Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7589
Anna Rowell
Cairo is a city in flux, characterized by ceaseless intersections of residents who openly claim their rights to mobility beyond the city’s material infrastructure and political will. Egypt’s governing systems have, for many years, neglected to tackle urban inequality, particularly since the political turmoil of the January 2011 revolution. Against such a backdrop, this article seeks to understand how informal communities reinterpret structures of political division as expanded spaces of economic and cultural operation. It supports the notion that large segments of Cairo’s populace are in a constant negotiation between autonomy and integration. Compelled by physical and socioeconomic barriers, they carve out selfgovernance and develop structures which give them the freedom to work, socialize, and live in the public arena. This article proposes that Cairo’s local, or baladī streets, often neglected by the state and ill-serviced, offer their residents a spatial reservoir of possibilities, where elements of political subjugation often mask a highly mobile and connected social realm. This reading of informality infers that invisible infrastructures of networks and relationships open marginalized spaces to new productive exchanges and lived practices, where expressions of collective identity flourish.
{"title":"Beyond the Bounds of the State: Reinterpreting Cairo’s Infrastructures of Mobility","authors":"Anna Rowell","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7589","url":null,"abstract":"Cairo is a city in flux, characterized by ceaseless intersections of residents who openly claim their rights to mobility beyond the city’s material infrastructure and political will. Egypt’s governing systems have, for many years, neglected to tackle urban inequality, particularly since the political turmoil of the January 2011 revolution. Against such a backdrop, this article seeks to understand how informal communities reinterpret structures of political division as expanded spaces of economic and cultural operation. It supports the notion that large segments of Cairo’s populace are in a constant negotiation between autonomy and integration. Compelled by physical and socioeconomic barriers, they carve out selfgovernance and develop structures which give them the freedom to work, socialize, and live in the public arena. This article proposes that Cairo’s local, or baladī streets, often neglected by the state and ill-serviced, offer their residents a spatial reservoir of possibilities, where elements of political subjugation often mask a highly mobile and connected social realm. This reading of informality infers that invisible infrastructures of networks and relationships open marginalized spaces to new productive exchanges and lived practices, where expressions of collective identity flourish.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"60-70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47420477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7590
C. Strava
This article explores the role of infrastructure in the production of post-colonial political imaginaries linked to mobility and expectations of social justice. I focus on how the building of the Casablanca tramway opened up new ways for engaging in political commentary and participation for a segment of the city that frequently lacks the direct means for accessing power. In the process, the aim is to contribute a brief account of the historical genealogies behind such projects and argue for an understanding of infrastructure as a site for the production of future aspirations and political engagement for marginalized communities.
{"title":"A Tramway Called Atonement : Genealogies of Infrastructure and Emerging Political Imaginaries in Contemporary Casablanca","authors":"C. Strava","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7590","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7590","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the role of infrastructure in the production of post-colonial political imaginaries linked to mobility and expectations of social justice. I focus on how the building of the Casablanca tramway opened up new ways for engaging in political commentary and participation for a segment of the city that frequently lacks the direct means for accessing power. In the process, the aim is to contribute a brief account of the historical genealogies behind such projects and argue for an understanding of infrastructure as a site for the production of future aspirations and political engagement for marginalized communities.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"22-29"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49473648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7586
L. Baumgardt
In this paper I will argue against the idea that infrastructures are normally invisible and only become visible in certain moments. This notion is problematic because it is based on the idea that in the Western world things work smoothly and normally, while in the rest of the world breakdown is assumed to be a normal state of affairs and makes infrastructures visible. Rather, I will instead focus on the more individual, less visible–although not invisible–micro-modes of infrastructural breakdowns. The approach envisaged will be theoretically grounded by thinking (along) with the work of Martin Heidegger with particular regard to his widely interpreted § 16 of Being and Time on tools and “tool-being.” In this text, Heidegger outlines three existential modes of concern, namely conspicuousness, obtrusiveness and obstinacy, which will be helpful for understanding infrastructures as conflictual terrains as well as for thinking through people’s reconfigurations of aspirations in general. In other words, Heidegger describes three different modes of possible breakdowns that interrupt the course of everyday life in such a way that one is compelled to reflect upon one’s subjectivities and, equally important, upon the things themselves. The article will thus focus on how these in/visibilities are mobilized and situated within ethnographic accounts which I am drawing from readings and fieldwork experiences in South Africa.
