Final Conference: Reconfigurations and Connectivities of the MENA Region: Contextualizing Upheavals, Transformations, and Lasting Crises

Summary
The Research Network Reconfigurations (University of Marburg) (https://www.uni-marburg.de/cnms/forschung/re-konfigurationen) organizes a final conference from 14 – 16 November 2018 at the Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Marburg.
The conference grants a discussion platform for reconfiguring both the historical consciousness and transformation of the MENA-region in all disciplinary and topical facets our research network has to offer. At the same time, the conference aims to go beyond the MENA-region, contributing to critical debates on area studies while pointing out transregional and translocal references in a broad and comparative manner. The conference intends to provide a setting for the network’s expertise and experience, assessing its past research performance and highlighting cooperation efforts not only within Marburg, but also on national and international levels, thus granting insight into the future research of network members and their partners.

Preliminary Programme

14 November 2018
15:30h Arrival
16:00h Opening / Greetings: Stefan Weninger
16:30h Panel discussion:

100 Years of November Revolution and Armistice: From the Reorganization of the Middle Eastern and North African Region to its Reconfiguration in the 21st Century [in German]

  • Chair: Rachid Ouaissa (UMR, Marburg)
  • Eckart Conze (UMR, Marburg)
  • Alexander Flores (HSB, Bremen)
  • Heike Liebau (ZMO, Berlin)
  • John Kannankulam (UMR, Marburg)

18:30h Piano Concert by Aeham Ahmad
• Introduction: Sihem Hamlaoui

19:30h Reception

15 November 2018
9h Introduction: Re‐Configurations, Connections, and Contexts [working title] Rachid Ouaissa and Achim Rohde

9:30h Panel 1: Political Reconfigurations and Transitional Justice
• Chair: Susanne Buckeley‐Zistel (UMR, Marburg) (tbc)
• Mariam Salehi (UMR, Marburg): Transitional Justice in Process: How Do Institutionalized Processes of Social and Political Change Interplay with Unintended Processes, Power Shifts, and Frictions?
• Irene Weipert‐Fenner (HSFK, Frankfurt): Socioeconomic protests and incorporation crises in post‐revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia: A comparative analysis inspired by Latin American experiences
• Laura Ruiz de Elvira (IRD, France): [Title pending] • Anika Oettler (UMR, Marburg): What Peace and Transitional Justice in Colombia teach us about the MENA region

11:30h Coffee break

12h Panel 2: Space. Transregional Ties and Translocal Movements
• Chair: Manja Stephan‐Emmrich (HU Berlin)
• Alena Strohmaier (META/UMR, Marburg): Counter‐Spaces in/of „the first Iranian Vampire Western“
• Claudia Derichs (UMR, Marburg): Manifestations of TRANS‐MENA in Southeast Asia
• Katrin Bromber (ZMO, Berlin): Spatial Re‐configuration of Progress: Physical Fitness and Nation Building in Ethiopia between the 1920s and 1980
• Steffen Wippel (UMR, Marburg): Current Re‐configurations of Tangier (Morocco) from a Multiscale Spatial Perspective

14h Lunch break

15h Panel 3: Generation and Youth: MENA and Southern Europe
• Chair : Malte Hagener (UMR, Marburg)
• Dimitris Soudias (UMR, Marburg): Spatializing Subjectivity. Theoretical Considerations on Crises, Protest Camps and Transformative Experiences
• Nina S. Studer (UB, Bern): Starting Early: Drinking Habits of Children and Adolescents in the Colonial Maghreb
• Anne‐Linda Amira Augustin (UMR, Marburg): Intergenerational Resistance: The Transmission of a Counterhegemonic Narrative as an Everyday Form of Resistance in the South Arabian Independence Struggle (Southern Yemen)
• Christoph Schwarz (UMR, Marburg): [Title pending] • Jamal Bahmad (MVU, Morocco): Youth, Social Media Activism and Citizen Cinema in Post‐Arab Spring Morocco

17h Coffee break

17:30h Roundtable discussion: How global were the ‚global Sixties‘?
• Chair: Benedikt Stuchtey (UMR, Marburg)
• Thorsten Bonacker (UMR, Marburg)
• Jens Hanssen (UT Toronto, Canada)
• Claudia Derichs (UMR, Marburg)

19:30h Dinner for invited conference participants

16 November 2018
9h Panel 4: Representation and Social (Dis)order
• Chair: Hanna al‐Taher (SOAS, London)
• Igor Johannsen (UMR, Marburg): Re‐Creating Resistance. Connective Marginalities and Contested Significations in/of the Middle Eastern Hip Hop Community
• Jamie Furniss (Edinburgh): Al‐Ustura: Batal Sha’abi or Baltagi? Class and Contested Masculinity in Egypt
• Ines Braune (UMR, Marburg): A Radical Approach to the City. Parkour in Morocco
• Andrea Fischer‐Tahir (UMR, Marburg): [Title pending]

11h Coffee break

11:30h Panel 5: Researching Crisis and War, Researching in Crisis and War
• Chair: Perrine Lachenal (UMR, Marburg)
• Mina Ibrahim (GCSC – Giessen): De‐Victimizing Emancipation: The Afterlife of Coptic Christians’ Crisis
• Lamia Moghnieh (EUME Berlin): Ethnography, Violence and Knowledge Production in the Middle East
• Ayse Cavdar (UMR, Marburg): Investigating Fear and Anxiety: The Reflexivity of the “Native” Researcher
• Helena Nassif (OIB Beirut): [Title pending]

13:30h Lunch break

15:30h Panel 6: Reconfigurations of MENA Regional Sciences: Concepts, Challenges
• Chair: Achim Rohde (AIWG, Frankfurt)
• André Bank (GIGA, Hamburg): Comparative Area Studies in Theory and Practice
• Sari Hanafi (AUB, Beirut): Social Sciences and Islamic Sciences: Mutual Ignorance or Competition?
• Karima Direche (IRCM, Tunis): Observer une transition politique par un centre français à l’étranger. Le cas de l’IRMC à Tunis
• Achim von Oppen (BAAAS, Bayreuth): [Title pending]

18h Dinner and Casual Get‐Together with Audiovisual Musical Entertainment in the Building of the CNMS, Deutschhausstrasse 12, Marburg