The Research Grants Program (RGP) was launched in 2013. It provides funding to established researchers from the Arab region to conduct research across disciplinary boundaries and methodological traditions on key themes of concern to the region. Broad research themes are selected usually in consultation with the ACSS Board of Trustees for three cycles. The theme for the first three cycles was “Inequality, mobility and development”; the following three cycles carried the title “Environmentalism, impoverishment and social justice movements: Interdisciplinary perspectives” and the third three cycles, addressed the theme of “Health and livelihoods in the Arab region: wellbeing and vulnerability in conflict”
Applications are reviewed by a selection committee of different disciplinary, gender and geographical backgrounds and members of the committee make decisions on the basis of merit and potential contribution to the production of knowledge on the Arab region. RGP provides financial support for up to 18 months to individuals and teams of researchers and 24 months for collectives and institutions.
The Arab Council for the Social Sciences is pleased to launch Cycle 10 of the program, and the first cycle on the theme of “Rethinking Development in the Arab Region.” The Selection Committee of the program convened online on March 17th and 18th, 2025 to select the winning projects and the Grants and Fellowships unit is pleased to announce the selection of six research projects (see list below) .
The call for proposals for Cycle 10 was launched on September 20, 2024 and closed on December 31, 2024. It invited researchers to critically delve into the multi-dimensional concept of development with all its complexities, focusing on the experience of Arab countries with the various development paradigms that have ranged from state-led capitalism, socialism and more recently structural adjustment policies and neo-liberalism. Applicants were encouraged to submit interdisciplinary proposals that draw from approaches in the social sciences and humanities. The call provided examples of themes that could be addressed such as history of development thought, political economy, governance, environmental challenges, warfare, , securitization and alternative models like solidarity-based approaches.
Grants and Fellowships received 111 applications from 13 Arab countries: 46% individual researchers, 40% research teams, 11% institutions and 3% collectives. Women represented 38% of the applicants.
Hind Ahmed Zaki is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. She is a specialist in comparative politics with a special emphasis on gender and politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Her research focuses on theories of state feminism, feminist movements, gender-based violence, and qualitative research methods. Her forthcoming book project, Gendering Sovereignty: Feminist Politics, Law and Violence in Egypt and Tunisia (Universty of Pennsylevnia Press) examines the place of state-sponsored gender law and histories of state feminism in the context of contemporary feminist politics in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia to demonstrate how political contestations around gender contributed to the making and unmaking of state sovereignty after the Arab uprisings. In addition to her scholarly work, Hind Zaki has served as a consultant, collaborator, and member of several feminist initiatives and organizations in the broader MENA region.
Hiba Bou Akar is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Her research focuses on planning in conflict and post-conflict cities, the question of urban violence, and the role of religious political organizations and aid organizations in the making of cities. She is also the founder and director of the Post-Conflict Cities Lab at Columbia University. Bou Akar received her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Master in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT.
Omar Dahi is a professor of economics at Hampshire College and director of the Security in Context research network. He is a founding member of the Beirut School of Critical Security Studies within the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS). Dahi has published in academic outlets such as the Journal of Development Economics and Applied Economics, Southern Economic Journal, Political Geography, Middle East Report, Forced Migration Review, and Critical Studies on Security. His last book was South-South Trade and Finance in the 21st Century: Rise of the South or a Second Great Divergence (co-authored with Firat Demir). Dahi serves as an associate editor of the Review of Social Economy as well as the e-zine Jadaliyya and has served on the editorial committee of the Middle East Report.Dahi has served as a lead expert on the United Nations Economic and Social Commission of West Asia’s National Agenda for the Future of Syria program.