{"title":"In/visible Infrastructure: Thinking (along) with Martin Heidegger about Infrastructural Breakdowns in South Africa","authors":"L. Baumgardt","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7586","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7586","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I will argue against the idea that infrastructures are normally invisible and only become visible in certain moments. This notion is problematic because it is based on the idea that in the Western world things work smoothly and normally, while in the rest of the world breakdown is assumed to be a normal state of affairs and makes infrastructures visible. Rather, I will instead focus on the more individual, less visible–although not invisible–micro-modes of infrastructural breakdowns. The approach envisaged will be theoretically grounded by thinking (along) with the work of Martin Heidegger with particular regard to his widely interpreted § 16 of Being and Time on tools and “tool-being.” In this text, Heidegger outlines three existential modes of concern, namely conspicuousness, obtrusiveness and obstinacy, which will be helpful for understanding infrastructures as conflictual terrains as well as for thinking through people’s reconfigurations of aspirations in general. In other words, Heidegger describes three different modes of possible breakdowns that interrupt the course of everyday life in such a way that one is compelled to reflect upon one’s subjectivities and, equally important, upon the things themselves. The article will thus focus on how these in/visibilities are mobilized and situated within ethnographic accounts which I am drawing from readings and fieldwork experiences in South Africa.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"40-51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43683426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7731
Ezgican Özdemir, A. Nolte
In the following interview, Ronen Shamir discusses the theoretical and methodological implications of researching infrastructure against the background of his own work on electrification in Mandatory Palestine. He draws our attention to the (post-)colonial genealogies of infrastructure and their role in shaping not just the common perceptions of a region called “Middle East”, but also manufacturing/creating/ producing/constructing this region by means material and social (dis-)connections. Throughout the interview, Shamir stresses on how infrastructural systems shape people’s everyday experiences with their physical surroundings. His emphasis points to the understanding of infrastructure as processes of assembling and disassembling people, everyday objects. We invited Ronen Shamir to this interview in order to put his work into a critical dialogue/exchange with the papers featured in this issue. As a prominent scholar of colonial infrastructure, we are convinced that his work and his insights point to issues that are discussed throughout this issue.
{"title":"Infrastructures as the Social in Action: An Interview with Ronen Shamir","authors":"Ezgican Özdemir, A. Nolte","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7731","url":null,"abstract":"In the following interview, Ronen Shamir discusses the theoretical and methodological implications of researching infrastructure against the background of his own work on electrification in Mandatory Palestine. He draws our attention to the (post-)colonial genealogies of infrastructure and their role in shaping not just the common perceptions of a region called “Middle East”, but also manufacturing/creating/ producing/constructing this region by means material and social (dis-)connections. Throughout the interview, Shamir stresses on how infrastructural systems shape people’s everyday experiences with their physical surroundings. His emphasis points to the understanding of infrastructure as processes of assembling and disassembling people, everyday objects. \u0000We invited Ronen Shamir to this interview in order to put his work into a critical dialogue/exchange with the papers featured in this issue. As a prominent scholar of colonial infrastructure, we are convinced that his work and his insights point to issues that are discussed throughout this issue.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"53-58"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47057698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7587
Olga Verlato
This paper follows the material and discursive circulation of the Egyptian popular song “Fī-l-Jihādiyya” as it traveled from the urban context to Upper Egypt throughout the 19th century. The song narrates the farewell of a mother to her son recruited to war, and her helpless attempt to save him. I explore how centuries-old local forms of mobility enacted by authors and performers intersected with the infrastructural changes in transportation under British colonization increasingly since the third quarter of the 19th century. Additionally, by reflecting on the long duree of the song’s circulation and performative replication, I investigate the continuities within the military social infrastructure throughout the century, and argue that the ongoing exploitation of Upper Egyptian soldiers helps explain the endurance of “Fī-l-Jihādiyya’s” social relevance. I thus provide a case for the study of material and social infrastructures as interrelated realms of analysis, specifically with respect to the different implications of the material and social mobilities that my analysis uncovers.
