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Focusing on the struggles of youth in the Arabian Gulf to find their place in their encounters with modernity, Everyday Youth Cultures in the Gulf Peninsula explores how global forces are reshaping everyday cultural experiences in authoritarian societies. A deeper understanding of Gulf youth emerges from reading about the everyday lives and struggles, opportunities and contributions of youth who, in the process of developing their personal identities, are also incrementally transforming their societies and cultures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, the chapters bring fresh insight into Gulf youth microcultures from the ground and invite dialogue by engaging young local and foreign academics in the discussion. In light of the general difficulties of accessing Gulf societies, the book’s nuanced, richly detailed depictions of everyday life can be of interest to academic research in Middle East Studies, youth sociology, political science and anthropology, as well as to business and governmental decision-making.
The present paper investigates the role of youth in contemporary Kuwait, and how their diverse resistance strategies contest and challenge dominant cultural and political paradigms, affecting identity construction and social patterns. It examines the distance between the government and youth, and a growing crisis of representation through the analysis of three main areas of resistant practices enacted by youth, seemingly interdependent and possibly overlapping: political mobilization, political radicalization and civic engagement. Political mobilization concerns the protests staged in Kuwait mainly in 2012; political radicalization examines political violence and terrorist episodes, while civic engagement investigates examples from an invigorated civil society. The article investigates and addresses youth practices employing classic and alternative social movements literature developed in Latin America and the Middle East, together with original ethnographic data.
2019 •
I will be co-leading this workshop with Professor Ildiko Kaposi (GUST University, Kuwait) in the framework of the 10th edition of the Gulf Research Meeting, to be held in Cambridge on July 15-18, 2019. The submission deadline is January 20th through the following page: http://grm.grc.net/index.php?pgid=Mw The best papers presented at the workshop will be considered for an edited volume. The conference organisers also provide participants with a lump sum towards travel expenses, and with working lunches and coffee breaks.
Summary Report 15
Youth in the Middle EastWhile some of MENA’s recent macro-economic and political developments have created further obstacles for the region’s youth, young peoples’ responses to these constraints have differed remarkably. As such, the process by which we expand our understanding of young people should be informed by a wider perspective: the aspirations of youth and their senses of identity as well as the economic and political contexts that confront them. How individuals manage the challenges they face, and how youth mobilize collectively to deal with those overarching constraints faced in the region, are likely influenced by diverse factors related to their gendered, national, urban, tribal, cultural, and religious differences. To explore the underlying causes and consequences of these complexities, CIRS launched a multi-disciplinary research initiative in collaboration with Silatech, a Doha-based and youth-oriented social initiative organization. As many of the region’s youth are contending with the effects of social and economic exclusion, this research explores the ways in which youth manage and respond to various socioeconomic and political constraints across the region, as well as the potentials of policy to support various aspects of youth’s lives. Additionally, this research initiative examines the ways in which Middle Eastern youth collectively regenerate a new consciousness and forge novel methods of mobilization. The original research papers produced as part of this initiative will be published as a special issue of The Muslim World in 2017.
CIRS Special Issue of The Muslim World
The State of Middle Eastern YouthThis special issue of The Muslim World studies the state of Middle Eastern youth, focusing on the ways in which their experiences continue to shape their worldviews and their priorities. The contribution of this special issue to the burgeoning literature on Middle Eastern youth enhances our understanding of the lives of the young in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and examines Middle Eastern youth’s novel methods of mobilization and its regeneration of a new consciousness. This special issue emerged as one of the research initiatives undertaken by the Center for International and Regional Studies of Georgetown University in Qatar in collaboration with Silatech. A number of specialists and scholars helped identify original research questions concerning the study of Middle Eastern Youth, and shaped the intellectual discussions that went into crafting this special issue.
This option builds on the core courses of the MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies and seeks to complement the historical knowledge and language skills gained there with a thorough understanding of history, society, and politics of the Gulf states and the Arabian Peninsula. It will provide an overview of the key factors that shaped the development of the modern Gulf states, in particular since the discovery of oil. The aim is to give students the theoretical and methodological tools to analyse the domestic and foreign policies of the Gulf states in light of a historically grounded understanding of state-society relations. Contents Over the course of the term, we will look at key themes and topics that shaped the history of the modern Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman). Each seminar will have a thematic arch and link and compare developments across the different Gulf States (and at times make cross-references to neighbouring countries such as Iraq, Iran and Yemen). It will explain how highly hetereogeneous populations, characterised by migration, trade and warfare, came to form the citizens of newly independent states by the 1970s. In particular after the oil boom of 1973, these states and their economies were profoundly transformed, leading to the influx of millions of migrant workers. Given that it is the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia and its role as a regional hegemon and its use of Islam will be a particular focus. The last seminar will look at how the Gulf states have been affected by and have responded to the regional fallouts spurred by the Arab uprisings.
City & Society
INTRODUCTION: New Ethnographic Fieldwork Among Migrants, Residents and Citizens In the Arab States of the Gulf2008 •
Survival: Global Politics and Strategy
The Impatience of Youth: Political Activism in the Gulf2014 •
In October 2012, thousands of citizens took to the streets of Kuwait City to protest an emergency decree by the emir that amended the country’s electoral law in such a way as to undermine the position of the opposition within parliament. The demonstrations were unprecedented both in size and political rhetoric. An estimated 50,000 people addressed the ruler with slogans such as ‘we will not let you’. Security forces used tear gas and stun grenades to break up the gatherings. Youth groups formed the backbone of the movement’s leadership (at least initially) and supplied much of its rank and file. However, within months, this vibrant and defiant campaign had largely dissipated. Having failed to attain its goals, it was unable to maintain a permanent political presence. Throughout the Gulf region, other youth-led movements have suffered a similar fate. Once groups achieve their original goals or lose their initial momentum due to government resistance, they soon break down, often disappearing altogether from the political scene. Thus, youth activism in the Gulf can be described as both effective and ephemeral. On the one hand, the enthusiasm and passion of young people has played a paramount role in driving mass mobilisation. On the other, youth movements have been neither centralised nor ideologically unified, and have often made unrealistic and undeliverable demands on government. Established political groups have sometimes been able to manipulate them for their own political gain, and several youth-led groups have succumbed to the same deep-seated social divisions that their activism might once have been expected to overcome.
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