Migrant States, Mobile Economies - Part I: Rethinking the Political in Contemporary Turkey10/8/2015 8 October 2015 @ 3:00-8:00pm Merten Hall 1201 George Mason University Sponsored by Middle East & Islamic Studies, Arab Studies Institute, Global Programs, Political Economy Project, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Middle East Studies, Global Affairs, Middle East Studies Student Assoc., SPGIA Open to the public Pizza & Refreshments Served This event brought together scholars from anthropology and political science to interrogate the conceptual relationship between state formation and capital accumulation as related but distinct technologies of power in contemporary Turkey. From gold traffic between Turkey and Iran and smuggling economies in Turkey’s Kurdistan to the historical development of energy infrastructures and im/mobilities across the Turkey-Syria border, the authors aimed to chronicle the shifting and transnational operations of economic and political power. By exploring states of migrancy as well as economies of mobility in conjunction with state formation and capital accumulation, Migrant States & Mobile Economies aimed to rethink the political in both political economy and political theory through the historiography and ethnography of contemporary Turkey. Schedule - Introductory Remarks Huseyin Yilmaz, Co-Director, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, GMU Bassam Haddad, Director of the Middle East Studies Program, GMU Panel 1 Money in Black or Blood? The Political-Moral in the Smuggling Economies of Turkey’s Kurdistan Firat Bozcali, Stanford University Rethinking the History of Turkey's Political Economy: Generating Consent by Infrastructure Cihan Tekay, CUNY—The Graduate Center Panel 2 Who/What Can Cross the Border? Mobilities and Immobilities at the Turkey-Syria Border Elif Sari, Cornell University Golden Shoes and Tobacco Seats: Scaling Sanctions and Transactions across the Iran/Turkey Border Emrah Yildiz, Harvard University Keynote Address Introduction by Huseyin Yilmaz, Co-Director, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies Seeking Refuge: Lip-Sewing and Truth-Telling Banu Bargu, Associate Professor of Politics, The New School for Social Research
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8 September 2015 @ 6:00pm Merten Hall 1202 George Mason University Presented by the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University & the Arab Studies Institute Free and open to the public Featuring... Sherene Seikaly - University of California Santa Barbara Sherene Seikaly is Assistant Professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the editor of the Arab Studies Journal, and co-founder and editor of Jadaliyya e-zine. Seikaly's Men of Capital in Times of Scarcity: Economy in Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores how Palestinian capitalists and British colonial officials used economy to shape territory, nationalism, the home, and the body. 28 July 2015 @ 9:00am - 7:00pm American University Beirut, Lebanon Sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute, Middle East Studies Program (GMU) & The Issam Faris Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs (AUB) The meteoric expansion of the ISIS movement in Iraq, Syria and beyond during the past year has led to numerous, often conflicting interpretations of this phenomenon and its seeming success, as well as divergent perspectives on its prospects and future. The workshop, “Understanding the ISIS Phenomenon”, jointly convened by the Arab Studies Institute and the Issam Faris Center of the American University of Beirut on 28 July 2015, sought to promote and provide a multi-dimensional, inter-disciplinary examination of its subject. The purpose of this workshop was to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the Islamic State phenomenon, both in terms of the contextual factors that have produced it; its territorial, organizational, political, socio-economic, and religious-theological features; the extent of continuity and change with respect to other Islamist and particularly other radical Jihadi movements; and informed discussion on its further trajectory. 27 July 2015 @ 9:00am - July 28, 2015 @ 7:00pm Beirut, Lebanon Sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute & George Mason University's Middle East Studies Program On 27-28 July 2015, Ziad Abu-Rish and Mona Harb co-convened a two-day research workshop entitled “State Building, Public Institutions, and Social Mobilization in Lebanon: 1943-1958.” The workshop featured an inter-disciplinary group of scholars, 9 of whom were present and additional 5 of which participated remotely. Each of these 14 researchers either directly study the early independence period of Lebanon or engaged in research projects that rely on specific understandings of the period. The topical focus of the workshop is an attempt to both fill a major gap in the scholarly literature on Lebanon as well as to challenge static and exceptional frameworks of state formation and nation-building in the country. The first day of the workshop featured introductions and