{"title":"“Even if the Sons of Rum are not like Him” The Spatial and Temporal Journey of a Late 19th Century Egyptian Song","authors":"Olga Verlato","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7587","url":null,"abstract":"This paper follows the material and discursive circulation of the Egyptian popular song “Fī-l-Jihādiyya” as it traveled from the urban context to Upper Egypt throughout the 19th century. The song narrates the farewell of a mother to her son recruited to war, and her helpless attempt to save him. I explore how centuries-old local forms of mobility enacted by authors and performers intersected with the infrastructural changes in transportation under British colonization increasingly since the third quarter of the 19th century. Additionally, by reflecting on the long duree of the song’s circulation and performative replication, I investigate the continuities within the military social infrastructure throughout the century, and argue that the ongoing exploitation of Upper Egyptian soldiers helps explain the endurance of “Fī-l-Jihādiyya’s” social relevance. I thus provide a case for the study of material and social infrastructures as interrelated realms of analysis, specifically with respect to the different implications of the material and social mobilities that my analysis uncovers.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"95-108"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46791784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7593
Hanna Baumann
It is commonly claimed that infrastructures are so banal and taken-for-granted that they only become visible when they collapse or cease to function. Indeed, the exclusion or disconnection of certain areas from infrastructural services has been termed ‘infrastructural violence’. In East Jerusalem, where infrastructure has long been underfunded and Palestinian Jerusalemites are excluded from access to many urban services, infrastructure also became apparent as a political question when it appeared in the form of a new light rail connection – and even more so when this ostensibly useful public service was attacked by residents. The violent disruption of the light rail, the piece argues, called attention to the manner in which Jerusalem’s light rail serves to normalise both Palestinian urban space and movements, thus feeding into an agenda of annexation. The expansion of infrastructural networks, and the resulting connectivity of previously marginalised areas, then, can also act as a form of violence rather than ‘atonement’ for past neglect.
{"title":"The Violence of Infrastructural Connectivity: Jerusalem’s Light Rail as a Means of Normalisation","authors":"Hanna Baumann","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7593","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7593","url":null,"abstract":"It is commonly claimed that infrastructures are so banal and taken-for-granted that they only become visible when they collapse or cease to function. Indeed, the exclusion or disconnection of certain areas from infrastructural services has been termed ‘infrastructural violence’. In East Jerusalem, where infrastructure has long been underfunded and Palestinian Jerusalemites are excluded from access to many urban services, infrastructure also became apparent as a political question when it appeared in the form of a new light rail connection – and even more so when this ostensibly useful public service was attacked by residents. The violent disruption of the light rail, the piece argues, called attention to the manner in which Jerusalem’s light rail serves to normalise both Palestinian urban space and movements, thus feeding into an agenda of annexation. The expansion of infrastructural networks, and the resulting connectivity of previously marginalised areas, then, can also act as a form of violence rather than ‘atonement’ for past neglect.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"30-38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48373231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7794
A. Nolte, Ezgican Özdemir
The 10th issue of Middle East – Topics and Arguments engages with infrastructure studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. It presents different empirical cases and theoretical discussions that take infrastructural formations and their effects both to the center stage and as the analytical focus. In this editorial, we first discuss two epistemic locations from which infrastructure can be studied. Then, we highlight the featured authors and the way each of them make compelling cases through the lenses of material and social infrastructures in different MENA contexts. In light of these, we argue that infrastructures, as the material conditions of modern human life, have shaped and continue to shape geographical constructs of the Middle East and North Africa. Lastly, we call for further social and historical research to investigate how infrastructural systems as material and symbolic networks of imperial expansion and exploitation have contributed to the geographical and political entities that make up the construct called MENA.
