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Academia & Social Justice

Academia & Social Justice

11-13 March 2016
Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship
American University of Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon
Faculty and students at institutions of higher learning have often played an important, galvanizing, and sometimes even game-changing role in their societies’ demands for equity, equality, and social and political justice. They have done so both in their academic and research production, and in their direct social and political activism within the community, sometimes paying a heaving price for this activism.
 
This conference aimed to query aspects of this relationship between academia and social justice, past and present, in the Arab region and internationally. How are the debates and paradigms that define this engagement situated within the current marketplace economics, corporatization, and political orthodoxy? Over three days researchers and participants from the Arab region and beyond  investigated the following themes:
 
Historical Narratives - What have been the successful and unsuccessful efforts of academia (faculty and students) in promoting social justice? What possibilities and challenges have they faced, as faculty and students, both inside and outside the university?
 
Academia Today - What are the current challenges and avenues for social-justice activism among faculty and students? What is the impact of particular political situations, such as war or occupation, on active academic involvement? What issues resonate throughout university campuses, and what topics tend to be silenced? To what degree are students empowered within academia, both by administrators and by faculty?
 
Academia and the Marketplace - How has regional and globalized neoliberalism influenced academia? What have been the impacts of the corporate funding of faculties and the rise of private and franchised universities on academic freedom and on public universities? What are potential modes of countering those influences?
 
The Pedagogy for Social Justice - Are there programs or pedagogical tools that can deepen a culture of public engagement and empower the protest against the commodification of academic spaces? Have the current scholarly production of knowledge and pedagogical practices encouraged such active engagements with and in service of the pursuit of social justice?
 
A Knowledge-Building Agenda - Based on the discussions of the above, what are the current gaps in knowledge and theory on the role of faculty and students within and beyond the academic environment? What do we propose as an agenda for future knowledge building and activism on the issue?
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What is the Asfari Institute?

The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at AUB was established to support the development of an informed and engaged citizenry and to promote increased openness, transparency, and accountability at all levels of associational life in the Arab region. It interprets civil society and citizenship broadly and inclusively and aims to foster fruitful dialogue that builds knowledge on traditional and innovative forms of associational life and encourages an active and engaged citizenry across the region on the basis of freedom of expression and association.

​The Asfari Institute was launched with the Inaugural Conference New Spaces of Civil Society Activism in the Arab World on 23 May 2013. This second conference is the first in a planned series of annual conferences on topics of citizenship and civil society and is an integral element of the Asfari Institute’s interdependent program of evidence-based and policy-oriented research, education, and collaboration with like-minded partners in Arab and international civil society and academia.

Highlights

Introductions & Welcome Panel
Fadlo Khuri, President, American University of Beirut
Bassam Haddad, George Mason University & Arab Studies Institute
Fateh Azzam, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship


Panel 1: Academia and Political Society
Moderator: Omar Dewachi, AUB

Ala Alazzeh
, Birzeit University
"Knowledge in a colonial space"

Sari Hanafi, AUB
"The Demise of public life of Arab academics: The case of writing op-eds in Lebanese newspapers"

Coralie Pison Hindawi, AUB
"The role of academia in individual R2P"
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Panel 2: Academia and the Marketplace
Moderator: Nadya Sbaiti, AUB

Mudar Kassis, Birzeit University
"Do universities contribute to the consolidation of contemporary slavery?"

Alan Sears, Ryerson University
"Infrastructure of dissent"

Corinna Mullin, University of Tunis & SOAS
"Global neoliberal governance and higher education: power and resistance in post-uprising Tunisia"

Tory Brykalski, University of California-Davis
"Organized labor as a form of strategic resistance against the privatization of the academy"
Panel 3: Are public universities expressions of social justice?
Moderator: Nahla Chahal, As-Safir Al-Arabi Weekly Supplement

Rehab Sakr, Cairo University
"Free university education, the quality of the product and the changing meaning of social justice: The Egyptian experience from
1950s until now"

Nahla Abdel Tawab, Salma Abou Hussein, and Tarek Alam El Din, Population Council
"The cost of free university education in Egypt: Analyzing evidence of equity in access"

MennatuAllah Hendaway, Ain Shams University
"Does academia reinforce socio-spatially just designs?"
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Panel 4: The Active Role of Students
Moderator :Aya Adra, Red Oak Club, AUB

Mohamed Baba Mohda, Université Internationale du Sahel
"When students impose social justice through democratic means"

Mohammed   Aljssem, Damascus   University  
"Academic  alienation  in  Syrian universities and the Syrian social movement"

​Pankhuri Dasgupta, Centre for Women's Studies 
"Occupy UGC– A closer look at student movements in India in 2015"
Panel 5: Academic Organizing in Lebanon
Moderator: Sawsan Abdulrahim, AUB Faculty United, AUB  

