Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Christoph Schwarz
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2024
In the 21st century, North African societies have been counting with the largest cohorts of young... more In the 21st century, North African societies have been counting with the largest cohorts of young people worldwide. These demographics, in combination with the highest youth unemployment rates worldwide, have been a cause for concern since the turn of the millenium. But in the respective debates in social research and among policy makers, the political subjectivities of young people themselves were rather overlooked. Instead, the situation of young people was often discussed either as a question of deficit—they were regarded as lethargic and apolitical and in need of help—or security—they were discussed as potential adherents of radical interpretations of Islam, as prone to political violence and as a threat to “stability.” However, in 2010 and 2011, mass protests initiated mostly by young people, starting in Tunisia and soon spreading to Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and, to a lesser extent, Algeria and Sudan, very quickly and effectively mobilized large swaths of the population and thus illustrated young people’s social agency, political relevance, and capacity for inclusive solidarity. To many observers, the events that were soon dubbed the “Arab Spring” came out of the blue and appeared as a sudden “generational awakening.” But the region-wide protests, and in particular the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, not only mobilized people from all walks of life, they were also the result of at least a decade of persistent experimentation by young and not-so-young activists with different forms of collective action under extremely unfavorable conditions. Youth activism in 21st-century North Africa has been operating and strategizing under the constraints of authoritarianism, surveillance, and violent repression. Young people, particularly young women, have long been excluded from most institutional forms of politics. Against this backdrop, many political activists eschew the terms politics or the political, which they associate with corruption, manipulation, and illegitimate rule. Many other young people who appear at first sight “apolitical” have nevertheless engaged in different meaningful endeavors to improve everyday lives in their communities. Following a critical youth studies and youth cultures perspective, as well as a feminist perspective, young people’s activism can thus be analyzed along a spectrum that ranges from rather innocuous forms of everyday quiet encroachment, to public, but “apolitical” forms of mobilization, to highly committed and exposed social movement activism, as well as digitally networked forms of engagement and explicitly political demands for new forms of citizenship.
A decade after the Arab Spring, and despite a “Second Wave of the Arab Spring” in Sudan and Algeria from 2018 to 2020, authoritarian rule has gained the upper hand in the region, even in Tunisia, the country that, for a long time, was considered “transitioning” to a representative democracy. Despite these setbacks, the experience that young people, as part of an organized citizenry, were able to oust long-ruling authoritarian presidents within a matter of a few weeks has arguably had an impact on political culture in the region. In the mid-2020s, their example continues to inspire youth activists in North Africa and elsewhere and will likely continue to pose a challenge to authoritarianism.
En: Gabriele D'Adda, Montserrat Emperador Badimon, Ezequiel Ramón, Eduard Sala und Luis Sanmartín (Ed.): La Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca. Una década de lucha por la vivienda digna 2009-2019. Manresa 2022: Bellaterra, pp. 79-96., 2022
Quaderns de la Mediterrànea, 2019
En 2017, tras la muerte de Mohsen Fikri, un pescador rifeño de Alhucemas, empezó a surgir un mov... more En 2017, tras la muerte de Mohsen Fikri, un pescador rifeño de Alhucemas, empezó a surgir un movimiento de protesta tanto dentro como fuera de Marruecos, el Hirak, que ilustra muy bien los complejos enredos socioeconómicos y políticos que producen los procesos migratorios en la cuenca mediterránea. El Hirak reivindica una mayor inversión económica y social en la región del Rif por parte del gobierno marroquí, así como la liberación de los presos políticos de la causa y la inclusión de la memoria colectiva de la región en la historia de Marruecos. La mayoría de la emigración europea procede del Rif y, por ello, en estos últimos años, la movilización de la diáspora en numerosos países europeos ha sido muy importante. El movimiento Hirak constituye un caso muy interesante de ciudadanía europea transnacional, ya que los activistas y simpatizantes no sienten que su ciudadanía europea esté en contradicción con su identidad rifeña o marroquí.
Journal of North African Studies, 2019
Since the 2011 protests and uprisings, a plethora of studies on young people’s political particip... more Since the 2011 protests and uprisings, a plethora of studies on young people’s political participation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has been published. Remarkably, the concept of political socialization was hardly used in this research. But for MENA area studies, and for the humanities and social sciences in general, it remains a central question how subjects socialized under authoritarian rule develop democratic orientations and critical political subjectivities, how they are suddenly induced to protest, often even risking their lives. Against this backdrop, the article makes the case for a biographical and generational approach to research the political socialisation of young people in the MENA region. Based on life stories with social movement activists in Morocco, the article looks into processes of intergenerational transmission and intragenerational communication that are relevant for the emergence of political orientations and for the process of becoming an activist. An in-depth analytical contrast of three biographies along the lines of collective memory, gender, formal education, and symbolisation illustrates different dynamics of intergenerational transmission in political socialisation, namely continuity, negotiation, and disparity.
Memory Studies, Jun 19, 2019
The iaioflautas movement, which emerged in the course of the indignados protests in Spain in 2011... more The iaioflautas movement, which emerged in the course of the indignados protests in Spain in 2011, is one of the few social movements that explicitly organize around a “grandparents’ identity.” This article analyzes the movement against the historical backdrop of the Spanish transición, in particular the characteristic absence of transitional justice and the pacto del olvido—the ‘pact of oblivion’ regarding the political violence of the civil war and the dictatorship. I argue, first, that the emergence of the movement indicates a general shift in the memory debate in Spain, problematizing the memory of transición itself against the backdrop of the crisis. The iaioflautas organize as active historical witnesses to support the younger protesters’ mobilizations, not least by testifying to their historical legacy, that is the struggle for democracy. They thus draw on the hegemonic transition narrative and reframe it at the same time, echoing the indignados’ slogan “Real Democracy Now.” Second, I show that the iaioflautas’ explicit organization around a generational identity on the one hand reorganizes this generational unit of activists that for long had been cast aside from public memory in Spain, while on the other hand it facilitates intergenerational transmission of collective memory and repertoires of contention within the indignados movement. In addition, the concomitant “family narrative” of generativity, that is, of caring for the younger generations, allows addressing a much broader audience, thus adapting to the constraints of the arena, in avoiding the acerbic political divisions that usually characterize an engagement with historical memory in this particular post-civil-war and post-dictatorship context. Third, the iaioflautas offer an example of “remembering hope,” that is, they pass on their own experiences of solidarity, agency, and democratic opportunities in order to encourage the younger generations’ protest and political imaginary.
