Yasmine Berriane

I am a Permanent Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, Centre Maurice Halbwachs, Paris), trained in Political Sociology and Middle Eastern Studies. I am also actively involved - as tutor and supervisor - within different master programs of the EHESS in Paris (Gender studies, political studies and sociology). My research examines political and social transformations in North Africa and the Middle East, with an empirical focus on Morocco. My publications deal with women’s political participation, the making of spaces of participation, and the sociopolitical impacts of newly emerging land right claims. I recently co-edited Allying Beyond Social Divides: Coalitions and Contentious Politics (Mediterranean Politics, 2019 and Routledge, 2020), Archive and Gender in North African Societies (Hespéris-Tamuda, Vol.56, 2021), and Methodological Approaches to Societies in Transformation: How to Make Sense of Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

In my PhD thesis (SciencesPo, Paris), I studied transformations of the associational sphere in Morocco. Through case studies in working class neighbourhoods of Casablanca, I focused on reconfigurations of power relations following the introduction of norms and practices of “participation” and “gender equality” in the associational sphere (see: Femmes, associations et politique à Casablanca, CJB, 2013). In the first postdoctoral research project that followed (ZMO, Berlin), I studied the transformation of indirect forms of rule through the socio-history of a youth center; an “intermediary space of participation” defined as both a state institution, and a space used by civil society actors. In my second postdoctoral project  (University of Zurich) I focused on the close connection between the commodification of land and its political reconfigurations, studying the making of a movement against women's exclusion from landrights in Morocco. My current project further develops this reflection by broadening it to the relation between changing land rights and the emergence of new forms of protest and negotiation, of political subjectivities and inequalities, and of processes of differentiation in North Africa. At the same time, I have been actively involved for the past years in a collective reflection on the methodological challenges faced by researchers studying societies in transformation.

Associations and research networks: I am an associate researcher at the LADSIS (Hassan II University, Casablanca) and the LITOPAD (Mohammed V University, Rabat), a membre of the Centre de recherche et d'études sur les sociétés contemporaines (CRESC, Rabat), and a founding member of the international research Consortium PROGED (University of Zurich) and the Groupe de recherche et d'études sur le genre au Maroc (GREGaM).

Editorial activities: I am part of the editorial board of two journals: Mondes arabes (La Découverte) and Afrika Focus (Brill).

Trajectory and education : Before joining the CNRS in 2018, I was senior lecturer and researcher (Oberassistentin) at the University of Zurich within the framework of the URPP Asia and Europe (2013-2017), researcher at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin (2011-2013), and lecturer at the Free University of Berlin (2011-2012) and the Ecole de la gouvernance et de l'économie in Rabat (EGE, 2011).  I studied at the Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen-Nürnberg and at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and received my PhD from Sciences Po Paris in 2011. I grew up and went to school in Rabat.

Research focus: Social and political transformations; Political participation (social movements, NGOs, elections); Gender and politics; State-society relations; Land rights and Politics; Research methodology.

Regional focus: North Africa and the Middle East (Fieldwork in Morocco; extended stays in Lebanon, Syria and Sudan).

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Address: ENS, Campus Jourdan
48, Boulevard Jourdan
75014 Paris