Spaces of Participation: Dynamics of Social and Political Change in the Arab World

A rich interdisciplinary study of the relationships between space, both physical and virtual, and social and political participation

Where do people meet, form relations of trust, and begin debating social and political issues? Where do social movements start? In this fascinating collection, scholars and activists from a wealth of disciplinary backgrounds, including sociology, anthropology, history, and political science, take a fresh look at these questions and the factors leading to political and social change in the Arab world from a spatial perspective. Based on original field work in Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, and Palestine, Spaces of Participation connects and reconnects social, cultural, and political participation with urban space. It explores timely themes such as formal and informal spaces of participation, alternative spaces of cultural production, space reclamation, and cultural activism, and the reconfiguring of space through different types of contestation. It also covers a range of spaces that include sports clubs, arts centers, and sites of protest and resistance, as well as virtual spaces such as social media platforms, in the process of examining the relationships and tensions between physical and virtual space.

Spaces of Participation underlines the temporal and transformative quality of participatory spaces and how they are shaped by their respective political contexts, highlighting different forms of access, control, and contestation.

Contributors:
Randa Aboubakr, Cairo University, Egypt
Hicham Ait-Mansour, Mohamed V University, Rabat, Morocco
Fadma Aït Mous, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco
Mouloud Amghar, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh, Morocco
Yazid Anani, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, Palestine
Mai Ayyad, Cairo University, Egypt
Youness Benmouro, Mohamed V University, Rabat, Morocco
Yasmine Berriane, Centre Maurice Halbwachs (CNRS), Paris, France
Mokhtar El Harras, Mohamed V University, Rabat, Morocco
Ulrike Freitag, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany
Sarah Jurkiewicz, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany
Mona Khalil, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
Azzurra Sarnataro, La Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Renad Shqeirat, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah, Palestine
Dorota Woroniecka-Krzyżanowska, German Historical Institute, Warsaw, Poland

Randa Aboubakr is a professor of English and comparative literature at Cairo University.

Sarah Jurkiewicz is a post-doc researcher and research coordinator of the “Spaces of Participation” and the “Liminal Spaces” project at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

Hicham Ait-Mansour is associate professor of sociology at Mohamed V University in Rabat, Morocco. He is an associate member of the Arab Council for Social Sciences.

Ulrike Freitag is a historian of the modern Middle East specialized in the history of the Arabian Peninsula in its translocal context. She is the director of the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orientand and professor of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.