In: Gertel, J. / Hexel, R. (Ed.): Coping with Uncertainty Youth in the Middle East and North Africa. London: SAQI, 2018
This chapter – based on a survey among 9,000 young people, aged 16–30 in eight MENA countries plu... more This chapter – based on a survey among 9,000 young people, aged 16–30 in eight MENA countries plus Syrian refugees in Lebanon – examines the role of the family in the lives of young people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It concerns not only the relevance young people attribute to their family of origin, but also the families that they formed or will form themselves, an undertaking considered the most important step in the transition to adulthood. That said, although family continues to be the central social institution for young people, marriage – in contrast to what one often reads – does not necessarily mark the end of youth, especially when one scrutinises the subjective perspective and self-assessment of these young people surveyed.
The first section of this examination briefly summarises the scientific and policy discussion on the role of the family in the lives of the youth in the MENA region and also looks at the key issue of the impact of young people’s prolonged economic dependency on their families and concomitantly stalled transitions to adulthood. The second section outlines the economic and affective dimensions of interviewees’ current familial situations and the impact of their upbringing. The third section addresses young people’s perception of intergenerational relations in the family and in broader society. The fourth section discusses how young people perceive future opportunities with regard to their transition to adulthood, self-perception as youth or adults, and family formation and future prospects. The conclusion summarises the findings and questions for further debate.
Buchbeitrag in: Jörg Gertel, Ralf Hexel : Zwischen Ungewissheit und Zuversicht. Jugend im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika, 2018
In diesem Kapitel geht es um die Rolle der Familie im Leben der jungen Menschen in der MENA-Regio... more In diesem Kapitel geht es um die Rolle der Familie im Leben der jungen Menschen in der MENA-Region. Dabei betrachte ich nicht nur die Bedeutung, die Jugendliche ihrer Herkunftsfamilie beimessen, sondern auch ihre eigenen Familiengründungspläne. Dieser Aspekt stellt nach wie vor den wichtigsten Schritt im Übergang zum Erwachsenenalter dar. Ich argumentiere, dass, wenn man die subjektive Perspektive und die Selbsteinschätzung der Jugend in den im Rahmen der Studie betrachteten Ländern berücksichtigt, die Familie zwar weiterhin die zentrale gesellschaftliche Institution für junge Menschen ist, die Ehe allerdings – im Gegensatz zur vorherrschenden Meinung in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion – subjektiv nur selten das Ende der Jugend markiert.
In den folgenden vier Abschnitten werde ich meine Argumentation wie folgt entwickeln: Nach einer kurzen Zusammenfassung der wissenschaftlichen und politischen Diskussion über die Rolle der Familie im Leben junger Menschen der Region widme ich mich zunächst der Schlüsselfrage nach den Konsequenzen der längeren wirtschaftlichen Abhängigkeit der Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen von ihren Familien und dem dadurch verzögerten Übergang ins Erwachsenenleben. Im zweiten Teil skizziere ich die aktuelle Familiensituation der Befragten mit Blick auf ihre ökonomischen und affektiven Dimensionen. In diesem Zusammenhang diskutiere ich auch die Bedeutung der Erziehung durch die Eltern. Der dritte Abschnitt widmet sich den Generationenbeziehungen in der Gesellschaft und wie diese von jungen Menschen wahrgenommen werden. Abschließend erörtere ich, welche Zukunftschancen die Jugend für sich sieht: mit Blick auf ihren Übergang ins Erwachsenenalter, ihre Selbstwahrnehmung als „jugendlich“ oder „erwachsen“ sowie auf die Frage der Familiengründung und die Zukunftsorientierung. In den Schlussfolgerungen fasse ich die Erkenntnisse und Fragen für eine weitere Debatte des Themas zusammen.
META - Middle East - Topics & Arguments, 2017
‘Generation in Waiting’ or ‘Precarious Generation’? Conceptual Reflections on the Biographical Trajectories of Unemployed Graduates Activists in Morocco. In: Kelly, Pike (Ed.) 2017: Neoliberalism, Austerity, and the Moral Economies of Young People’s Health and Well-being, 2016, p. 313-, 2017
In this chapter, I critically discuss the concept of waithood and defend it against possible neol... more In this chapter, I critically discuss the concept of waithood and defend it against possible neoliberal readings that would shift the focus away from the central problem of unemployment and precarious labor. I argue that on the one hand the term does address central problems of young biographies in the region, while on the other it can easily be used to cater to stereotypes of an economically passive, politically lethargic ‘victim youth’ that is to be ‘mobilized’ into entrepreneurship by pedagogic, institutional and economic policies.
Natalia Ribas-Mateos (Ed.) Migration, Mobilities and the Arab Spring Spaces of Refugee Flight in the Eastern Mediterranean, p. 105-103, 2016
Les Dossiers de l'IFEA, 2016
This article discusses some pivotal questions regarding processes of the intergenerational transm... more This article discusses some pivotal questions regarding processes of the intergenerational transmission of trajectories of suffering in precarious places: to what extent can such processes provide resources that foster agency, and to what extent do they rather constitute barriers to living one's own life? How much do intergenerational relations allow for certain reinterpretations while discouraging or inhibiting others? Which reinterpretations of the older generations' experiences appear legitimate in certain contexts, and which are rebuked by one's social environment? In order to pursue these questions we present analyses of two very different cases that are based on two forms of data material – the life story of Emma, a woman in her 50s, and ethno-analytic group interviews with adolescents aged 14 to 20. Both cases are embedded in very different regional and political contexts: the former, in the French system of fostering institutions, and the latter a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Both constitute, however, cases of intergenerational transmission of trajectories of suffering. One objective of this article is to illustrate how the contrasting of such cases across different kinds of data and contexts can be heuristically useful for methodologically gauging the spectrum of the ubiquitous and sometimes paradoxical phenomena of intergenera-tional transmission, in order to further develop its conceptualization.
In: Frey, Corinna; Lutz, Ronald: Sozialarbeit des Südens Bd. 4: Flucht und Flüchtlingslager. Oldenburg: Paulo-Freire-Verlag 2013., 2013
On UNRWA, the Right of Return and the transnational (re)construction of the Palestinian national ... more On UNRWA, the Right of Return and the transnational (re)construction of the Palestinian national narrative.
In: Brunner, Markus et al. (Ed.): Politische Psychologie Heute. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2012, 2012
On Adolescence and Political Socialization in a Palestinian Refugee Camp in the West Bank
In: Sozialer Sinn 2/2010, 2010
Im Zentrum der Methodologie der Ethnoanalyse steht das Konzept der Forschungssituation.
