[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: 10th Mediterranean Research Meeting (Florence (Italy), 25–28 March 2009)

[onurinal at onurinal.com]

CFP: - 10th Mediterranean Research Meeting
Social Movements in the Middle East and North Africa: 
Shouldn't we go a step further? 

a workshop at the Tenth Mediterranean Research Meeting 
European University Institute 
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies 
Mediterranean Programme 
Montecatini Terme, near Florence (Italy), 25–28 March 2009. 

coordinated by 

Dr. Joel Beinin 
Professor of History, Stanford University, USA 
Professor of History American University in Cairo (on leave 2008-09) 

and 

Dr. Frederic Vairel 
Researcher, Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Economiques, Juridiques et
Sociales, Cairo 

Paper proposals of 500-1,000 words, in English, are invited before 1
September 2008. 

Applicants may apply on line at: http://www.rscas.org/medform.asp. 
Please include a short cv of no more than five pages. 

Selection of papers will take place by 30 September. Final papers are due
by 15 January 2009 

Please circulate this call widely. 

Below is an abstract of the workshop. For further information please see 

http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2009/Index.shtml 
and 
http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2009/desc_pdf/MRM2009_Ds07
.pdf 


Abstract 

Social movement theory has rarely ventured beyond the terrain of the USA
and Europe or narrow understandings of the “political” based on case
studies drawn from the global North. Consequently, it often misunderstands
activism in the South, which sometimes occurs as silent resistances,
bypassing of authority, day-to-day forms of resistance or 
evading practices of power. 

Social movement studies are commonly framed by disciplines other than
political science, which tends to minimize or obscure the political
meanings of those movements. 

Except for riots and revolutionary moments, contentious politics has been
little studied. More recently the notion of “Islamism” has marginalized the
Middle East as a land of “ugly movements” off the maps of “mainstream”
social science. The best-known studies of Islamic mobilizations are either
little affected by social movement theory or, 
despite their empirical richness, limit themselves to asserting that these
cases confirm its predictions. Another category of work, research on the
associational revival in the Middle East, typically falls into the
teleological trap of regarding the “awakening of civil society” as a sign
and a condition for democratization. 

The Middle East and North Africa are excellent sites for studying
collective action in authoritarian settings and can enrich our
understandings of comparative politics and social movement theory. To
complement the literature focused on structural processes at the state or
regime level, we propose to concentrate on “politics under the 
threshold” which might threaten authoritarianism: opportunities and
constraints for collective action in authoritarian regimes and their
effects on the reconfiguration of such regimes. The objective is to
understand regime transformations through the social and political
relations that underlie them and not through binary categories of 
democracy-authoritarianism. 

Joel Beinin 
Director of Middle East Studies Professor of History 
Professor of History Stanford University 
American University in Cairo (on leave 2006-08) 
jbeinin at aucegypt.edu 

Frederic Vairel 
Researcher 
Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Economiques, Juridiques et Sociales
Cairo 
fvairel at hotmail.com 



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