THE ARAB UPRISINGS: CLASS FORMATION AND CLASS DYNAMICS

15-16 June 2015
SOAS, University of London
London, UK
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 characterising the restructuring of labor-capital-state relations since the period of neoliberal reform began in the 1980s? How are questions suchas 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? The workshop was co funded and co-sponsored by ASI as part of the Political Economy Project, and it is planned to produce written and audio material arising from the event in future publications.
More Political Economy Project Workshops

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Highlights

Organizers
Adam Hanieh
Bassam Haddad
​Gilbert Achcar​

Papers and Presentations
Gilbert Achcar, Adam Hanieh, Salwa Ismail
Approaching Class and Class Formation in the Region
Said Al-Hashmi, Omar Al-Shehabi, Laleh Khalili
The Gulf Cooperation Council
Helen Lackner
Yemen
Wa’el Gamal, Rabab El Mahdi, Maha Abdelrahman
Egypt
Sami Zemni, Hela Yousfi, Habib Ayeb
Tunisia

Joseph Daher, Bassam Haddad
Syria