Ausgehen... more Im Zentrum der Methodologie der Ethnoanalyse steht das Konzept der Forschungssituation.
Ausgehend von ethnopsychoanalytischen und gruppenanalytischen Überlegungen
wird die hier entstehende Forschungsbeziehung als Resultat einer gemeinsamen
Praxis von Forschenden und Beforschten reflektiert. Um Aussagen über die bestimmenden
latenten Themen im Alltag der Beforschten machen zu können muss daher
auch die emotionale Verstrickung der Forschenden mit ihrem Gegenstand interpretiert
werden. Der Artikel stellt zunächst den Entstehungskontext und methodologischen
Hintergrund der Ethnoanalyse vor. Im Anschluss werden ausgehend von dem Konzept
der Forschungssituation die zentralen Überlegungen zur Datenerhebung und -
auswertung zusammengefasst und anhand empirischen Materials skizziert.
Schlagworte: Ethnopsychoanalyse, Gruppenanalyse, szenisches Verstehen, Adoleszenz,
Institutionsanalyse
Freie Assoziation, 2010
On the adolescence of Q'eqchi' youth in Guatemala.
Books and Editorial Work by Christoph Schwarz
Edited volume: Clientelism and Patronage in the Middle East and North Africa. Networks of Dependency. Routledge, 2018
One common demand in the 2011 uprisings in the MENA region was the call for ‘freedom, dignity, an... more One common demand in the 2011 uprisings in the MENA region was the call for ‘freedom, dignity, and social justice.’ Citizens rallied against corruption and clientelism, which for many protesters were deeply linked to political tyranny. Yet, little is known of how the socio-political transformations, resulting from the economic reform and authoritarian ‘upgrading’ of recent decades, have altered what we call networks of dependency: What impact did the changing dynamics within and between clientelist and patronage networks before 2011 have on the configurations that led to the uprisings and protests in the Arab countries in 2011? And vice versa: What impact are the socio-economic and political changes after 2011 having on these networks? Finally, how can we better grasp the political relevance of clientelist and patronage networks, and the often overlooked agency of the clients?
This edited volume looks to fill the gap with a broad set of original case studies covering Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Gulf monarchies. They analyse the reconfigurations of patronage and clientelist networks and the corresponding emergence of contentious politics targeting these very networks, while exploring the interaction with specific political transformations, including changes within and of regimes. The volume also addresses major debates in comparative politics and political sociology by offering networks of dependency as an interdisciplinary conceptual approach that can ‘travel’ across place and time.
META: Middle East - Topics & Arguments, international, interdisciplinary, peer reviewed open access journal, 2017
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Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Christoph Schwarz
A decade after the Arab Spring, and despite a “Second Wave of the Arab Spring” in Sudan and Algeria from 2018 to 2020, authoritarian rule has gained the upper hand in the region, even in Tunisia, the country that, for a long time, was considered “transitioning” to a representative democracy. Despite these setbacks, the experience that young people, as part of an organized citizenry, were able to oust long-ruling authoritarian presidents within a matter of a few weeks has arguably had an impact on political culture in the region. In the mid-2020s, their example continues to inspire youth activists in North Africa and elsewhere and will likely continue to pose a challenge to authoritarianism.
The first section of this examination briefly summarises the scientific and policy discussion on the role of the family in the lives of the youth in the MENA region and also looks at the key issue of the impact of young people’s prolonged economic dependency on their families and concomitantly stalled transitions to adulthood. The second section outlines the economic and affective dimensions of interviewees’ current familial situations and the impact of their upbringing. The third section addresses young people’s perception of intergenerational relations in the family and in broader society. The fourth section discusses how young people perceive future opportunities with regard to their transition to adulthood, self-perception as youth or adults, and family formation and future prospects. The conclusion summarises the findings and questions for further debate.
In den folgenden vier Abschnitten werde ich meine Argumentation wie folgt entwickeln: Nach einer kurzen Zusammenfassung der wissenschaftlichen und politischen Diskussion über die Rolle der Familie im Leben junger Menschen der Region widme ich mich zunächst der Schlüsselfrage nach den Konsequenzen der längeren wirtschaftlichen Abhängigkeit der Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen von ihren Familien und dem dadurch verzögerten Übergang ins Erwachsenenleben. Im zweiten Teil skizziere ich die aktuelle Familiensituation der Befragten mit Blick auf ihre ökonomischen und affektiven Dimensionen. In diesem Zusammenhang diskutiere ich auch die Bedeutung der Erziehung durch die Eltern. Der dritte Abschnitt widmet sich den Generationenbeziehungen in der Gesellschaft und wie diese von jungen Menschen wahrgenommen werden. Abschließend erörtere ich, welche Zukunftschancen die Jugend für sich sieht: mit Blick auf ihren Übergang ins Erwachsenenalter, ihre Selbstwahrnehmung als „jugendlich“ oder „erwachsen“ sowie auf die Frage der Familiengründung und die Zukunftsorientierung. In den Schlussfolgerungen fasse ich die Erkenntnisse und Fragen für eine weitere Debatte des Themas zusammen.
Ausgehend von ethnopsychoanalytischen und gruppenanalytischen Überlegungen
wird die hier entstehende Forschungsbeziehung als Resultat einer gemeinsamen
Praxis von Forschenden und Beforschten reflektiert. Um Aussagen über die bestimmenden
latenten Themen im Alltag der Beforschten machen zu können muss daher
auch die emotionale Verstrickung der Forschenden mit ihrem Gegenstand interpretiert
werden. Der Artikel stellt zunächst den Entstehungskontext und methodologischen
Hintergrund der Ethnoanalyse vor. Im Anschluss werden ausgehend von dem Konzept
der Forschungssituation die zentralen Überlegungen zur Datenerhebung und -
auswertung zusammengefasst und anhand empirischen Materials skizziert.
Schlagworte: Ethnopsychoanalyse, Gruppenanalyse, szenisches Verstehen, Adoleszenz,
Institutionsanalyse
Books and Editorial Work by Christoph Schwarz
This edited volume looks to fill the gap with a broad set of original case studies covering Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Gulf monarchies. They analyse the reconfigurations of patronage and clientelist networks and the corresponding emergence of contentious politics targeting these very networks, while exploring the interaction with specific political transformations, including changes within and of regimes. The volume also addresses major debates in comparative politics and political sociology by offering networks of dependency as an interdisciplinary conceptual approach that can ‘travel’ across place and time.
