Papers by Abir A Chaaban
This article proposes a way to analyze discourses about regularization
and the resistance to reg... more This article proposes a way to analyze discourses about regularization
and the resistance to regularization with the aim of de-functionalizing the
coherence of the discourse about the regularization of confessionalism
proliferating around the Syrian conflict. A differentiation is identified in
the coherence of the discourse about the recruitment and mobilization
of Hezbollah into Twelver Shi‘a militancy, which is correlated to the
process of transforming the non-Arab identity of the Metwali into a
Shi‘a Arab identity, and the massive mobilization that took place to
abolish confessionalism during the August 23rd, 2015 riots in Lebanon.
The analysis employs an ethnographic research design that empirically
bridges between Michel Foucault’s framework of analysis, articulated
in The Archeology of Knowledge (1972) and The Subject and Power
(1982) and applied in Society Must Be Defended (1997), and Harold
Innis’ geopolitical analysis of the power relations between the center
and the periphery in Empire and Communication (2007), and The Bias
of Communication (1951).
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The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES), 2017
The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES) aims to provide a unique forum f... more The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES) aims to provide a unique forum for presenting original interdisciplinary articles from the social sciences, international relations and humanities that are related to the study of the broader Middle East. The journal advances theoretical and empirical studies on broad issues, including history and contemporary political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of Middle Eastern and Central Asia countries.
This Journal is essential reading for all academics and, decision-making concern in understanding the modern Middle East.
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Conference Presentations by Abir A Chaaban
The paper proposes a way of analysis of struggles which employs ethnography as a research design.... more The paper proposes a way of analysis of struggles which employs ethnography as a research design. It empirically bridges between Michel Foucault’s framework of analysis, articulated in The Archeology of Knowledge (1972) and The Subject and Power (1982) and applied in Society Must Be Defended (1997), and Harold Innis’ geopolitical analysis of the power relations between the center and the margins in Empire and Communication (2007), and The Bias of Communication (1951).
The objective of this analysis is to identify discursive divisions of identity that have the capacity to enunciate a modality mobilizing mass action, or what Michel Foucault termed “the enunciative function of statements.” These revealed identities fulfill the function of de-functionalizing the coherence of the discourse about the confessional regulation of identity proliferating around the Syrian conflict and communicated by centers of power.
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Books by Abir A Chaaban
In this study I analyze relations of force at points of tension associated with the radical insti... more In this study I analyze relations of force at points of tension associated with the radical institutional transformations within the international institutional legal system. Points of tension may be pinned to the site where counter discourses of opposition by counter-force of resistance questioned the legitimacy of sovereignty. Sovereignty is an international legal construct within an international politico-juridical institution. In the legal discourse of international law and international relations the sovereign nation-state is the subject of international law. At its core, this study addresses the problem of the legitimacy of domestic sovereignty within the internationally recognized territorial state by analyzing discourses regulating the rules of recognition of the legitimacy of sovereignty and discourses in opposition to the discourses of resistance to regulation. I work with a case study research design employing comparative historical analysis taking the English and the French Revolutions. In the main this study analyzes the problem of the legitimacy of sovereignty in the case of Lebanon.
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Talks by Abir A Chaaban
I just came back from an academic conference, which aims at discussing new approaches to studying... more I just came back from an academic conference, which aims at discussing new approaches to studying the Middle East and organized by the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies in London-United Kingdom. As an opponent to BDS, I made the decision and prior to the conference to send an article to Ariel University to signify my opposition to BDS and promotion for dialogue. Ariel University is a university located at the West Bank. When I sent my to article Ariel University, it was not yet recognized as a legal university by the Israeli Higher Education Council. I thought that this was a good opportunity as I am not violating the Lebanese laws by sending an article to the West Bank which is Palestinian Occupied Territories. This was important to me since I do travel to Lebanon frequently, where I conduct field work on my research. Ariel University which is situated at the margins of conflict was the space that gave birth to discourses emerging at the margins and this was well positioned within the framework of my research which works with knowledge produced at the margins. I was thus able to send my point of view inside Israel, something I felt that BDS aims to prevent me from doing, as a Lebanese Canadian, in its campaign of boycotting Israeli academic institutions. In fact, BDS was boycotting Lebanese academics from making a difference and from being able to initiate dialogue with Israeli academics on issues of war and peace.
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Research by Abir A Chaaban
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In this paper I experiment with exploratory tools of analysis of discourse by analyzing antagonis... more In this paper I experiment with exploratory tools of analysis of discourse by analyzing antagonism in discourses of oppositions within conflict. I take “the Orange Room” an online political Forum as a site of discourse analysis of antagonism of oppositions within the Syrian conflict. The OR is hosted in the United States with ownership in Lebanon. This paper does not attempt to work with disciplinary theory. It rather operationalizes a conceptual framework of analyses by situating the units of analysis within an interdisciplinary ethnographic research design. It works with the material object(s) of statements within a regulated field of discourse around material conflict.
