Panel on “Political Socialization in MENA Societies: when and where does “the Political” begin?”

Call for Papers for Panel Proposal

Date: June 28-30, 2021

Venue: Aix-en-Provence, France

Abstract Submission Deadline: June 22, 2020

Panel Organizers: Chiara Diana (Université libre de Bruxelles), Christoph H. Schwarz (Institut für Sozialforschung)

When MENA area studies look into citizenship, political participation or social movements in the region, they have hardly looked into the protesters’ subjectivities from an explicit political socialization perspective. This also goes for the immense body of literature that has been published on the 2011 uprisings and later mobilisations.

Firstly, we are interested in contributions focusing on how polities in authoritarian, revolutionary, counterrevolutionary, transitional, democratic contexts transmit and inculcate political norms in their young citizens. Secondly, we look forward to studies that unveil community- and group-based alternative and political practices aiming at rising collective social action and political consciousness.  Thirdly, we would welcome contributions tackling individual pathways intertwined with intergenerational relationships and legacies, family background, regime context, collective (a)political practices, and unifying political events.

Lastly, the panel intends to enrich discussion about how do (young) people understand politics or “the political” in MENA societies, and which are the most important spaces for experiencing it? In which circumstances do they acquire political culture and respective orientations? Which are the most important agents, places, and events for political socialization, and at which junctures of the life course to they occur?

More information on: iremam.cnrs.fr