A decade after the Arab Spring, and despite a “Second Wave of the Arab Spring” in Sudan and Algeria from 2018 to 2020, authoritarian rule has gained the upper hand in the region, even in Tunisia, the country that, for a long time, was considered “transitioning” to a representative democracy. Despite these setbacks, the experience that young people, as part of an organized citizenry, were able to oust long-ruling authoritarian presidents within a matter of a few weeks has arguably had an impact on political culture in the region. In the mid-2020s, their example continues to inspire youth activists in North Africa and elsewhere and will likely continue to pose a challenge to authoritarianism.
The first section of this examination briefly summarises the scientific and policy discussion on the role of the family in the lives of the youth in the MENA region and also looks at the key issue of the impact of young people’s prolonged economic dependency on their families and concomitantly stalled transitions to adulthood. The second section outlines the economic and affective dimensions of interviewees’ current familial situations and the impact of their upbringing. The third section addresses young people’s perception of intergenerational relations in the family and in broader society. The fourth section discusses how young people perceive future opportunities with regard to their transition to adulthood, self-perception as youth or adults, and family formation and future prospects. The conclusion summarises the findings and questions for further debate.
In den folgenden vier Abschnitten werde ich meine Argumentation wie folgt entwickeln: Nach einer kurzen Zusammenfassung der wissenschaftlichen und politischen Diskussion über die Rolle der Familie im Leben junger Menschen der Region widme ich mich zunächst der Schlüsselfrage nach den Konsequenzen der längeren wirtschaftlichen Abhängigkeit der Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen von ihren Familien und dem dadurch verzögerten Übergang ins Erwachsenenleben. Im zweiten Teil skizziere ich die aktuelle Familiensituation der Befragten mit Blick auf ihre ökonomischen und affektiven Dimensionen. In diesem Zusammenhang diskutiere ich auch die Bedeutung der Erziehung durch die Eltern. Der dritte Abschnitt widmet sich den Generationenbeziehungen in der Gesellschaft und wie diese von jungen Menschen wahrgenommen werden. Abschließend erörtere ich, welche Zukunftschancen die Jugend für sich sieht: mit Blick auf ihren Übergang ins Erwachsenenalter, ihre Selbstwahrnehmung als „jugendlich“ oder „erwachsen“ sowie auf die Frage der Familiengründung und die Zukunftsorientierung. In den Schlussfolgerungen fasse ich die Erkenntnisse und Fragen für eine weitere Debatte des Themas zusammen.
Ausgehend von ethnopsychoanalytischen und gruppenanalytischen Überlegungen
wird die hier entstehende Forschungsbeziehung als Resultat einer gemeinsamen
Praxis von Forschenden und Beforschten reflektiert. Um Aussagen über die bestimmenden
latenten Themen im Alltag der Beforschten machen zu können muss daher
auch die emotionale Verstrickung der Forschenden mit ihrem Gegenstand interpretiert
werden. Der Artikel stellt zunächst den Entstehungskontext und methodologischen
Hintergrund der Ethnoanalyse vor. Im Anschluss werden ausgehend von dem Konzept
der Forschungssituation die zentralen Überlegungen zur Datenerhebung und -
auswertung zusammengefasst und anhand empirischen Materials skizziert.
Schlagworte: Ethnopsychoanalyse, Gruppenanalyse, szenisches Verstehen, Adoleszenz,
Institutionsanalyse
This edited volume looks to fill the gap with a broad set of original case studies covering Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Gulf monarchies. They analyse the reconfigurations of patronage and clientelist networks and the corresponding emergence of contentious politics targeting these very networks, while exploring the interaction with specific political transformations, including changes within and of regimes. The volume also addresses major debates in comparative politics and political sociology by offering networks of dependency as an interdisciplinary conceptual approach that can ‘travel’ across place and time.
Meanwhile, a transnational solidarity movement is forming within the Moroccan diaspora across the Mediterranean, and several members of the European Parliament are supporting their demands. These newly emerging networks not only bring together actors in very different locations, they also associate the protest experiences of 2011 with the memory of colonial history.
The morning began with a panel of scholars who offered fresh perspectives on conceptualizing political socialization in a world of mobilities and hybrid identities. Tawnya Adkins Covert, Professor of Sociology at Western Illinois University, gave a brief history of political socialization research before advocating for a life course model that would consider both our personal experiences as well as institutions (e.g., family, church) in molding our political views. Not only do our political views continue to evolve well beyond adolescence, Adkins Covert noted, but the nature of our political concerns also evolves as we take on new roles in society. Speaking very generally, for instance, parents might take more of an interest in education, whereas older adults might be more concerned with healthcare policy.
Diana Owen, Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University, zeroed in on the political socialization of migrant communities vis-à-vis mass media. Owen explained that media becomes a more significant source of political socialization for migrants, whose personal ties in their destination countries may be more limited. Social media in particular becomes a way for migrants to maintain a connection to their cultural and community identity and facilitate mobilization.
The next panelist, Liz Dávila, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, discussed the question of how newly arrived immigrant and refugee high school students conceive of civic engagement. Twenty years ago, Congolese migrants began to arrive in Champaign-Urbana, and today there is an established Congolese migrant community. In presenting findings from interviews that she has conducted with local Congolese students, Dávila emphasized three themes. The students voiced pride in their cultural heritages, showed awareness of how notions of legal and illegal citizenship is tied to race, and expressed complex understandings of civic engagement in relation to personal advancement and rights.
Kicking off the second panel, Veronica Terriquez, Associate Professor of Sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz, shifted the focus to the political socialization of Latinx youth in California’s politically conservative Central Valley. Terriquez found that while hostile regional contexts constrain Latinx youth’s political participation, youth organizing groups can act as a counterweight by providing civics education and training in grassroots organizing. Peer-to-peer phone banking in particular increased political participation.
The next presentation by Teresa Barnes, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, explored the story of Jerry Essan Masslo, an African migrant who was working as a tomato picker in southern Italy when he was killed by thieves in 1989, at the age of 30. Barnes’ presentation showed how the public telling and retellings of Masslo’s death were shaped by and contributed to the dynamics of the international anti-apartheid solidarity movement. An opponent of apartheid in his native South Africa, Masslo arrived in Italy as a political refugee. He came to represent a progressive moment in Italian migrant history, Barnes said, as hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets to bring attention to the treatment of migrant workers in Italy.
However, as Barnes went on to explain, Masslo may not have actually been South African. Neither Essan nor Masslo are South African names, and one of Barnes’ colleagues had once been told by someone who knew Masslo that he was not South African, yet Masslo had always identified himself as a migrant from South Africa. But more importantly, Barnes asked, why is Masslo’s nationality important? How valuable is Jerry’s story if he wasn’t South African?