Mokhtar El Harras was professor of Sociology at Mohamed V University of Rabat. He has been for many years the coordinator of the Master and Doctorate programs at the Faculty of Humanities in Rabat, and a member of the National Evaluation Agency of the Research Quality at the Ministry of Higher Education, as well as member of the Hesperis Tamuda Journal’s board. He is a founding member of the Arab Association of Sociology and the Arab Council of the Social Sciences, member of the Arab Council of the Social Sciences Board of Trustees, member of the Fifty Years of Human Development Scientific Committee in Morocco, and co-coordinator of the Fatema Mernissi’s Chair. He collaborated as consultant with ministries, national and international organizations and associations. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on rural development, rural women, youth, family, international and transnational migration, qualitative methods in social sciences, media Sociology, public space, and institutional values. Among the books he published are: “Tribe and Power in Northern Morocco”, “Fertility and Culture” (in collaboration with D. Bensaid), “Women and decision taking”, “Applying the Family Code” (in collaboration with F. Sarehane), “Youth and Media in Morocco”.
Ala’a Shehabi is an Associate Professor in Middle East Politics at University College London. Previously, she was the deputy director of the Institute for Global Prosperity at UCL, Senior Researcher at the University of Lancaster’s Work Foundation, and Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Trained in economics, she is now a transdisciplinary and mixed methods researcher focusing on the past, present and future of infrastructure politics in Lebanon and Bahrain; energy justice; and action methods such as citizen assemblies. She is currently a principal investigator on a project to run to citizen assemblies in the Middle East. She teaches modules on Middle East politics, political economy and racial capitalism. Shehabi has extensive committee experience within UCL and external academic associations and networks such as BRISMES, the ACSS, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). She has been given extensive Equality, Diversiy and Inclusion (EDI) roles at the university, Bartlett faculty and departmental levels.
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Alternative Development Initiatives in Times of Disruption: A View from Lebanon
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: From Retrenchment to Revolution? The Political Economy of Welfare Reform in Egypt
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: بين تنمية “الوحدات المحلية” وإنتاج المخاطر في الواحات المغربية: تقييم برنامج “الوكالة الوطنية لتنمية مناطق الواحات” واحات درعة جنوب شرق المغرب
Translation: Between the development of local units and producing risks in Moroccan oases: Evaluation of the program of the National Agency for the Development of Oases- the Der’a Oasis south east of Morocco
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: الطاقات المتجددة بالمغرب: الانعكاسات الاجتماعية والإيكولوجية والرهانات التنموية دراسة سوسيوأنثروبولوجية لمحطتي نور للطاقة الشمسية بورزازات وميدلت
Translation: Renewable energy in Morocco: Social and ecological repercussions and developmental stakes: A socio-anthropological study of the Nour solar energy stations in Ouarzazate and Midelt
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Développement et capitalisme agraire au Maroc
Translation: Development and agrarian capitalism in Morocco
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: الاقتصاد التضامني في فلسطين: نحو نموذج تنموي مقاوم وتعزيز الاستقلالية الاقتصادية
Translation: Solidarity economy in Palestine: Towards a developmental resisting model and the consolidation of economic independence
On the last day, following the selection of the winning projects, the Selection Committee issued the following statement:
In the 10th cycle of the Research Grants Program titled “Rethinking development in the Arab region” we chose 6 research proposals (3 individuals, 2 teams, and 1 institution) that reflect a diverse set of interests and themes, and an acute sense of innovation and significance. The selected proposals were often cross-cutting, focusing on the intersection of several key issues such as climate change and unequal development, agribusiness and traditional agriculture, women cooperatives, and ESG and green-washing.
The Committee noted a large number of proposals focusing on social policies and on questions of rural development and inequalities both within rural areas and between rural and urban contexts. While we read this renewed focus on rural settings with excitement, we note the need for future proposals to also approach the question of development from the perspective of urban conditions and dynamics. The “urban question,” the role of cities in perpetuating, deepening, or mitigating development inequalities, remains critical and requires deeper engagement across research agendas.
At the same time, the Committee observed that few proposals centered the question of gender in their proposals. We encourage future proposals to center women’s roles, gendered labor, migration, and care economies in their understanding of development processes, as these are fundamental to grasping the structures of power and inequalities shaping the region.
In terms of research methods, the committee was impressed by the attention paid by the applicants to questions of methodology and incorporation of mixed methods as well as close attention regarding ethical involvement of research subjects. For future rounds, we welcome applications that include more citizen participation and community engagement in methods and output dissemination.
As with past cycles the committee noted that a large number of proposals emanated from certain locations (specifically Morocco, and to a lesser extent, Lebanon and Egypt) with other countries or areas less represented. We hope that further cycles will increase the number of proposals from underrepresented locations in the Arab region.
