Conf/CfP - Arab Council for the Social Sciences Third Conference, March 10-12-2017, Beirut

2) Social Space and Power

• Democratization of Public Space: How is the production of public space related to both state and transnational policies and political processes? How is sovereignty over space exercised and when does it lead to the democratization of public space versus social exclusion, disempowerment and deprivation?
• Virtual Space: How does virtual space - and different types of media - become forums for mobilization, identity formation and resistance, as well as impact the novel exercise of state sovereignty? How are these processes and policies legitimized? What kind of ideologies and theories - or other forms of knowledge production - are invoked to justify and legitimate them?
• Forms of Resistance (Social, Political and Cultural): What forms of resistance to state power and authoritarian practices are emerging across the region and what kind of change is being imagined and sought? How are these forms of resistance related to the multiplicity of sovereignties that are manifested in any particular locality or national territory?
• Mobility, Identity and Transformation of Space and Place: What forms of mobility and identity formation are occurring across the region and what kind of space and place transformations do they entail? How does the expansion of militarization and securitization relate to issues of political power and the need of protecting ruling elites from the threat of a stigmatized “other”? 
• Neo-Liberal Effects and Social Justice: What role have political and economic policies, such as privatization, deregulation, and liberalization undertaken in the past decade played in reducing or furthering political participation and social mobilization? What are the implications for social justice, as discourse, as practice and policy?
• Spatial Reconfigurations - Urbanization and Ruralization: What are the mechanisms of security and militarization in cities, towns and regions, and their impacts on dwellers’ mobility and spatial practices? What is the impact of spatial reconfigurations, of urbanization and ruralization on natural environments, resources and landscapes, and their social and economic roles in the daily lives of dwellers?
• Gendering Space: How are state and non-state policies, practices of sovereignty and spatial politics shaping gender, space and place in the region? How are femininities and masculinities, and gender roles, re-articulated throughout these processes? Are conventional notions of public and private challenged and blurred and in what ways? What is the relation between gender, place and the political?

3) Political Geography of Refugees and Displaced Populations

Displacement and refugee movements have long been part of the Arab political and geographical landscape, however these flows have taken on bigger dimensions and a deeper urgency in the last decade. Hardly any facet of the region, from political economy to development to security to gender dynamics to education, to cultural and artistic expression can be studied in isolation from the effects of forced migration. Further, these desperate flows of people are linking Arab countries to one another, and also with neighboring states (near and far) in new ways. State sovereignty may be compromised or strengthened through the passage of refugees and displaced populations across their borders and a multitude of national and international actors are mobilized through such movements, creating complex realities on the ground. Issues to be examined within this theme could include:

• Refugee Camps Today: How do the politics of ‘encampment’ play out in different settings? This issue is related to how displaced populations are labelled, managed and monitored by states as well as through humanitarian intervention. How do camp dwellers relate to their compatriots who are not in camps and to host communities and how does humanitarian aid affect these relations?
• Violence and Displacement - Gender and Generation: The experience of violence in conditions of displacement is always mediated by many factors including gender and age-group. What forms of violence and what types of coping mechanisms exist among different segments of refugee and displaced populations?
• Genealogies and Cartographies of Displacement: ‘Becoming a refugee’ is not the result of one act (leaving home, crossing an international border) but the outcome a multitude of forced and chosen decisions. What genealogies, narratives and cartographies of displacement and refugeehood are produced through these journeys?
• The Discursive Production of Refugees: Refugees are produced through discourses and policies as much as through wars and armed conflict. Who is labelled a refugee and who is not and what ensues in terms of rights and process of inclusion and exclusion? What actors are involved in these processes in different contexts?
• Resistance, Performance and Cultural Production: What are the contexts in which refugees become politically active, productive and creative both individually and as communities? How do refugees represent themselves and their predicaments in art, music, literature, drama and other forms of cultural production? Are these expressive forms of resistance or accommodation?
• The Political Economy of Refugees: ‘Root causes’ of displacement reveal complex intersections of politics and economics that lead to the unmooring of populations from their homelands and settlements. What concepts are needed to understand these multiple causes of displacement? In addition, refugees are usually presented as a ‘drain’ on national economies and global humanitarian aid. Can refugees be seen as productive persons? How do they fit in the national economies into which they are inserted? What economic niches and roles do they exploit and inhabit? Can national development policies integrate into their practices planning for and with refugees?
• The Mediterranean - A Space of Dreams and Death: The Mediterranean Sea has emerged as the setting for the most dramatic and media-tic scenes of refugee movements, particularly in the past 5 years. A space of crossings for centuries, it continues to play its role as connector and as divider in the 21st century. The sea itself becomes and actor and a social space. How are North and South being reconfigured across the Mediterranean? How does the focus on the Mediterranean reflect or deflect world attention from the sources of conflict and displacement?