The panel then turned its focus back to the U.S. as Jonathan Inda, Professor of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, discussed the case of undocumented immigrants in Chicago who were denied organ transplants and the hunger strikes that they organized in protest of hospitals’ refusal to treat undocumented immigrants. While there is no law barring undocumented people from receiving organ transplants, Inda explained, undocumented status and lack of health insurance tend to go hand in hand, and undocumented people’s right to healthcare is the underlying issue. After a break for lunch, the symposium reconvened for a panel on human rights and border regimes. Jessica Greenberg, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, discussed the case of Somali and Eritrean refugees traveling from Libya across the Mediterranean, the relationship between the European Court of Human Rights and European nation-states, and questions of national sovereignty and human rights. Greenberg focused on Hirsi Jamaa, who won a case in the European Court of Human Rights after Italian authorities intercepted migrants traveling by boat and returned them to Libya. Lauren Aronson, Director of the new Immigration Law Clinic at the Illinois College of Law, told the stories of Brian and Ali, pseudonyms of two individuals who were eventually granted asylum in the U.S. Brian was fleeing abuse, sexual assault, and gang violence when he arrived in the U.S. at the age of 14. His asylum was granted in 2018, shortly before former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that domestic and gang violence would not be grounds for asylum.
Closing out the third panel, Christoph Schwarz, the symposium organizer and a sociologist by training, discussed the transnational nature of the 2016-17 Hirak protest movement that demanded more cultural, political, and economic recognition of the marginalized and predominantly Berber region of Rif on the part of the Moroccan government. As the Rif region has one of the country’s highest rates of migration to the EU, the Hirak movement was able to mobilize the Moroccan — and especially the Rifi — diaspora in Europe. Protesters gathered not only in front of Moroccan embassies and consulates in Europe, but also in front of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg.
The fourth and final panel was a reflection on space, time, and memory. Rakesh Bhatt, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, analyzed the question of how displaced minority communities deal with the experience of migration through the case of the forced migration of Kashmiri Hindus from the Kashmir Valley. Bhatt noted that the Kashmiri migration to other regions of India was marked by a sense of disorientation and impermanence: adults found themselves alienated from their homeland, whereas their children were alienated from Kashmiri customs and language. Questions of identity and belonging were also at the heart of the next presentation by Dara Goldman, Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who discussed the place of Cuban Jews in configurations of Cuban citizenship.
The final panelist, Cynthia Buckley, Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, presented the case of ethnic Russians in Estonia as an example of borders moving across populations rather than people moving across borders. Much of Estonia’s ethnic Russian population is descended from Russians who moved to the former Soviet republic in the second half of the twentieth century. Today, the Estonian government’s efforts to assimilate ethnic Russians have been both controversial and of limited success. Buckley showed a few photos of street signs that are in both Estonian and English — the latter in order to be welcoming to other EU citizens — but not in Russian.
The image of migrants that emerged from these presentations was highly varied and geographically diverse — which was one of symposium organizer Schwarz’s aims. “The images that circulate often focus on the most dramatic stories, and migrants tend to be presented either as a threat or as helpless victims,” Schwarz said. “The first tendency is surely more problematic than the second, but in both, the political subjectivity of the migrants is overlooked. That means they are not perceived as individuals with political aims, ambitions, orientations, or participation in political life.”
This symposium was sponsored by the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; European Union Center; Centers for East Asian & Pacific Studies and Global Studies; Departments of Political Science, Sociology, and Spanish and Portuguese; Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities; and Women & Gender in Global Perspectives. A Q&A with Christoph Schwarz will be published in the next few days.
International Workshop
Wednesday, November 30 – Friday, December 02, 2016
Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS), Philipps-Universität, Marburg, Germany
The uprisings of 2011 challenged many predominant concepts of ‘youth’ in the MENA region. Before, youth and young adults were often merely discussed as a ‘youth bulge’ – a demographic, quantitative problem, even a potential terrorist threat. In other stereotypical representations, youths and young adults hardly appeared as political subjects, but rather as passive victims of a failed generational contract signed between former generations and authoritarian regimes. Movements that contradicted both stereotypes, like the Moroccan and Tunisian unemployed graduates, who had been protesting ‘apolitically’, negotiating their employment with authoritarian regimes for over a decade, hardly received any attention.
The 2011 uprisings in the MENA region were soon denominated ‘Arab spring’ – a term that was coined in the West and went well with generational semantics. A new idol emerged: the ‘young Arab protester’ was acclaimed as a heroic vanguard against fossilized autocratic regimes ruled by old men. For many, this figure seemed to embody certain democratic ideals and practices that apparently had lost impetus in the established democracies of the West, especially in the wake of the economic crisis. Here, new social movements like the Spanish indignados were highly inspired by the ‘Arab Spring’.
Consequently, social research on ‘youth’ in the MENA region boomed. But many of the studies and policy papers hardly involved critical theoretical reflections of the term ‘youth’ or ‘generation’. Instead, they simply researched youths and young adults as members of an age cohort, defined in quantitative terms. Other interventions identified a neoliberal discourse on youth: they criticized the tendency to imagine youth as a ‘dynamic force’ associated with free markets, and to employ generational narratives for a specific political agenda. Meanwhile, most international debates on the empirical significance of youth in reproducing social inequality and catalyzing processes of social exclusion continue to revolve around the situation of young people in 'the West’. Conceptual discussions here often seem oddly disconnected from the social reality in the MENA region - a region that empirically has been inseparable from 'the West' throughout long histories of colonialism and migration, and in which young people constitute, after all, the majority of the population.
Now, five years into the ‘Arab Spring’, certain parts of the region – like Syria, Yemen or Libya – are facing civil wars that transgress national borders, producing millions of refugees. In other countries like Egypt, authoritarian regimes have been reinstated. Moreover, for the first time a Jihadist organization – Daesh (ISIS) – has managed to recruit thousands of young men, but also young women, not only from the MENA region, but also from Europe and other Western countries.
Against this background, we suggest a conceptual reflection: How do the concepts of ‘youth’ and ‘generation’ help to understand these recent developments? To what extent does social age, a habitus of ‘youthfulness’ (Bayat 2011), or generationality (King 2010) matter when we discuss power relations, social inequality, and actors’ agency in the region? Does it suggest different policy interventions when we frame a certain phenomenon, such as political violence, social exclusion or inequality, as a ‘youth’ issue? How do actors position themselves in intergenerational relations and refer to generational narratives, on which grounds, and to what purpose? Last but not least: What can we learn from discourses on youth and generation in re-configuration processes in other regions, such as Europe or Latin America?
