CMES Roundtable: On the Edge - Post-Conflict Political Generations of Women and Youth Activists in the ‘Second Wave’ of the Arab Spring

Abstract

The mass popular mobilizations calling for radical regime change in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq in 2019 were billed the ‘Second Wave’ of the Arab Spring. The use of the same framing device for calls to collective action and protestors’ efforts to inscribe their actions in the precedent of 2011, lends credence to the idea of social movement diffusion. Yet this reading takes an ahistorical perspective that fails to consider how previous cycles of popular contention differed markedly in the countries under study, and how these in turn shaped distinct mobilization dynamics. 

The panel uses the historical trajectories of the four countries to investigate the impact on the political subjectivities of women and youth activists and how these informed the ideational, organizational, and strategic dimension of their activism. This is accomplished through a theoretical framework consisting of two prisms of analysis that draws on the concepts of governmentality and political generation. First, the panel situates the investigation in the post-conflict nature of Algeria, Sudan, and Iraq and post-war state consolidation through the governmentality of women and youth. It investigates institutional and punitive mechanisms for the governance of women and youth and how these shaped political subjectivities to craft the citizens required by the reconfigured state. Second, the panel places the 2019 uprisings in a longer timeframe of contention, taking into consideration previous cycles of mass mobilization and their impact on the formation of political generations. This includes specific investigation of intergenerational power dynamics alongside political learning processes that informed the modes of collective action and the meanings ascribed therein among the 2019 activists. 

This dual lens reveals an activism of women and youth in these uprisings that was collectively understood as ‘on the edge’. Their activism pushed the boundaries of acceptable modes of contention and engagement without crossing into full-on civil strife. Simultaneously, their activism created a new frontier for understanding intersectionality where activists go beyond the tropes of ‘womanhood’ and ‘youthhood’ as imposed by the post-conflict state. The panel consists of papers on the second wave of the uprisings that draw on original data sets and/or new rounds of fieldwork.

Speakers

Seréna Nilsson Rabia, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, University of Bergen (Norway)

Ruba Ali Al-Hassani, Research Associate, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University (UK)

May Tamimová, Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University (Netherlands)

Matthew Heinrichs, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (USA)

Liv Tønnessen, Director, Center on Law and Social Transformation, Chr. Michelsen Institute (Norway)

Mai Azzam, PhD Candidate, Bayreuth International School for African Studies, University of Bayreuth (Germany)

Sarah Anne Rennick, CMES Researcher, Lund University (Sweden) and Deputy Director, Arab Reform Initiative (France)

Moderator

Rola El-Husseini Dean, CMES Researcher and Associate Professor in Political Science, Lund University (Sweden)

The roundtable is held at CMES, Finngatan 16 in Lund. If you are not able to attend in-person, there is an option to attend via Zoom. Please register here for Zoom attendance: https://lu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Mpce6vrjorHtMRIiTmsuFyH2dvzdha…

This event is part of the CMES seminar series spring 2024. For more information, visit the CMES website.