document and understand more complex relationships and cultural realities between these two distinct, yet close political geographies. The conference was organized by the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) and the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) under the patronage of HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal. This introduction and the following papers have not been updated since the start of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, so do not reflect any of these recent and ongoing events.

The full text of this introduction is available as the first article of this volume.