individual presentations, which were grouped thematically and followed by focused discussion and feedback. The second day was geared toward tackling the commonalities across all presentations in terms of major themes, methodological challenges and opportunities, as well as future plans. It also featured an exclusive visit of the Archives and Special Collections of the American University of Beirut, the staff of which had curated a small exhibition of documents related to the workshop topic and time period. This workshop represents the first meeting of what is planned to be an ongoing and expanding research working group that is a forum for both scholarly exchange and public engagement in Lebanon. To that end, the workshop culminated in a public event which was moderated by Mona Harb and featured four other worship participants. The event brought out more than 70 people in attendance, as the auditorium was standing-room only. Since the public event, a number of senior scholars and laypersons in attendance have commented about the diversity and substantiveness of the presentations. As one esteemed attendee put it, “I live in Lebanon and research issues in the country. This was the best event to learn about Lebanon I’ve ever been to.” A complete workshop report, including a concept note, presenters’ biographies and abstracts, and discussion highlights, will be published before the end of 2015. 24 July 2015 @ 9:00am - 7:00pm American University Beirut, Lebanon Sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute & George Mason University's Middle East Studies Program Since 1992, the Arab Studies Institute has been engaged with producing, analyzing, and scrutinizing knowledge production on the region through its five subsidiary organizations. Most pertinent to this workshop is the Knowledge Production Project, which started briefly in the 1990s, but then resumed in 2007-2008. Its aim is to collect, organize, and analyze knowledge produced on the Middle East in the English language since 1979, in seven databases (see accompanying summary). This ambitious project is both unprecedented and potentially revolutionary, and is now in its advanced stages. At this point, we are turning our attention to knowledge produced in the region about the region, broadly conceived. Few challenges exist. Bibliometrics (statistical indicators of publications) is still considered the most reliable source on scientific production, mainly because it is independent of national authorities. Only two large multidisciplinary databases of citations exist, produced by two major publishing entities. Thomson produces the Web of Science (WoS), and Elsevier produces Scopus. Both databases are also commercial activities as much as they are sources of information. While they are not the only two sources available for bibliometric analysis, they share the aim of being multidisciplinary, independent, and of providing information on author affiliations and citations. Scopus covers more journals and other publications than Web of Science. While these databases don’t cover the Arabic references, recently, there are several newly established initiatives that address this: the databases E-Marefa and al-Manhal include academic material that cover full texts of academic and statistical journals as well as theses and dissertation. Based on that, we held a one-day meeting between different partners in order to accomplish the following: - Establish professional familiarity with existing projects, their directors, and their trajectories - Explore avenues for collaboration and partnership - Reduce overlapping agendas going forward and create synergy among projects The meeting was held on July 24 at the American University of Beirut, and accommodated up to 10 participants who brainstormed in Arabic and English. The Refugees & Migration Project: Refugees in Lebanon, Setting a Research & Advocacy Agenda7/16/2015 16 July 2015 @ 9:00am - 7:00pm Beirut, Lebanon Sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute & George Mason University's Middle East Studies Program The Refugees & Migrants Project seeks to create a resource for scholarly production and advocacy on refugee, stateless, internally displaced, and migrant populations throughout the Middle East. The Middle East is home to the largest concentration of refugee populations globally. The largest amongst these are Palestinian refugees produced as a result of war who are stateless in some contexts, internally displaced in others, and victims of secondary and tertiary displacement in still other contexts. They also include an influx of Iraqi refugees engendered by the 2003 US war against, and occupation of, Iraq. Since the advent of the Arab Uprisings, these refugee communities have steadily grown in the face of armed conflict and civil unrest in the region, particularly in Syria, Libya, and Yemen as well as in the Sudan and Somalia. The Middle East is also the site of a significant migrant labor force. These migrants constitute a significant domestic, service, and construction labor force with relatively little to no government regulation. The lack of greater