CopingwithUncertainty Format: Paperback

Seven years after the Arab uprisings, the social situation has deteriorated across the Middle East and North Africa. Political, economic and personal insecurities have expanded and, against a backdrop of escalating armed conflicts and disintegrating state structures, many have been forced from their homes, creating millions of internally displaced persons and refugees. Young people are often the ones hit hardest by the turmoil. How do they cope with these ongoing uncertainties, and what drives them to pursue their own dreams, in spite of these hardships?

This landmark volume offers the most in-depth, comprehensive study on young people in the Arab world to date. In 2016 and 2017, an international interdisciplinary team of researchers conducted interviews with nine thousand young people aged 16–30 from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. Given how rapidly events have moved in the Middle East and North Africa, their findings, which are drawn together in this volume, are in many regards unexpected.

Jörg Gertel is Professor of Arabic and Geography and Global Studies at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He holds a PhD in Geography and taught and carried out research in Khartoum, Cairo, Seattle and Auckland. He specialises in the fields of youth, food and nomadic studies, focusing on the changing notions of insecurity and uncertainty.


Ralf Hexel is the Director of the Department for Middle East and North Africa at the Friederich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German based political foundation. He earned his PhD in Latin American literature at the University of Rostock in 1990, and then worked as a consultant for German and Austrian NGOs in Africa. Since joining the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in 1993, he has occupied various leading positions in the foundation’s projects in Europe, Africa and the MENA region.