Edited by Karl Bassil, Zeina Maasri and Akram Zaatari, in collaboration with Walid Raad, Mapping Sitting is the book counterpart to the eponymous exhibition curated by Raad and Zaatari from the Arab Image Foundation. Featuring photographs taken between the 1920s and the 1970s, in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine and Jordan, it raises questions about portraiture, performance, photography and identity in the Arab world. Both the exhibition and the book examine how the photographic portrait functioned as a commodity, a luxury item, an adornment; as a description of individuals and groups; and as the inscription of social identities. The authors proceed from the thesis that photographic practices are symptomatic of an evolving capitalist organization of labor and its products, and of established conventions of iconic representation. They also propose that these practices are not only reflective but are also productive of new notions of work, leisure, play, citizenship, community and individuality.