RGP Cycle One Grantees and Projects

Rula Abu-Duhou, Lena Meari, Wisam Rafeedie: Development, Inequality and Popular Mobilizations: Towards Opening a Horizon for Alternative Development

The research investigates the relationship between development processes and its hegemonic neoliberal conceptions through the last decades with a focus on the social-economic inequalities it produced from one side, and the popular youth mobilizations in Palestine and Egypt from the other side. The research aims to foresee the possibilities that the popular mobilizations offer towards deconstructing the hegemonic development discourses and its economic, social, political and subjective components as well as the horizons that these mobilizations open for outlining an alternative development based on liberation, dignity and social justice.

While the research focuses on Palestinian youth mobilizations it also studies the Egyptian popular mobilizations as a comparative case. The research is located within the theoretical literature that criticizes the development conceptions which prevailed post-World War II beginning from the contributions of the dependency theory and world system analysis as appeared since the seventies of the last decade, through the critical literature on the development discourses and practices that follows the continuous failure of the development projects based on constructing representations of the countries that does not reflect its realities.

Regarding the relationship between development projects and its failure in implementing social justice, and the popular mobilizations, the research engages with the literature that attempts to imagine a post-development era and the argument that re-conceptualizing development is contingent upon the activity and efficacy of social movements. Based on the last argument, the research assesses the relation between the various forms of popular mobilizations in Palestine and Egypt and the possibility of surpassing the hegemonic development discourses towards building revolutionary alternatives.  

Rula Abu- Duhou is instructor & researcher at the Institute of Women Studies – Birzeit university. She holds a master degree in Gender, Law & Development from the Institute of Women Studies at Birzeit university for her thesis titled “women in the leadership of the Palestinian struggle movement”. She holds a BA in social work from Bethlehem University. Teaching courses on women’s issues including: women in media and women in the Arab world.   She has special interest in refugee issues and has co-authored a book titled “little places and big issues: Palestinian life under the colonial condition”. She is an activist on political prisoners’ issues and had volunteered at ADDAMEER prisoners association for 8 years in documenting and follow up on political imprisonment. Currently, she is working on a book on Palestinian women political prisoners based on her own experience as a political prisoner. Additionally, she is studying for a second master degree in the field of democracy and human rights.

http//:www.Birzeit.edu  

Lena Meari is an assistant professor at the Social and Behavioral Science and the Institute of Women Studies at Birzeit University, Palestine. She received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California at Davis. Her dissertation titled “Sumud: A Philosophy of Confronting Interrogation” investigates the transforming colonial relations in colonized Palestine from the perspective of the interrogation-encounter. She had taught several courses including Anthropology of the Middle East at the University of California Davis as well as Critical Theories in Gender and Development, Qualitative Research Methods and Colonial Structures and their Resistance for graduate students in Gender and Development at Birzeit University. She has special interest in knowledge production, decolonized methodologies and the structure and organization of revolutionary movements.

Wisam Rafeedie, lecturer in social sciences at Bethlehem University, holds two master degrees in Arabic Studies and Sociology for which he wrote a thesis on “Palestinian woman’s social status in the modern novel pre and post Oslo”. He has worked as lecturer over the past seven years at both Birzeit and Bethlehem universities, teaching courses in Arabic political thought, development and social movements, sociological theories, and hegemonic and domination policies. His publications in the social sciences field include: the feminist discourse of Palestinian NGO’s in Palestine, and the book industry in Palestine. Holding a BA in Arabic language and literature, he has contributions in the field of literature. He has published a novel “Alaqaneem Althalatha” and worked as editor for many institutions in Palestine. In addition to his interest in following political affairs, teaching and conducting research, he has special interest in the Arabic-Islamic history and the history of religions.

http//:www.Bethlehem.edu