{"title":"Infrastructuring Geographies: Histories and Presents in and of the Middle East and North Africa","authors":"A. Nolte, Ezgican Özdemir","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7794","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7794","url":null,"abstract":"The 10th issue of Middle East – Topics and Arguments engages with infrastructure studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. It presents different empirical cases and theoretical discussions that take infrastructural formations and their effects both to the center stage and as the analytical focus. In this editorial, we first discuss two epistemic locations from which infrastructure can be studied. Then, we highlight the featured authors and the way each of them make compelling cases through the lenses of material and social infrastructures in different MENA contexts. In light of these, we argue that infrastructures, as the material conditions of modern human life, have shaped and continue to shape geographical constructs of the Middle East and North Africa. Lastly, we call for further social and historical research to investigate how infrastructural systems as material and symbolic networks of imperial expansion and exploitation have contributed to the geographical and political entities that make up the construct called MENA.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"5-20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45623178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-06-14DOI: 10.17192/META.2018.10.7594
Toufic Haddad
This article explores the emergence of tunnels within the Gaza Strip. It argues that tunnels emerged as an implicit response to Israeli policies of separation and control, and the increasingly sophisticated means used to realize these ends during the peace process and thereafter. The latter included approaches that actively embraced a “politics of verticality,” incorporating a volume-based approach to Israeli geopolitical interests and designs. Tunnels would come to reify an insurgent impetus vis-a-vis Israeli ideological, political and military doctrines on the one hand, and the structured dependency and ineffectiveness of the Palestinian Authority on the other. Their emergence speaks to the organization and coagulation of many externalities generated by both dynamics, which effectively captured existent infrastructural assemblages toward colonial imperatives.
{"title":"Insurgent Infrastructure: Tunnels of the Gaza Strip","authors":"Toufic Haddad","doi":"10.17192/META.2018.10.7594","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2018.10.7594","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the emergence of tunnels within the Gaza Strip. It argues that tunnels emerged as an implicit response to Israeli policies of separation and control, and the increasingly sophisticated means used to realize these ends during the peace process and thereafter. The latter included approaches that actively embraced a “politics of verticality,” incorporating a volume-based approach to Israeli geopolitical interests and designs. Tunnels would come to reify an insurgent impetus vis-a-vis Israeli ideological, political and military doctrines on the one hand, and the structured dependency and ineffectiveness of the Palestinian Authority on the other. Their emergence speaks to the organization and coagulation of many externalities generated by both dynamics, which effectively captured existent infrastructural assemblages toward colonial imperatives.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"10 1","pages":"71-85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48747419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-12-08DOI: 10.17192/META.2017.9.7061
L. Herrera
In 2011, the year of the Arab uprisings, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing hit the bookstands. The concept precariat describes the condition of life and labour among educated urbanized youth in the twenty-first century more lucidly and persuasively than the key policy literature on the region, as exemplified in The Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) 2016: Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality . This paper argues that any meaningful conceptualization of youth in North Africa and West Asia going forward should incorporate the notion of precariat and the condition of precariousness.
