Political Economy Project: The Arab Uprisings, Class Formation & Class Dynamics

June 14, 2015 9:00am  - June 15, 2015 6:00pm
SOAS University of London
London, UK

Sponsored by SOAS, University of London and the Arab Studies Institute
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On 15 and 16 June 2015, academics from the Development Studies department at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London) along with the Arab Studies Institute convened a workshop entitled The Arab Uprisings: Class Formation and Class Dynamics. The workshop was bilingual (Arabic and English) and attended by over 30 prominent scholars from the Middle East, Europe and the United States. In lively discussion across two days, paper presentations examined questions such as: to what extent is ‘class’ a useful analytical framework for approaching the ongoing upheaval in the region? What are the specificities of such a class analysis for the Arab world? What are the underlying dynamics characterizing the restructuring of labor-capital-state relations since the period of neoliberal reform began in the 1980s? How are questions such as labour migration, gendered divisions of labour, forms of free/unfree labour, and the massive expansion of informal work best integrated into class analyses of the region? How have regional structures of capital accumulation changed over the last decade and what does this imply for the nature of capitalism in the Arab world?