This international workshop aims at a critical reflection of the concepts of youth and generation employed in former and current research. By bringing together renowned scholars and academics from different research fields, we aim to foster a debate between area studies (of the MENA and other regions), sociology of youth, education, critical youth studies, and social movement theory.
The predominant aim of this workshop is to provide a space for an intensive conceptual discussion in order to inspire new questions for further research.
We invite contributions by experienced scholars, early career researchers and PhD candidates. Selected participants will be notified by the end of June 2016. Participants can present their work either as a paper (approximately 5.000 to 8.000 words, and to be submitted by November 1st 2016 for distribution among the workshop participants), or as a poster (followed by a roundtable discussion). When submitting your abstract, please state in which format you would prefer to present. Plans for a joint publication will be discussed among the organizers and the paper presenters of the workshop.
The workshop language is English. Please send your abstracts, around 400 words in English, together with a short biographical summary, including thematically relevant publications and research interests, in one pdf document,no later than June 1st, 2016 to
[email protected]
[email protected]
Travel costs and accommodation for the participants will be covered by the Research Network “Re-Configurations”.
Organizational Committee
Christoph Schwarz
Anne-Linda Amira Augustin
Helena Nassif
Anika Oettler
Perrine Lachenal
RECONFIGURING THE (NON-)POLITICAL. PERFORMING AND NARRATING CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
http://www.uni-marburg.de/cnms/forschung/re-konfigurationen/aktuelles/news/cfp-summeracademy-2016
5. und 6. Dezember 2014 in Frankfurt/Main
Die Begriffe Generation und Generativität sind zentral für die psychoanalytische Sozialpsychologie und ihre Perspektive auf das Verhältnis von Individuum und Gesellschaft. In der Generationenabfolge in Familien wie auch in größeren gesellschaftlichen Gruppen und Institutionen geht es neben der Tradierung von Wertvorstellungen und Normen auch um die Weitergabe von Macht und Verantwortung an die jüngere Generation sowie um deren Chance, das Übernommene zu ändern. Generationenbeziehungen stehen im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Revolution und sind strukturell von Ambivalenz geprägt. Insofern wohnt Generativität– gefasst als das Wissen um das Aufeinanderangewiesensein der Generationen, was gegenseitige Verantwortung und insbesondere die Sorge der älteren Generation für die nächste Generation impliziert – immer ein Moment der Krise inne. Doch mit Blick auf die Folgen der andauernden globalen Krise stellt sich die Frage, ob und inwiefern sich gegenwärtig Generativität selbst in einer Krise befindet. Ist die gegenwärtige Krise auch eine Krise der Generativität, da sich in der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft ökonomisch, sozial und ökologisch nachhaltiges Handeln weder individuell noch kollektiv zu „lohnen“ scheint? Was ist der gesellschaftliche Preis für diese Leugnung von Abhängigkeit und wie kommt sie gesellschaftlich und sozialpsychologisch zustande? Umgekehrt ist zu fragen: Welche psychosozialen Auswirkungen haben die gegenwärtigen sozioökonomischen und politischen Krisen auf die Generationenbeziehungen, auf Kindheit und Adoleszenz, und auf Geschlechterverhältnisse?
Die 2. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für psychoanalytische Sozialpsychologie orientiert sich an diesen Leitfragen, die im Eröffnungsvortrag und in verschiedenen AGs aufgegriffen und diskutiert werden. Ausserdem soll über die Struktur und die Aufgaben der neu gegründeten Gesellschaft gesprochen werden. Wir laden alle an der psychoanalytischen Sozialpsychologie Interessiertenherzlich ein, an der Tagung teilzunehmen und sich an der Diskussion zu beteiligen.
Vortrag: Zukunft der Nachkommen – generative Krisen der Gegenwart (Vera King)
Der Begriff der Generativität zielt aus einer kulturtheoretischen und sozialpsychologischen Sicht auf produktive Bedingungen im Generationenverhältnis. Generativ zu sein bedeutet, förderliche Bedingungen für die Entwicklung der Nachkommen in Familie und Kultur herzustellen. Dies beinhaltet: Fürsorge angedeihen zu lassen, Ressourcen bereitzustellen auch für eine Zukunft, aus der man selbst ausgeschlossen ist. Krisen der Generativität und destruktive Potenziale, aber auch kreativ versöhnende Haltungen gründen maßgeblich in dieser aus der individuellen Endlichkeit resultierenden Spannung. Sie sind verknüpft mit der Art, in der Vergänglichkeit und generationaler Wechsel, Weitergabe und Neuschöpfung kulturell gedeutet, institutionell reguliert und individuell bewältigt werden können. Im Vortrag werden diese Zusammenhänge beleuchtet und Krisenpotenziale analysiert.
Workshop 1: “Next Generation(s)?! Geschichtskonstruktionen der psychoanalytischen Sozialpsychologie” (Jan Lohl, Markus Brunner)
NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen im Feld der psychoanalytischen Sozialpsychologie wurden in den vergangenen Jahren als „next generation“ bezeichnet. Diese Anrufung und Selbstbezeichnung ist ambivalent und verweist auf eine “ältere Generation”. Mit dieser Konstruktion von Generationen sind vermutlich geteilte, aber unterschiedlich besetzte Bilder von “Urvätern” (Adorno, Mitscherlich uvm.) verbunden. Im Workshop fragen wir nach Verschränkungen einer invention of tradition mit Tradierungen der psychoanalytischen Sozialpsychologie. Was bedeutet es, die Geschichte psychoanalytischer Sozialpsychologie „generationell“ zu denken?
Workshop 2: Die neuen Väter und der alte Antifeminismus (Sebastian Winter)
Im Zuge des Übergangs zu postfordistischen (Re-)Produktionsformen sind die überkommene Geschlechterordnung und damit auch die “Väterlichkeit“ fraglich geworden. Einerseits ist die Flexibilisierung starrer Geschlechternormen erwünscht, andererseits gibt es eine antifeministische Gegenbewegung, die sich klare Geschlechtsidentitäten zurückwünscht. Die “Väterrechtsbewegung” führt diesen Kampf in Bezug auf die Verfügung über Kinder, die den Vätern angeblich entzogen würden. Welches affektive Fundament hat diese Bewegung? Welchen subjektiven Konflikten bietet sie scheinbar ein Lösungsmuster an? Diese Fragen werden wir anhand von Quellentexten aus der Väterrechtsbewegung diskutieren.
