Beyond Winter and Spring: politics and social contention in the MENA region after 2011 - session 3
The Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action is pleased to announce the third session of its webinar series for 2021-2022
Beyond Winter and Spring: politics and social contention in the MENA region after 2011
Date: Thursday 27 January at 3pm (Beirut time).
Session 3 - Tunisia and Egypt after 2011: investigating social mobilizations.
With speakers:
Dr. Brecht De Smet, Ghent University
Dr. Laryssa Chomiak, Centre d'Étude Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT)
Dr. Ayman Belhadj, Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne
Dr. Nadine Abdallah, American University of Cairo
The session will be moderated by
Dr. Rossana Tufaro, Centre for Social Sciences Research and Action
On December 17, 2010, the self-immolation of the young Tunisian vendor Muhammad Bouaziz ignited an unprecedented wave of popular protests all over the MENA region, under the common demands for bread, freedom, dignity, and social justice. Twenty-eight days later, as a result of street pressure, the ‘regime for life’ of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fell, followed soon by that of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt on January 25, 2011.
As the two regimes were toppled, the bulk of scholarly attention focused predominantly on scrutinizing whether such movements would have ultimately led towards “democratization”, the latter understood primarily as a process of institutional transition from an authoritarian to a liberal model of governance. Much less attention has been devoted to the investigation of how the quest for bread, freedom, and social justice has kept informing social contention in the two states.
While Tunisia has generally been portrayed as the success story par excellence of the Arab Uprisings, in the past ten years contentious cycles of mobilization around socio-economic and participatory demands have never ceased to occur, adopting slogans and demands in close continuity with those of 2011. In a similar vein, albeit the triumph of counter-revolution in Egypt has undoubtedly restricted the space for political dissent, workers, youth activists, and marginalized or peripheral communities have remained an integral part of the national contentious arena.
By bringing back the social question at the center of the analysis, this third seminar aims at providing an overview of the old and new social tensions that are currently crossing the Tunisian and Egyptian societies. In so doing, the webinar seeks to challenge the dominant dichotomic success/failure approaches with which the post-Uprising historical development of the region has been understood.
The webinar is part of the thematic cycle “Beyond Winter and Spring: politics and social contention in the MENA region after 2011”, by The Centre for Social Sciences, Research and Action within the framework of our research program on social justice and social contention in the MENA region.
Date and time: Thursday 27 January at 3pm (Beirut time).
Language: This webinar will be held in English and Arabic. Interpretation will be available.
Registration: The webinar will be hosted on zoom. The link will be sent via email prior to the webinar. Please fill in this form before 24 January, 2022: https://bit.ly/3mZDIj9
Submit your questions to the speakers ahead of the webinar on the same link!
