Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship presents
The Asfari Institute Inaugural Conference on Civic Participation and Citizenship:
New Spaces of Civil Society Activism in the Arab World
The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship is honored to invite you to its inaugural two-day conference on Thursday and Friday May 23-24, 2013 (8:30 am to 5:00 pm) at the American Unversity of Beirut, College Hall, B1 Auditorium. The conference is held in partnership with the Arab Studies Consortium (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, Arab Studies Institute at George Mason University) and Legal Agenda Beirut. This inaugural conference aims to commerce a rigorous engagement with matters of civic participation and citizenship, to interrogate the impact of civil society on the changing region, and to trace the most promising prospects for rights-based advocacy. The conference revolves around presentations and panel sessions by more than twenty-five invited practitioners, academics and activists from many countries.
Jadaliyya will be live tweeting the conference. Follow the Twitter hashtag #AICC2013 for live updates.
Conference Topic
Durable authoritarianism in the Arab world has been shaken by political revolutions across the region. Starting in Tunisia in December 2010 and spreading quickly to Egypt and beyond, the outbreak of mass protest movements was seemingly sudden, they reflect longer histories of civil society mobilizations. The existence of older and more conventional kinds of institutions, such as labor unions, political parties, and social welfare organizations, was critical to adding discipline, legitimacy and a history of activism into the mix of spontaneous protests. The ongoing revolts have produced new actors and spaces, and they certainly demonstrate the popular unwillingness to accept a status quo ante.
These mass protests were animated above all by demands for political and civil rights, respect and dignity, and opposition to corruption and economic exploitation. The underlying and unifying sentiment of these protests was a demand for state reform and for more robust means of civic engagement and participation. Even in countries where there have been regime changes, the struggles continue because people’s demands and expectations have yet to be satisfied. The objective of this conference is to air and analyze how changes over the last two years are reconfiguring the boundaries of state and society and the meaning of citizenship.
We are bringing together practitioners, academics, and activists from many countries to interrogate the impact of political transformations and social changes on the region. Among the issues we invite participants to examine and explain are: how conceptions of citizenship are being (re)formulated in terms of rights claims and the politics of inclusion and exclusion; how constitutions in particular and the law in general have constituted terrains of struggle; how alliances and/or conflicts are framed through and mobilized around gender, sexuality, generation, class, rural-urban divides, and communitarian and sectarian identities; how popular culture and social media have contributed to and reflected collective mobilizations; how protests have been affected by war, militarization, and securitization, including, in some places, counter-revolutionary repression; and how the protests have produced various kinds of regional and transnational interferences as well as solidarities across borders.
As the launching event for the new Asfari Institute, we hope the conference can initiate productive engagements about these matters and serve as a platform for future work.
Conference Program
Day 1: 23 May 2013
8:30–9:00am Registration and Coffee
9:00–9:15am Welcoming Remarks
- Ahmad Dallal, Provost of AUB Marieke Bosman, Asfari Foundation
9:15–10:00am Keynote
- Asef Bayat, University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, Everyday Life and Arab Revolutions
10:00–10:30am Coffee Break
10:30am–12:30pm Panel: Civic Struggles in Turbulent Times
- Bassam Haddad, George Mason University
- Joel Beinin, Stanford University
- Abla Amawi, UNDP-Program of Assistance to the Palestinian People
- Ala’a Shehabi, Bahrain Watch
- Moderated by Lisa Hajjar, University of California – Santa Barbara, AUB
12:30–1:30pm Buffet Lunch (College Hall, Auditorium B1)
1:30–2:15 pm Keynote
- Khaled Fahmy, American University of Cairo, Transitional Justice in Post-Revolutionary Egypt
2:15–4:15 pm Panel: Debating Justice
- Maged Almadhaji, Center for Civil Rights and Democracy (Yemen)
- Afif Jaidi, Lawyer (Tunisia)
- Abdulhay Sayed, Lawyer (Syria)
- Yassine Moukhli, Club Des Magistrats Du Marco
- Moderated by Nizar Sagieh, Chair, Legal Agenda
4:15–4:45pm Coffee Break
4:45–5:30pm Keynote
- Walden Bello, House of Representatives – Republic of Philippines, Thoughts on the Arab Spring from the Perspective of Other Episodes of Democratization
Day 2: 24 May 2013
8:30–9:00 am Coffee
9:00–11:00am Panel: Battling for Rights
- Ray Jureidini, Qatar Foundation
- Charbel Nahas, Former Minister of Labor (Lebanon)
- Islah Jad, Birzeit University
- Atiaf Alwazir, Independent researcher and activist (Yemen)
- Moderated by Sari Hanafi, AUB
11:00–11:30am Coffee Break
11:30am-12:15pm Keynote
- Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University, Geopolitical Considerations for Democracy Struggles in the Arab World
12:15–1:30pm Midday Break
1:30–3:30pm Panel: New Actors and Novel Approaches
- Karima Khalil, Medical doctor and photographer (Egypt)
- Nadir Bouhmouch, Student and documentary filmmaker (Morocco)
- Irada Al Jabbouri, University of Baghdad
- Samah Idriss, Al-Adab publishing
- Moderated by Dina Kiwan, AUB
3:30–4:00pm Coffee Break
4:00–5:30pm Roundtable with Keynote Speakers and Provost
- Asef Bayat
- Walden Bello
- Khaled Fahmy
- Rashid Khalidi
- Ahmad Dallal
- Moderated by Omar Dewachi, AUB
Contact
Jadaliyya will be live tweeting the conference. Follow the Twitter hashtag #AICC2013 for live updates.
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