Emile Shaheen, Author, formerly Lebanese University
"The role of faculty and students in the birth of the Lebanese University" 

Jacques Kabbanji, Contemporary Arab Affair, Lama Kabbanji, Research Institute for Development, and Hala Awada, researcher "The university public space and the protest movement experience in Lebanon"

Makram Rabbah, Georgetown University
"Beyond the gilded walls: AUB and the world around it" 
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Panel 6: Advocating for Palestine in Western Academic Institutions
Moderator: Steven Salaita, AUB

Brenna  Bhandar, SOAS  
"The  big  chill:  Charities  law  and  the  politics  of  BDS activism in UK universities"

Rafeef Ziadeh, SOAS
"Silencing  dissent  on  campus:  the  case  of  Israeli  Apartheid Week"

Max   Ajl, Cornell   University
"Opening  spaces  for  speech:  organizing  against backlash"

Tareq  Radi,  Georgetown  University
"Repression  through  reform:  The  student handbook as a living document" 
Panel  7:  The  University  and  Beyond:  Power,  Ethics  and  Academic Freedom
Moderator: Seteney Shami, Arab Council for the Social Sciences

Eileen   Kuttab, Birzeit   University
"Gender,  equity,  and  social  justice  in  the university" 

Ramy  Aly,  American  University  in  Cairo  
"Academic freedom between the university and the state" 

Perla  Issa,  Institute  for  Palestine  Studies
"Reflections  on  conducting  research with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon"
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 Panel 8: Pedagogy and Social Justice
Moderator: Elie El-Hindi, Notre Dame University 

Rabab Abdulhadi, San Francisco State University
"Resisting the new McCarthyism: Palestine studies and justice-centered knowledge"

Sabiha Allouche, SOAS
"No  longer  caught  between  two  worlds:  Towards  a decolonized feminist research in the Middle East"

Gregory  Shupak,  University  of  Guelph
"Teaching media and the Middle East  in a western university" 
Panel 9: Schools and Alternative Models
Moderator: Fateh Azzam, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, AUB

Mike Orr, University of Edinburgh, and Samer Annous, University of Balamand
"Linguistic imperialism, identity, and English medium instruction in Lebanon"

Ghada Feghali, Mmkn Association
"Pedagogy for social justice: The experience of Mmkn"

Sawsan El Sherif, AUC
"Learning and knowledge-based society: the community
universities"
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Closing Panel: Publicly Engaged Scholarship
Moderator: Huda Zurayk, AUB

Patrick McGreevy, AUB
"The idea of university autonomy and the challenges of the 21st
century"

Ahmad Dallal, AUB
"The role of public intellectuals in the changing landscape of
higher education"

Bassam Haddad, George Mason University & Arab Studies Institute
"Context,opportunities and limits"
More FAMA Projects
  • The Political Economy Project
  • Knowledge Production Project (US)
  • Knowledge Production Project (Middle East)
  • The Lebanon Project
  • Middle East Media Project
  • The Egypt Project
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  • FAMA
  • Researchers
  • Projects
    • MESPI
    • Knowledge Production Project >
      • ME-KP
    • Political Economy Project >
      • Development and the Uprisings
      • Class Formations and Dynamics
      • The Palestinian Economy: Fragmentation and Colonization
      • Tunisia: A Political Economy in Transition
      • Migrant States, Mobile Economies: Rethinking the Political in Contemporary Turkey
      • Political Economy of the Middle East: Continuities & Discontinuities in Teaching & Research
      • 2016 Political Economy Institute
    • The Lebanon Project >
      • Research Working Group: State-Building, Public Institutions, & Social Mobilization in Lebanon, 1943-1958 >
        • Inaugural Workshop: State-Building, Public Institutions, & Social Mobilization in Lebanon, 1943-1958
      • Lebanon Dissertation Summer Institute
    • The Palestine Project >
      • Gaza in Context Film
      • Alternative Strategies for Realizing Justice in Palestine
      • Audio Content
    • The Civil Society Project >
      • Exploring an Agenda on Active Citizenship
      • NGOs in the Arab World Post-Arab Uprisings
      • Academia & Social Justice
    • Middle East Media Project >
      • Journalism Against the Grain
    • The Egypt Project >
      • Towards a Cultural Cartography
      • After Tahrir
      • Audio Content
    • Refugees and Migrants Project >
      • Refugees in Lebanon
      • Study Week Beirut
    • Black-Palestinian Transnational Solidarities Project
  • Initiatives
    • Political Islam, ISIS, and Sectarianism >
      • Understanding the ISIS Phenomenon
      • Sectarianism, Identity and Conflict in Islamic Contexts
    • SAND
    • MED RESET
  • Events
    • Mailing List
    • 2015 Events
    • 2014 Events
    • 2013 Events
    • 2012 Events
    • 2011 Events
    • 2010 Events
  • Summer Institutes
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    • Application Form
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