Producing the Public in Arab Societies: Space, Media, and Participation
Working Groups Program
Producing the Public in Arab Societies: Space, Media, and Participation
The first cycle of the Working Groups Program (WGP) covered the project “Producing the Public in Arab Societies: Space, Media, and Participation” that is composed of three WGs. This inaugural research project of the ACSS focuses on public spheres in the Arab region and the ways in which the various social and political movements and upheavals across the region are transforming such spheres. As a multidisciplinary project, it explores the new possibilities, spaces and means for political action and practice in different Arab societies that bring to light and create new publics. The political and social imaginaries that are being produced not only open up new futures, but also reread histories and reconfigure relations between different groups and actors in society, including the relationship between the intelligentsia and the rest of society. The retaking and remaking of the state, the new modes of inclusion and exclusion and the role of diasporas are among the issues raised by this research project. All these processes have profound implications for the societies in question, but also for the social sciences in general.
Formulating new understandings of public life in societies within conditions of twenty-first century globalization is an urgent priority for the social sciences. The insecurity of global and national financial systems, the increased violence and securitization of social and political life and the new modes and practices of making collective and social/cultural claims require rethinking concepts such as the “public sphere,” “public culture,” “public institutions,” “public access (e.g. to information)” and “the public good.” In addition, calls within some disciplines for the importance of “public knowledge” (e.g. “public sociology” and “public anthropology”) means that the social scientists themselves are part, and not only observers and analyzers, of re-conceptualizing public life. Knowledge production in general is integral to the development and maintenance of a vibrant public sphere in which different opinions, identities and political positions can be explored without recourse to violence. At least this is the hope embedded in these reformulations.
The first cycle of the WGP was launched in July 2013 and ran through July 2015. The three Working Groups working under this research project are: the Space Group, coordinated by Professor Paul Amar (University of California, Santa Barbara), the Media Group, coordinated by Professor Tarik Sabry (Westminster University), and the Participation Group coordinated by Professor Sherene Seikaly (University of California, Santa Barbara). Each group has five to seven members working on different projects relating to the theme of the research project. The Working Groups engage in regular dialogue with each other, periodically come together for joint meetings; and may develop cross-cutting research collaborations or products. Opportunities are being explored for cross-regional collaboration with researchers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This program is supported by a fund offered to the ACSS by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Click on the links below for more information on each Working Group.
