Author: Tommaso Vitale Date: To: ML movimenti Bicocca Subject: [movimenti.bicocca] Interface Call for papers: The season of
revolution: the Arab Spring
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Lesley J. Wood" <ljwood@???>
> Date: 15 giugno 2011 18.31.04 GMT+02.00
> To: amsoc@???
> Subject: amsoc Interface Call for papers: The season of revolution: the Arab Spring
> Reply-To: Contentious Politics <amsoc@???>
>
> Interface: a journal for and about social movements
> <http://www.interfacejournal.net>
>
> Call for papers volume 4 issue 1. The season of revolution: the Arab Spring
>
> Issue editors: Rana Barakat, Abdul-Rahim al-Shaikh, Magid Shihade
>
>
> In December of 2010, a man in small town in Tunisia set his body ablaze.
> Muhammad Bouaziz’s act of self-immolation, and the subsequent tireless efforts
> of people in SidiBouzid to bring this revolutionary act of self-sacrifice to
> national attention, set the spark ablaze for what has been described as the
> Arab Spring of Revolutions in 2011, unleashing uprisings that spread from
> Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and Jordan and have reverberated
> globally. Bouaziz’s sacrifice was the spark for an incredible new phase in
> contemporary Arab history. From the fall of the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt to
> the unprecedented challenges by popular movements to regimes in Morocco and
> across the Arab world to the Gulf, these revolts clearly show that a new
> century has begun.
>
> A great deal has already been written about these “Arab uprisings” as they
> continue to unfold and touch regions well beyond the Arab world. This new phase
> in local history is the product of long-term political activity with roots in
> the region and beyond. Our goal in this special issue is to address questions
> inspired by these revolutions and to offer a critical intervention in debates
> generated by them as well as to address the issues that have been obfuscated by
> much of the current analysis.The broad themes to be covered will include the
> role of class, gender, popular culture, “youth” culture and politics, the
> Palestine question, internationalization (in terms of neo-colonialism,
> imperialism and anti-imperial movements), the role of solidarity movements and
> fronts and the evolving discourse of liberation.
>
> Interface: a journal for and about social movements is dedicated to popular
> mobilizations at every level from the micro to the revolutionary. Written,
> edited and refereed by activists and social movement researchers, it promotes
> engaged intellectual activity which seeks to support movements’ own
> self-reflection and development of their own practice. Interface is
> multi-lingual and globally organised, aiming to develop dialogues between
> movements in different countries, people organising in different political
> traditions, and research in different academic disciplines. It is free and
> open-access.
>
> Much of the initial attention to the Arab uprisings concentrated on new forms of
> social connectivity and media as new kinds of organizational tools for the
> protests. This sort of analysis has also paid an extraordinary amount of
> attentionto the role of youth. However, we need to question if this focus on
> youth, helps us fully understand the Arab Revolution. Does an uncomplicated
> reading of youth fall into the trap of overemphasizing generational conflict
> and discontinuity? Are there more nuanced ways of seeing the participation of
> youth in the revolution that would take into account issues of class,
> nationalism, imperialism, or other ignored factors?
>
> Given that the university is a primary site of political action (and repression)
> among a younger generation, how can we use our understanding of the space and
> place of the university to further our analysis of the revolutions? What role
> do students, as well as academics and institutions, play in these movements?
> The Arab world is often overlooked in the historic analysis of the global
> movements that were defined by student protests in 1968, so perhaps we can now
> read the university sphere in the Arab world in a different way and one that
> complicates this generational analysis. Can a more inclusive and complicated
> historical reading of political participation in these uprisings provide a
> useful intervention in traditional readings of revolutions?
>
> The paradigm of violence and non-violence has also been a point of great
> interest among analysts/commentators in the early months of these revolutions.
> Compared to movements in both Latin America and Eastern Europe, critics
> initially focused a great deal of attention on the role of non-violent
> strategies. Moreover, some observers from imperial metropoles claimed to have
> guided and supported the uprisings. What can the Arab revolutions teach us
> about the non-violence/violence paradigm? Are there clear demarcations between
> the two strategies? What role(s) does this narrative about virtuous
> non-violence play, especially for states with imperial interests like the
> US?How has this paradigm affected our understanding of the role of state
> violence?
>
> The incredibly important geo-strategic position of the Arab world has
> historically meant it has been subjected to a great deal of direct and indirect
> imperial intervention in the modern era. In this Arab Spring, the question of
> internal and external factors that have plagued regional history and politics
> continues. Are these uprisings a response to colonialism and the failure of
> de-colonization projects as well as neo-liberal agendas? Is this the local and
> regional response to their “stolen moment of modernity”? How does the Arab
> Spring relate to other “revolutionary waves” such as those of 1989 or the Latin
> American “pink tide”? And where are its boundaries – the Arab-speaking world or
> the Muslim world as a whole? Are events elsewhere in Africa linked more than
> rhetorically?
>
> More specifically, how did the United States and Europe initially respond to the
> revolutions and how important is this response to the “progress” of the
> revolutions? Has this intervention become an effective counter-revolution? What
> tactics have been used by regional and international powers in the making of the
> counter-revolution and how have people on the ground responded? What are the
> forces and sources of the counter-revolution and have they been effective? For
> example, did the US and European-led military intervention in Libya help the
> uprising or undermine it?