Workshop 3: Verwendungen psychoanalytischer Erfahrung in der Analytischen Sozialpsychologie am Beispiel des Verhältnisses von Übertragung und Gegenübertragung (Mechthild Zeul, Karola Brede, Dominic Angeloch)
Gemeinsamer Ausgangspunkt wird sein, dass psychoanalytisch-interpretatorische Erkenntnisbildung ihre Grundlage in der Hermeneutik hat. Es werden verschiedene Wege diskutiert, ausgehend von psychoanalytischer Erfahrung Werke der Ästhetik (Film, Roman u.a.m.) zu erschließen und der Kritik zugänglich zu machen. Die Diskussion konzentriert sich anhand von anschaulichen Beispielen auf das inspirierende, aber auch kontrovers gehandhabte Kernstück des Zugangs zu Kunstwerken: auf das Verhältnis von Übertragung und Gegenübertragung.
Workshop 4: Gescheiterte Generativität? Adoleszenztheoretische Zugänge zum Phänomen ‘Islamischer Staat’ (Interpretationsgruppe zu empirischem Material) (Christoph Schwarz, Lutz Eichler)
Der offene Interpretationsworkshop befasst sich mit dem Phänomen der Rekrutierung junger Männer aus Europa durch den ‚Islamischen Staat‘ (IS). Wir möchten versuchen, anhand von Propagandamaterialien des IS gemeinsam herauszuarbeiten, wie die intergenerationale Dynamik hier manifest und latent verhandelt wird und Überlegungen anstellen, welche Relevanz dies für die Rekrutierung haben könnte.
In other regional contexts, the transition to adulthood is uncertain because of tendencies for social (self-)isolation of youths, as has been observed in Japan in the 90s and later in Taiwan, South Korea, China, Singapore and Hong Kong. In Japan, the most known example is that of hikikomori: youths and young adults who completely refuse to leave their parents’ house. In contrast to the phenomenon of “waithood” in Arab countries, “hikikomori” are a largely invisible phenomenon which is discussed as a reaction to the excessive demands on individuals in the particular phase of transition to adulthood in Japanese society.
In this session we invite researchers to present their findings on uncertain transitions to adulthood in a variety of regions, in order to discuss the phenomenon from a cross-cultural perspective. We would like to debate the results of qualitative and quantitative empirical research, but also focus on the theoretical concepts used in the analysis. Which aspects of the issue do they highlight (political, social, economic, personal aspects)? Are they useful in other cultural contexts as well, or in how far can they be used to sharpen neglected aspects of prevalent concepts in other used regions?
Mit den Promovierenden der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung und Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden anderer Förderinstitutionen sowie mit prominenten Wissenschaftlern und Gewerkschaftern soll die Rolle und Reichweite von Gewerkschaften im Rahmen von Demokratisierungsbestrebungen beleuchtet werden. Ebenso ist das gestalterische Potential von Gewerkschaften in bestehenden Demokratien Thema, die sich angesichts wachsender sozioökonomischer Problemlagen vor neuen Herausforderungen sehen.
Morocco, however, offers a particularly interesting case of how young adults have been actively translating this situation into political protest before and after 2011: after the public sector job market was drastically rolled back in the early 1990s, young unemployed university graduates where the first worldwide to set up a syndicate of diplômés chômeurs that would regularly protest in front of the parliament and demand public sector jobs. Within a couple of years a certain political ritual evolved: when protests grew stronger, the government, drawing on repression as well as patronage and clientelist co-optation, would regularly negotiate with the protesters and directly employ some of them in the public sector. The coordinators of the protests would in turn monitor their members in order to make sure that only those were given a job who regularly and actively participated in the protests.
Based on life story interviews with diplômés chômeurs activists, this paper reconstructs the trajectories of suffering (Schütze/Riemann 1991) that result from unemployment in this context. Moreover, by analysing the biographical processes and resources that are relevant for a political articulation of this suffering, it sheds light on the particular moral economy (Thompson 1971) implicit in these protests.
(Christoph Schwarz, Lutz Eichler)
Der offene Interpretationsworkshop befasst sich mit dem
Phänomen der Rekrutierung junger Männer aus Europa durch
den ‚Islamischen Staat‘ (IS). Wir möchten versuchen, anhand von
Propagandamaterialien des IS gemeinsam herauszuarbeiten,
wie die intergenerationale Dynamik hier manifest und latent
verhandelt wird und Überlegungen anstellen, welche Relevanz
dies für die Rekrutierung haben könnte.
Palestinian refugees are the only ethnically defined refugee group worldwide that has an UN organization dedicated exclusively at its needs: the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), whose mandate originally was limited to a three year relief program for the 750 000 Palestinian refugees who in 1948 fled the territory of what is nowadays Israel. By now, UNRWA is catering to the third generation of those refugees, which, due to the demographic development, today comprise almost 5 Million persons.
Regarding questions of inclusion and educational policy, UNRWA represents a unique case: financed by Western governments, the agency has set up 700 schools in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, thereby providing free education to almost 500.000 children and youths – separated from the respective national school systems, and drawing on a staff of 22 000 teachers who are mainly refugees themselves. The international debate on inclusion has also had its repercussions in UNRWA, and in January 2013 the agency presented its own concept of inclusion. However, because UNRWA is officially an aid organization without a political mandate, the paper does not explicitly broach the issue of the social exclusion (and victimhood to violence) of their clients in the “host states”.
This presentation aims at depicting an outline of the paradoxes of UNRWA as an organization when it comes to “inclusion”; excerpts from interviews will illustrate the biographical relevance of UNRWA education and the exclusion of Palestinian refugees.
I want to present and discuss several theses regarding the relationship between educational institutions and the dynamics of adolescence, both in Western and (de)colonized societies.
However, investigating political socialization might allow apprehending the process by which individuals in a given society become acquainted with political norms; understanding which patterns individuals engage in political learning, which relationships they construct with the political context where they live. It might also help to establish the role of changing experiences during childhood, youth, and throughout the life course in the process of learning about politics and shaping political subjectivity. Within an interdisciplinary framework, this panel invites research on political socialization in order to explore the formation of political subjectivities and political orientations at macro, meso and micro levels. Firstly, we are interested in contributions focussing on how polities in authoritarian, revolutionary, counterrevolutionary, transitional, democratic contexts transmit and inculcate political norms in their young citizens. Secondly, we look forward to studies that unveil community-and group-based alternative and political practices aiming at rising collective social action and political consciousness. Thirdly, we would welcome contributions tackling individual pathways intertwined with intergenerational relationships and legacies, family background, regime context, collective (a)political practices, and unifying political events. Lastly, the panel intends to enrich discussion about how do (young) people understand politics or "the political" in MENA societies, and which are the most important spaces for experiencing it? In which circumstances do they acquire political culture and respective orientations? Which are the most important agents, places, and events for political socialization, and at which junctures of the life course to they occur?