2011年，阿拉伯起义之年，盖伊·斯坦丁(Guy Standing)的《无业游民:新的危险阶级》(the Precariat: the New Dangerous Class)上市。与《2016年阿拉伯人类发展报告:不断变化的现实中的青年与人类发展前景》等有关该地区的主要政策文献相比，“不稳定青年”这一概念更清晰、更有说服力地描述了21世纪受过教育的城市化青年的生活和劳动状况。本文认为，任何对北非和西亚未来的青年有意义的概念化都应该包括不稳定的概念和不稳定的条件。
{"title":"It's Time to Talk about Youth in the Middle East as The Precariat","authors":"L. Herrera","doi":"10.17192/META.2017.9.7061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2017.9.7061","url":null,"abstract":"In 2011, the year of the Arab uprisings, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing hit the bookstands. The concept precariat describes the condition of life and labour among educated urbanized youth in the twenty-first century more lucidly and persuasively than the key policy literature on the region, as exemplified in The Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) 2016: Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality . This paper argues that any meaningful conceptualization of youth in North Africa and West Asia going forward should incorporate the notion of precariat and the condition of precariousness.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"9 1","pages":"35-44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48957412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-12-08DOI: 10.17192/META.2017.9.7584
Shana R. Cohen
Popular analyses of political discontent among young people converged on a global level after the advent of the economic crisis in 2007-08. They have referred to pervasive alienation, frustration, disappointment, and fear, depicting a generation exploited by ruthless business owners, neglected by policy elites, and abandoned by older generations. The analyses likewise share an understanding of the meaning of ‘youth’, namely a population defined by narrowing economic opportunities under global market capitalism and subsequent protest. This paper attempts to go beyond this conception to explore the emergence of a new framework for agency. More specifically, the paper aims to go beyond interpreting the behavior of ‘youth’ in the Arab World, especially among educated young men and women, as simply about protest. Instead, the paper posits that concurrent trends in privatization of public services, increasing individual and local responsibility for social problems and job creation, job insecurity, and greater exposure to rights and government accountability are influencing capacity to influence local change and likewise, challenging boundaries between social, political, and economic agency. Drawing on longstanding research on social activism in Morocco, the paper adapts the language of theorists of generational formation and consciousness (see Edmunds and Turner 2002, 2005) to argue that the initial consequence of market reform in the eighties and nineties was the formation of an ‘interval generation’, disenfranchised economically and unrepresented politically. Over the past 5-10 years, though, the entrenchment of globalization and neoliberal ideology have led to the emergence of an ‘active generation’ maneuvering to influence policy and liberal market capitalism through altering local economic and social opportunities. This maneuvering is particularly apparent in the rise of social entrepreneurship, not just as an employment policy, but also as an indicator of how the boundaries between economic, political, and social agency at a local level have blurred.
{"title":"Analyzing Moroccan ‘Youth’ in Historical Context: Rethinking the Significance of Social Entrepreneurship","authors":"Shana R. Cohen","doi":"10.17192/META.2017.9.7584","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17192/META.2017.9.7584","url":null,"abstract":"Popular analyses of political discontent among young people converged on a global level after the advent of the economic crisis in 2007-08. They have referred to pervasive alienation, frustration, disappointment, and fear, depicting a generation exploited by ruthless business owners, neglected by policy elites, and abandoned by older generations. The analyses likewise share an understanding of the meaning of ‘youth’, namely a population defined by narrowing economic opportunities under global market capitalism and subsequent protest. This paper attempts to go beyond this conception to explore the emergence of a new framework for agency. More specifically, the paper aims to go beyond interpreting the behavior of ‘youth’ in the Arab World, especially among educated young men and women, as simply about protest. Instead, the paper posits that concurrent trends in privatization of public services, increasing individual and local responsibility for social problems and job creation, job insecurity, and greater exposure to rights and government accountability are influencing capacity to influence local change and likewise, challenging boundaries between social, political, and economic agency. Drawing on longstanding research on social activism in Morocco, the paper adapts the language of theorists of generational formation and consciousness (see Edmunds and Turner 2002, 2005) to argue that the initial consequence of market reform in the eighties and nineties was the formation of an ‘interval generation’, disenfranchised economically and unrepresented politically. Over the past 5-10 years, though, the entrenchment of globalization and neoliberal ideology have led to the emergence of an ‘active generation’ maneuvering to influence policy and liberal market capitalism through altering local economic and social opportunities. This maneuvering is particularly apparent in the rise of social entrepreneurship, not just as an employment policy, but also as an indicator of how the boundaries between economic, political, and social agency at a local level have blurred.","PeriodicalId":30565,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Topics Arguments","volume":"9 1","pages":"45-59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42761976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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