New Paradigms Factory Program Description

The New Paradigms Factory (NPF) Program aims at facilitating research and publishing by innovative, critical-thinking, and engaged junior Arab scholars and activists, particularly those facing limited access to mentoring and/or publishing venues. The goal is to improve the visibility and accessibility of work from the field, and ensure proper recognition and professional credit for Arab social science thought that generates novel paradigms and new frames for analyzing the key problems of the day, particularly those linked to the dynamics associated with the recent uprisings and transformations.


 

“Paradigm,” for the purposes of this program, signifies any mainstream pattern of thinking or a predominant model for analyzing a set of social problems, cultural norms, or political situations. A paradigm structures which phenomena should be observed and scrutinized, which questions should be asked, and how realities, data, and findings should be interpreted. A paradigm can also signify a well-established habit of linking cause and effect. A paradigm is both a mode of analysis predominant in the social sciences and also a worldview that underlies how the news media, public spheres, and the state perceive social, political, economic, and/or cultural problems.