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In this paper I compare the use of materialism as a way of analysis in the philosophy of praxis w... more In this paper I compare the use of materialism as a way of analysis in the philosophy of praxis within Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels historical dialectical materialism, as conceptually constructed in Stuart Hall’s model of communication encoding/decoding, on the one hand. Hall’s model takes Ronald Barth second order signification of myth to determine the cultural connotations in the process of decoding of detonated meaning. I compare such analytic modality with Foucault’s analysis of the “antagonism of strategies” which takes material and actual power relations as a site of analysis.
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This paper explores Julia Kristeva’s discourse of the abject through the lens of Foucault’s antag... more This paper explores Julia Kristeva’s discourse of the abject through the lens of Foucault’s antagonism strategies being a way of analysis of government techniques and processes of government of the population domestically, and mobilization into war internationally within the actuality of a world set to function in bio-political mode. The antagonism of strategies is a way of analyzing power relations within society by studying the opposite of the thing one wishes to analyze. The opposite is determined by the binaries defined by the actual conflict pinpointed at the points of contestation and consequently the manifestation of and the proliferation of discourse. So when one speaks of the terrorist one also speaks of government and the law. I compare Foucault’s archeology genealogy and the antagonism of strategies as tools of analysis of terrorism with Julia Kristeva’s semiotic psychoanalysis by taking the notions, of discourse, intertextuality and le langage as central points of comparison.
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In this paper I press forward a conceptual discussion surrounding the possibility of analyzing “t... more In this paper I press forward a conceptual discussion surrounding the possibility of analyzing “the media as a force of modernism through Foucault’s lens of bio-power and his analysis of “human beings into subjects”. I start with a comparative conceptual analysis of the concepts of popular culture and the population. I take the analytical framework of struggles in Foucault’s genealogy, archeology and the antagonism of strategies, being a way to establish the critique of the mechanisms of government of the population in Western societies. I compare this framework with Stuart Hall’s concept of popular culture as it appears in his article “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular.” Popular culture according to this tradition is an abstracted concept. It signifies the “ground “of a struggle structured around Marxist economic division of labor of the working class and a hegemonic dominant group.
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Papers by Abir A Chaaban
and the resistance to regularization with the aim of de-functionalizing the
coherence of the discourse about the regularization of confessionalism
proliferating around the Syrian conflict. A differentiation is identified in
the coherence of the discourse about the recruitment and mobilization
of Hezbollah into Twelver Shi‘a militancy, which is correlated to the
process of transforming the non-Arab identity of the Metwali into a
Shi‘a Arab identity, and the massive mobilization that took place to
abolish confessionalism during the August 23rd, 2015 riots in Lebanon.
The analysis employs an ethnographic research design that empirically
bridges between Michel Foucault’s framework of analysis, articulated
in The Archeology of Knowledge (1972) and The Subject and Power
(1982) and applied in Society Must Be Defended (1997), and Harold
Innis’ geopolitical analysis of the power relations between the center
and the periphery in Empire and Communication (2007), and The Bias
of Communication (1951).
This Journal is essential reading for all academics and, decision-making concern in understanding the modern Middle East.
Conference Presentations by Abir A Chaaban
The objective of this analysis is to identify discursive divisions of identity that have the capacity to enunciate a modality mobilizing mass action, or what Michel Foucault termed “the enunciative function of statements.” These revealed identities fulfill the function of de-functionalizing the coherence of the discourse about the confessional regulation of identity proliferating around the Syrian conflict and communicated by centers of power.
Books by Abir A Chaaban
Talks by Abir A Chaaban
Research by Abir A Chaaban
and the resistance to regularization with the aim of de-functionalizing the
coherence of the discourse about the regularization of confessionalism
proliferating around the Syrian conflict. A differentiation is identified in
the coherence of the discourse about the recruitment and mobilization
of Hezbollah into Twelver Shi‘a militancy, which is correlated to the
process of transforming the non-Arab identity of the Metwali into a
Shi‘a Arab identity, and the massive mobilization that took place to
abolish confessionalism during the August 23rd, 2015 riots in Lebanon.
The analysis employs an ethnographic research design that empirically
bridges between Michel Foucault’s framework of analysis, articulated
in The Archeology of Knowledge (1972) and The Subject and Power
(1982) and applied in Society Must Be Defended (1997), and Harold
Innis’ geopolitical analysis of the power relations between the center
and the periphery in Empire and Communication (2007), and The Bias
of Communication (1951).
This Journal is essential reading for all academics and, decision-making concern in understanding the modern Middle East.
The objective of this analysis is to identify discursive divisions of identity that have the capacity to enunciate a modality mobilizing mass action, or what Michel Foucault termed “the enunciative function of statements.” These revealed identities fulfill the function of de-functionalizing the coherence of the discourse about the confessional regulation of identity proliferating around the Syrian conflict and communicated by centers of power.