Individuals who wish to contribute can send a short bio and a 300-word abstract (including: description of the topic; research questions; theoretical framework; empirical data; research methods; findings) to: [email protected] and [email protected] Abstracts will be accepted until 22 June 2020
Publication date: Fall 2017
The uprisings of 2011 challenged many predominant concepts of ‘youth’ in the MENA region. Before, young people were often merely discussed as a ‘youth bulge’ – a demographic, quantitative problem, even a potential terrorist threat. In other stereotypical representations, youths and young adults hardly appeared as political subjects, but rather as objects of policies that had to change: unemployed and socially excluded, passive victims of a failed social pact negotiated between former generations and authoritarian regimes. Movements that contradicted both stereotypes, like the Moroccan and Tunisian unemployed graduates, who had been protesting ‘apolitically’, negotiating their employment with authoritarian regimes for over a decade, hardly received any attention.
A new idol emerged in the course of the 2011 events in the MENA region: the ‘young Arab protester’ was acclaimed as a heroic vanguard against fossilized autocratic regimes ruled by old men. For many, this figure seemed to embody certain democratic ideals and practices that apparently had lost impetus in the established democracies of the West, especially in the wake of the global economic crisis. Here, new social movements like the Spanish ‘indignados’ were highly inspired by the ‘Arab Spring’. Now, young people in the MENA region were also given credit as protagonists in the cultural field, which was often directly related to their political mobilizations. Western media started to show interest in their creative productivity, whether in literature, music, their use of new media and ICTS, or everyday practices like football and its respective fan cultures.
In academia, this sudden public attention was echoed by a boom in research on ‘youth’ in the MENA region. But many of the studies and policy papers hardly involved critical theoretical reflections of the term ‘youth’. Again, young people were mainly researched as members of an age cohort, defined in quantitative terms, although now with different expectations. On the other hand, critical discussions regarding the empirical significance of youth in reproducing social inequality and catalyzing processes of social exclusion continue to revolve around the situation of young people in 'the West’. These debates often seem oddly disconnected from the social reality in the MENA region – a region that empirically has been inseparable from 'the West' throughout long histories of colonialism and migration, and in which young people constitute, after all, the majority of the population.
Against this backdrop, we welcome papers that address the overarching theme of the call, including those that consider, but are not limited to, the following topics and questions:
How do the concepts of ‘youth’ and ‘generation’ help to understand these recent developments?
To what extent does social age, ‘youthfulness’, or generationality matter when we discuss power relations, the reproduction of social inequality, and actors’ agency in the region?
How much does it influence analyses and discussions of recent developments, e.g. regarding refugee policy and refugees’ agency, or Jihadist recruitment in the MENA region and in the West?
Does it suggest different policy interventions and media attention when we frame a certain phenomenon, such as political violence, social exclusion or inequality, as a ‘youth’ issue, or as a problem between generations?
How do actors position themselves in intergenerational relations and refer to generational narratives, on which grounds, and to what purpose?
How are these narratives related to specific fields of cultural production or everyday practices?
What are the spatial dimensions of ‘being young’?
How are ‘youth’ and ‘adulthood’ defined in different social spaces, contexts, and fields?
Can we discern respective transitions to adulthood, and if so, how are they organized and negotiated?
How does social age matter at intersections of class, ethnicity and gender?
We call for articles from a broad array of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, political science, literature studies, cultural studies, media studies, history and economics, which critically engage with concepts of youth related to the MENA region, or which present new empirical findings.
Submissions relating to the issue’s focus topic are published in the FOCUS section and reflect original research. Articles in this section should be between 2,800 to 4,600 words. In addition to papers for the FOCUS section, we call for contributions for META's special sections:
The CLOSE UP section features a short written portrait of a person who has a special relation to the issue’s main topic, e.g. a researcher who has constitutively contributed to the field. It links that person’s biography with their contribution to the field. Article length is 1,500 to 3,000 words.
The META section also relates to the issue’s focus topic, with the papers in “meta” discussing the main topic from a theory-centered perspective. Regional scope is not limited to the Middle East, but may also consider theoretical approaches involving other world regions. Article length is 2,800 to 4,600 words.
The ANTI/THESIS section juxtaposes two rivaling positions that highlight different lines of argument, pros and cons, and/or competing narratives. These can be presented either by one author together, or by two different authors in two different articles. Article length for each paper is 1,500-3,000 words.
All articles that fall into the general framework of the journal, but do not relate to the special topic “Youth”, will be taken into consideration for the OFF TOPIC section.
Prior to developing a complete manuscript, authors are asked to submit an abstract (300 words max.), a short CV (150 words max.), and 3-5 key bibliographic sources. Please clearly indicate the research question, the method to be used, and the empirical material your research will be based on. Papers are accepted in English only.
The editors will make a preliminary decision regarding the topic’s relevance to the journal’s aims and scope and may provide suggestions for developing the manuscript. Please consult our website for further information about the journal’s concept, sections, and authors’ guidelines.
The deadline for abstract submissions is December 20th 2016.
The deadline for article submissions is April 15th 2017.
Proposals, manuscripts and other editorial correspondence should be sent to: [email protected]
Within an interdisciplinary framework, this panel invites research on political socialization in order to explore the formation of political subjectivities and political orientations at macro, meso and micro levels. Firstly, we are interested in contributions focussing on how polities in authoritarian, revolutionary, counterrevolutionary, transitional, democratic contexts transmit and inculcate political norms in their young citizens. Secondly, we look forward to studies that unveil community-and group-based alternative and political practices aiming at rising collective social action and political consciousness. Thirdly, we would welcome contributions tackling individual pathways intertwined with intergenerational relationships and legacies, family background, regime context, collective (a)political practices, and unifying political events. Lastly, the panel intends to enrich discussion about how do (young) people understand politics or "the political" in MENA societies, and which are the most important spaces for experiencing it? In which circumstances do they acquire political culture and respective orientations? Which are the most important agents, places, and events for political socialization, and at which junctures of the life course to they occur?
Individuals who wish to contribute can send a short bio and a 300-word abstract (including: description of the topic; research questions; theoretical framework; empirical data; research methods; findings) to: [email protected] and [email protected]
Abstracts will be accepted until 22 June 2020