We congratulate the selected recipients of this cycle of grants and hope that the outputs and contributions of the chosen projects will help revive a region wide discussion and debate about the meaning of development in the 21st century, in a region witnessing multiple and overlapping crises.
RGP Cycle 10 Call for Applications
Deadline: December 31, 2024
Applications Open: September 20, 2024
Soha Bayoumi, Senior Lecturer of Medicine, Science and the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University
Suhad Daher-Nashif is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sociology and Anthropology of Health, and Programme at Qatar University
Jocelyn DeJong, Professor of Public Health and Associate Provost at the American University of Beirut
Omar Dewachi, Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology at Rutgers University
Michelle Obeid, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester
Hania Sholkamy, Associate research professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo
Livia Wick, Associate professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: التمثل الاجتماعي للعقم ومسار علاجه بالمجتمع المغربي: مدينة تطوان نموذجا
Translation: Social representation of infertility and its treatment in the Moroccan society: The case of Tetouan
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: الأشخاص في وضعية إعاقة بالمغرب من عنف الأوصام إلى المقاومات اليومية؛ دراسة سوسيوانثروبولوجية
Translation: Handicapped persons in Morocco: From the violence of stigma to daily resistance: A socio-anthropological study
Nationality: Algerian, Moroccan, & Palestinian
Project Title: الحُدُودُ والمجتمَعَاتُ الحُدُوديّة في وَضعية كُولُونيَاليَّة: أزَمَاتُ الصّحة والرَّفـــــاه ودِينَامِيَاتُ الهَشَاشَةِ والنّـــــزَاعِ. مُقَارَنَاتٌ بينَ حَالاتٍ مِنَ الـمِنطَقَة العَرَبيّة في ضَوء الإيكُولُوجيَا السّياسيَّة
Translation: Borders and border communities under colonialism: Crises of health and welfare and dynamics of vulnerability and conflict: Cases from the Arab region
Nationality: Algerian
Project Title: تحسين سبل العيش لدى المجتمعات القروية الفقيرة: تثمين المنتوجات الفلاحية ذات القيمة الغذائية العالية من أجل صحة أفضل. مقاربة متعددة التخصصات عن طريق الترانسميديا التشاركية في المناطق الريفية لغرب الجزائر
Translation: Improving livelihoods in poor rural communities: Valuing peasant high nutrition food products for better health: a multidisciplinary approach
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: الهشاشة السكنية في ظل حالة الطوارئ الصحية، دراسة سوسيولوجية للامساواة المكانية ومقاومة السلطة الحاجرة في الأحياء الهامشية بالمغرب
Translation: Housing vulnerability in health emergencies: A sociological study of spatial inequality and resistance to authorities in marginalized neighborhoods in Morocco.
The Arab Council for the Social Sciences is pleased to announce the selection of five research projects for the ninth cycle of its Research Grants Program (RGP). Cycle 9 of the program is the third and final cycle on the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict.” The Selection/Advisory Committee of the program convened online on January 26th and 28th, 2022 to select the winning projects.
The theme of the program responds to the continuous socio-political and economic restructuring of the region, especially during the last decade marked by strife and conflict and resulting in mass displacement and forced migration. Those changes have been associated with insecurity and social injustice particularly among vulnerable groups of refugees and forced migrants, as well as disadvantaged groups in host communities. At the same time, in countries that did not witness conflict or dramatic socio-political changes, marginalization, social injustice and deprivation amongst vulnerable groups are also widespread. The implications of inequalities for health and wellbeing need to be addressed and analyzed using social scientific approaches.
The call for proposals in Cycle 9 invited researchers to examine health beyond the biological condition of the absence or presence of disease and encouraged research that addresses mental, psychosocial and physical health within a multidimensional conception of wellbeing. We were also interested in the relationship between health and livelihoods— with the latter understood to go beyond the economic dimension of work or ‘making a living’ to address a broader understanding of how people achieve economic security, including social activities, relationships with family, friends and co-workers, as well as the relationship with the environment.
