The Arab Council for the Social Sciences is pleased to announce the selection of seven research projects for the seventh cycle of its Research Grants Program (RGP). Cycle 7 of the program is the first cycle on the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict”, and this theme will continue for two more cycles: cycle 8 in 2020 and cycle 9 in 2021.

The theme of the program responds to current turmoil and conflicts in the Arab region that have resulted in mass movements, displacement and migration, negatively affecting the health of people. Particularly in areas where conflicts have been widespread and prolonged, these developments have been accompanied by immense feelings of insecurity and social injustice, particularly among those who have become marked as vulnerable groups such as refugees, forced migrants and disadvantaged groups in host communities.  At the same time, in countries that have not witnessed conflict situations, neo-liberal practices such as the increasing privatization of public services and the retreat of the state from offering them, have equally exacerbated the sense of social injustice and deprivation.

The call for proposals in Cycle 7 invited researchers to adopt social science approaches to the study of health, going beyond the narrow biological definition of health as absence of disease, to study health as a social experience and highlight the political, economic and cultural factors that affect it.  Researchers were encouraged to examine how health relates to means of living and sense of security and go beyond the economic definition of livelihood to delve into the relationship with family, friends, work colleagues and the environment. Importantly, the call urged researchers to study health and livelihoods in their relationship to vulnerability and vulnerable groups in conflict and precarious situations and strongly encouraged them to grapple with the ethics of doing research in such contexts.

The RGP call for applications was launched on July 25^thand closed on November 27^th, 2019 and was open to individuals, research teams as well as collectives and institutions. Seventy-one applications were received from 11 Arab countries: 50% individual researchers, 38% research teams, 11% institutions and 1% collectives. Women represented 37% of the applicants.

The Advisory Committee of the program convened in a three-day meeting from January 30^th to February 1^st 2020. The committee comprised the following scholars:

Hania Sholkamy, Associate research professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo

Jocelyn DeJong, Professor of Public Health at the American University of Beirut

Livia Wick, Associate professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut

Michelle Obeid, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester

Omar Dewachi, Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology at Rutgers University

Soha Bayoumi, Allston Burr Dean of Kirkland House, Assistant Dean of Harvard College, and lecturer in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University

Suhad Daher-Nashef, Assistant professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Qatar University

On the last day, the Advisory Committee issued the following statement:

"In this seventh cycle of the ACSS Research Grants Program under the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict,” we selected 2 individuals, 2 teams and 3 institutional projects reflecting a diversity of disciplines. In our selection process, we reemphasized the focal idea in this grant cycle of promoting the social sciences of health as an important lens through which to think about conflict and vulnerability across the Arab World. 

We noticed that the majority of the shortlisted applications came from Morocco while other countries were not sufficiently represented (e.g. Egyptand Tunisia). Across the range of proposals, we encountered a focus on practice-based public health and applied social science. Many of the proposals we reviewed included an expansive understanding of conflict, represented by various forms of structural violence and contestation, even though it was not always articulated in those terms. We awarded proposals that honored the social scientific framework of the call for applications, which meant that we reviewed some high-quality proposals that did not meet that eligibility criterion. We particularly welcomed team proposals that brought social scientists and health professionals together. We generally favored proposals with a strong research design, particularly those that are operationalizable, with a clear methodology and explicit discussion of ethical considerations. By contrast, we reviewed some very exciting projects that, unfortunately, lacked methodological rigor or elaboration on how the research will actually be carried out. We noticed that many projects needed to tighten the proposed research design and clarify the connections between the methods and research questions.

In the future, we hope to see wider representation from more Arab countries, ideally through a comparative research lens, a more focused engagement with social scientific literature, more in-depth and long-term ethnographic research, and a strengthened interpretive focus. We also hope that future proposals will explicitly conceptualize and interrogate what conflict and vulnerability are, instead of taking them as a given."

Awarded Projects for 2020:

Individuals:

Laariny Salah – Morocco – Project title: الشيخوخة والهشاشة والرعاية الصحية: دراسة سوسيولوجية مقارنة بين الوسطين الحضري والقروي بمدينة فاس وضواحيها

Anas Bencheikh - Morocco – Project title: هشاشة المعيش والصحة لدى النساء المهاجرات من إفريقيا جنوب الصحراء بالمغرب: مدينتي الرباط والدار البيضاء نموذجا.

Teams:

Kawtar Salik (PI), Meriam Bouzineb, Samira Jabal, and Saloua Abouchadi – Morocco – Project title: Le praticien des établissements de soins de santé de base en terrain de vulnérabilité : entre les exigences du terrain et celles des politiques de santé.

Yara Saifi (PI) and Buad Khalis – Palestine – Project title: Health and Kindergartens: Reflection on the building laws and regulations in East Jerusalem under the pretext of establishing public facilities

Institutions:

American University of Beirut: Samar Al-Hajj (PI), Jihad Makhoul, and Marc Michael – Lebanon – Project title: Examining Illness and Injury Narratives and Barriers to Access Surgical Care among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

Hebron University: Adel Takruri (PI), Inad Nawajah, Sahar Hassan, and Tamer Sarsour – Palestine – Project title: The effects of political conflict and social inequalities on healthcare quality and delivery in Palestine: resiliency in the face of adversity

The Higher Population Council in Jordan: Abla Amawi (PI), Manal Al-Ghazawi, Ali Almetleq, and Ghaleb Alazzeh -  Jordan – Project title: The Intersection Between Early Marriage and Adolescent Childbearing on Perinatal Reproductive and Mental Health among Syrian Refugees in Jordan