oversight together with their diminished political power subjects this vulnerable population to considerable exploitation. Beyond those populations who have been forcibly displaced or who have voluntarily sought economic opportunities across borders are a number of other stateless populations suffering from de facto and de juren statelessness like the Kurds of Syria as well as the children of refugee men and/or of women born out of wedlock in Lebanon and Egypt, for example. The region’s density of migrant and refugee communities is not commensurate with the scholarly research, civil society advocacy, or social awareness regarding their conditions. This Project seeks to encourage scholarly production, advocacy efforts, and political awareness concerning transitory populations across the Middle East. It aims to address pertinent questions regarding applicable law, the socio-political status of these communities, as well as the political initiatives necessary to address their pressing needs. The Lebanon Workshop consisted of a half-day roundtable that put stakeholders, institutions, and agencies concerned with refugees into conversation with one another. The purpose of the roundtable was to evaluate how a set of decentralized factors, namely stakeholders, aid, and law, intersect and shape the conditions and prospects by refugee communities within Lebanon. To this end, the discussion sought to identify existent refugee communities within Lebanon; to identify the humanitarian conditions they endure; to assess the services available to them as well as the relative disparities among them as a result of government intervention, foreign aid, and available social services; and to evaluate the legal regimes (refugee, civil, and criminal) regulating the lives of refugees including their migratory flow, their status within Lebanon, as well as their access to employment. Lessons learned from the proceedings should also inform how to initiate similar workshops in other countries that host significant refugee populations like Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey. 20 June 2015 @ 9:00am - 7:00pm George Mason University Sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute & George Mason University's Middle East Studies Program We have held a unique workshop on 20 June 2015 entitled "Journalism Against the Grain: Covering a Divided Middle East.” It highlighted a number of serious shortcoming in reporting on the Middle East, across the board. While there have been many a conference on topics related to journalism and media on the region, few have attempted to bring together reporters and practitioners with scholars and academics to evaluate the discursive dilemmas and narrative complexities that underpin coverage of the Middle East and North Africa. Our intention is not simply to reflect on these conditions but rather to "identify exemplars, examine shortcomings, and chart the possible paths towards a critical revolutionary journalistic practice." We also hope to infuse intellectual debates on the region within the academy with the weight of exceptional reportage and media production. This first workshop served as the nucleus of a major initiative which will bring to fruition three significant contributions to debates surrounding the representation of the region. The first is a comprehensive report about the state of reporting on the greater Middle East. The second is the production of pedagogical tools that render exemplary reporting from the region an indispensable component of instruction on the Middle East and North Africa. Lastly, and most importantly, we hope to build a long-term network of journalists, media critics, commentators, scholars, editorialists, etc with the purpose of attempting to reflect on and shift the priorities of coverage towards more succinct, elaborate, insightful, and nuanced discussions of the region. We are currently working simultaneous on these goals and looking forward to our first publication based on this workshop. 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 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? April 24, 2015 @ 9:00am - April 25, 2015 @ 6:00pm
George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia Sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute & George Mason University's Middle East Studies Program The founding workshop of the Political Economy Project (PEP) took place on April 24-25 at the Arab Studies Institute in Virginia (George Mason University). The workshop was attended by over 30 prominent academics from the US, Europe and the Middle East working on political economy issues. Its basic guiding principles were (1) A commitment to developing critical, non-mainstream approaches to political economy (which requires further definition and elaboration in due time); (2) a notion of the project as both intellectual and political, with a focus on linking up with social and political movements in the region; (3) a commitment to expanding the scope of the project beyond the “Middle East” for comparative as well as intellectual/political purposes. The workshop served as an excellent launching pad for the project, and achieved the following outcomes: 1. A steering committee of ten elected participants was formed and has held regular discussions since the workshop. It is composed of Bassam Haddad, Joel Beinin, Ahmad Shokr, Omar Dahi, Rafeef Ziadah, Shana Marshall, Adam Hanieh, Mandy Turner, Wael Gamal and Sherene Seikaly. 