>
> Has the lively debate among progressives brought the international left to a
> watershed moment in our understanding of the paradigms of revolution and how
> has this debate changed our understanding of imperialism, if at all? How has
> this moment of auto-critique among Arab activists as well as progressives and
> leftists globally changed the nature of the uprisings on the ground as well as
> the ongoing revolutionary movements in terms of political frameworks and
> grassroots activity? What are the present and future dangers of the
> counter-revolution and how can they be understood in local, regional, and
> global terms?
>
> In spite of, and because of, the incredible level of foreign interest and
> intervention in the Arab world, these revolutions have proved that organic
> (grassroots) movements have thrived in terribly repressive environments in
> these Arab countries. The involvement of professional associations as well as
> labor unions have challenged our traditional understanding of vanguard
> movements and changed the way we read revolutionary struggle. How can we look
> at these unions and associations as a new way of understanding the failures of
> capitalist focused neo-liberal “economic reform”? Do the cross-class alliances
> of the revolutionaries in Egypt and Tunisia defy narrowly defined revolutionary
> theoretical understandings of the role of labor in revolution? How did the
> unions survive in the region in light of decades of infiltration and
> repression? How do we understand their role in the political uprisings and
> their role in the state structure –before, during, and after regime changes?
>
> Women in the movements and on the streets have also played an interesting and
> important role in the revolutions – or the media has at the very least obsessed
> about the “role of women” on the streets in these Muslim countries.How can we
> offer an analysis of these gendered tactics and how can we think about how to
> frame this in more complex ways that challenges colonial feminism? How can we
> complicate familiar tropes of agency and submissiveness and still grapple with
> the deliberate involvement – strategic or otherwise – of women’s primary and
> public roles in the revolutions? Do these uprisings provide us with an
> opportunity to try to explore the idea of liberation through secular politics?
> Again, as with the youth paradigm, how does the emphasis on women’s
> participation contribute to representations of the revolutions both inside and
> outside their own societies?
>
> Some have claimed that these revolutions have distanced themselves from the core
> political issue of the Arab world – the question of Palestine. Is this a fair
> depiction and from where does this kind of analysis derive its legitimacy? What
> role does the question of Palestine play in political and social goals of the
> revolutions? How has the occupation and continued oppression of Palestine – in
> political, cultural, and social terms – affected politics and political action
> in various ways in each of the uprisings? Is solidarity with Palestine a litmus
> test for the fate of the regimes in the Arab world? Because the question of
> Palestine has been manipulated in varying degrees by the totalitarian regimes
> of the Arab world, is this a moment of reckoning regarding action about
> Palestine?
>
> Finally, a great deal of attention has been given to popular culture in relation
> to the revolutions, ranging from the use of Facebook and social media to the
> role of music and art. How has popular culture affected/recorded/moved these
> revolutions? Where do movements end and culture begins? Is this an appropriate
> discursive division, or have these revolutions necessarily changed our reading
> of “culture” and “politics”?
>
> We welcome submissions that address these and other related questions and
> themes. Papers are welcome from different disciplines and fields using various
> methodologies (such as media analysis, historical critique, empirical research,
> etc). We also welcome perspectives from movement people and those who are a part
> of the revolutions and uprisings. In general submissions should aim to speak to
> an international audience and focus on the understanding and practice of the
> movements and uprisings themselves rather than the general analysis of Arab
> societies, international geo-politics etc.
> General submissions
>
> Lastly, as in all issues of Interface, we will accept submissions on topics that
> are not related to the special theme of the issue, but that emerge from or focus
> on other movements around the world and the immense amount of knowledge that
> they generate. Such general submissions should contribute to the journal’s
> mission as a tool to help our movements learn from each other’s struggles, by
> developing analyses from specific movement processes and experiences that can
> be translated into a form useful for other movements. In this context, we
> welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing
> movement-relevant theory and research.
>
> Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements
> – in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form. We thus seek
> work in a range of different formats, such as conventional articles, review
> essays, facilitated discussions and interviews, action notes, teaching notes,
> key documents and analysis, book reviews – and beyond. Both activist and
> academic peers review research contributions, and other material is
> sympathetically edited by peers. The editorial process generally is geared
> towards assisting authors to find ways of expressing their understanding, so
> that we all can be heard across geographical, social and political distances.
> Deadline and contact details
>
> The deadline for initial submissions to this issue (Volume 4 Issue 1, to be
> published May 2012) is November 1st 2011.
>
> Our guidelines for contributors explain more about what Interface is trying to
> do, who reads it and what different kinds of articles we publish, as well as
> the usual details on format, wordcount, referencing etc.
>
> Manuscripts for the special theme of “The season of revolution: the Arab Spring”
> can be sent in Arabic or English to Rana Barakat (barakat.rana AT gmail.com) or
> Abdul-Rahim al-Shaikh (aalshaikh AT birzeit.edu); or in Arabic, English, German
> or Hebrew to Magid Shihade (mshihade AT gmail.com). For submissions in other
> languages, please see our list of editors and languages.
>
> Similarly, manuscripts for general articles can be sent to the appropriate
> regional editor.
>
> General information on submissions (including guidelines for contributors, lists
> of editors and languages, and book reviews) can be found on our website.
>
>
> Lesley J. Wood
> Associate Professor
> Department of Sociology
> 2067 Vari Hall
> York University
> 4700 Keele Street
> Toronto Ontario
> M3J 1P3
> Canada
> (416)736-2100 x77988
> ljwood@???
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