2. A series of focal points were discussed for follow up over the next period. These include: future workshops, conferences, research projects, pedagogy, resource building efforts, and other activities. 3. A discussion of expansion of the network took place and a draft statement of principles was decided upon. The steering committee is taking this forward and will be inviting prospective members over the coming months. 4. All participants in the workshop presented a short, pre-prepared statement on their vision of political economy and the direction they would like the network to take. These statements are currently being finalized and will soon be published online and through Tadween. 5. Audio recordings were made of all presentations and edited version of this will be made available through STATUS. 6. An internal website for the project was launched, which will eventually house both a public and members-only section. By Arab Studies Institute and the Asfari Institute
02/20/2015 03:00 am - 02/22/2015 12:30 pm Location: Beirut, Lebanon The February 2015 conference commemorates the fourth anniversary of the revolts that began in Tunisia in the final days of 2010 and rapidly spread to nearly half the countries of the Arab region. The revolts provided a stellar example of the power of citizen engagement as millions of people took to the streets and toppled long-time authoritarian regimes or leaders, changing perceptions of the “Arab Street” for good. Four years later, where are those millions? How do we understand and assess their successes or failures in achieving their demands for freedom, dignity and social justice? Do we know enough about the historical roots of civil society activism in the region to ascribe cause-and-effect in regard to these events? What are the medium and long-term prospects for the future of citizenship participation in the public sphere, given the current realities? What are the factors that give rise to hope in some countries or open the pit of despair in others? The conference does not claim to assess the Arab uprisings as such. Rather, it aims to shed light on the dynamics of civil society and citizen activism in the region, and to promote an understanding of the historical, political, economic and legal factors affecting this activism. It also aims to gather collective wisdom as to the short-and long-term potential for continued citizen engagement, fill knowledge gaps, assist the Asfari Institute to develop its research agenda, and point the way to future programming. Exploring an Agenda for Active Citizenship PROGRAM Day 1: Friday, February 20, 2015 8:00-8:45 Conference Registration Bathish Auditorium, West Hall, American University of Beirut (AUB) 9:00-9:30 Welcome and Opening Session
9:30-11:00 Panel 1: Civil Society in Arab region: Concepts and Case Studies (1) Chair: Fateh Azzam, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, AUB
Michael Schultz, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
11:00-11:30 Break 11:30-1:15 Panel 2: Civil Society in Arab region: Concepts and Case Studies (2) Chair: Rania Masri, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, AUB
1:15-2:30 Lunch 2:30-4:00 Panel 3: Civil Society in Arab region: Concepts and Case Studies (3) Chair: Bassam Haddad, Arab Studies Institute, George Mason University
4:00-4:30 Break 4:30-5:30 Open Discussion Facilitator: Rania Masri, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, AUB
Day 2: Saturday, February 21, 2015 9:00-10:30 Panel 4: Citizenship in the Arab region: Concepts and Case Studies (1) Chair: Sami Attallah, The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies
10:30-11:00 Break 11:00-12:30 Panel 5: Citizenship in the Arab region: Concepts and Case Studies (2) Chair: Hind Ghandour, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
12:30-2:00 Lunch 2:00-3:30 Panel 6: Citizenship in the Arab region: Concepts and Case Studies (3) Chair: Omar Dewachi, AUB
Tamara Alkhas, British Council, Jordan 3:30-4:00 Break 4:00-5:30 Panel 7: Examinations from different lenses Chair: Sami Ofeish, University of Balamand, Lebanon
7:00 Dinner and Cultural Evening, Metro el Madina, Hamra Street
DAY 3: Sunday, 22 February, 2015 9:00-10:30 Panel 8: The rulers and the ruled Chair: Sbeih Sbeih, Birzeit University
10:30-11:00 Break 11:00-12:30 Panel 9: The rulers and the ruled (2) Chair: Hassan Abbas, Syrian League for Citizenship
12:30-2:00 Lunch 2:00-4:30 Open Discussion: Elements for A Future Agenda Facilitators: Ziad Abdel Samad, Arab NGO Network for Development; Fateh Azzam, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, AUB; Bassam Haddad, Arab Studies Institute, George Mason University; and Rania Masri, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, AUB
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