Cycle 9 call for applications was launched on August 15, 2021 and closed on November 23, 2021. Fifty applications were received from 10 Arab countries: 50% individual researchers, 36% research teams, 12% institutions and 2% collectives. Women represented 42% of the applicants.
On the last day, the Selection/Advisory Committee issued the following statement:
In this ninth cycle of the ACSS Research Grants Program under the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict,” we selected five projects (one individual and four teams) reflecting a diversity of disciplines and addressing a wide range of issues. The Committee is acutely aware of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to conducting fieldwork, accessing archives, collecting data and traveling for research, in addition to its impact on scholars’ productivity. We are particularly impressed with the flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness exhibited by some applicants to work around and through these challenges, and are cognizant of the added ethical limitations of conducting research in a COVID-safe manner, for both the researchers and research participants. Perhaps due to COVID-19 and economic crises in several countries of the region, the number of applications received this year was lower, at 50, compared to 106 applications received in RGP8.
This cycle saw some proposals address more the ‘livelihoods’ aspect of the call than in previous rounds. As in earlier cycles, there was a strong focus on marginalized populations such as migrants and their health rights or lack thereof. Some topics that had not been addressed in previous rounds were included this cycle, including disability. There was also a greater focus on issues pertaining to health and ‘place’ such as for example the specificities of health in urban areas.
Like last year, proposals from some Arab countries (particularly from Morocco) dominated the pool, while some other countries were not represented and researchers from countries that had not been included previously submitted applications. We also noted that more studies crossed national boundaries to offer comparative and cross-cultural analysis, contributing to scholarship produced in other countries and building scholarly networks across the region.
Overall, the three funding cycles have raised the visibility in the region of the contributions of social science analysis of health, with its complex social determinants and consequences. While planned before the COVID-19 pandemic, the funding program’s coincidence with the pandemic reinforced the imperative — that is increasingly being recognized — of analyzing health in its social context and of its fundamental links to people’s livelihoods.
Hania Sholkamy, Associate research professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo
Jocelyn DeJong, Professor of Public Health and Associate Provost at the American University of Beirut
Livia Wick, Associate professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut
Michelle Obeid, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester
Omar Dewachi, Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology at Rutgers University
Soha Bayoumi, Senior Lecturer, Medicine, Science, and the Humanities Program at Johns Hopkins University
Suhad Daher-Nashif is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sociology and Anthropology of Health, and Programme at Qatar University
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: الهشاشة الصحية لدى عاملات الجنس بالمغرب: سبل المعيشة وآليات المقاومة ضمن سياق متعدد المخاطر
Translation: Health vulnerability among female sex workers in Morocco: Livelihoods and resistance in a multi risk context
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: أثر أنظمة التغطية الصحية على نوعية الحياة وجودة الرعاية الصحية لدى مرضى السرطان بالمغرب: دراسة كيفية لمسار المرض
Translation: The impact of health coverage on the quality of life and medical care among cancer patients in Morocco: A qualitative study
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: مقاومة التدابير الوقائية في ظل حالة الطوارئ لجائحة فيروس كورونا- كوفيد 19: الأحياء الهامشية لمدينة الدار البيضاء نموذجا
Translation: Resisting preventive arrangements within the Covid 19 pandemic: The case of marginalized neighborhoods in Casablanca
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Le deuil impossible dans le contexte marocain Pertes sans obsèques et complications post-mortem à l’heure de Covid 19
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: La guerre du Rif et ses effets de santé persistant : mémoires, maladies et vulnérabilités
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Family livelihoods and wellbeing in the context of settler-colonialism: the case of tobacco production in Palestine
The Arab Council for the Social Sciences is pleased to announce the selection of seven research projects for the eighth cycle of its Research Grants Program (RGP). Cycle 8 of the program is the second cycle on the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict” which will continue for one more cycle – cycle 9 in 2021. The Selection/Advisory Committee of the program convened in a three-day meeting from February 17th to February 18th and on February 24th, 2021 to choose the winning projects.
The theme of the program responds to the continuous socio-political and economic restructuring of the region, especially during the last decade marked by strife and conflict and resulting in mass displacement and forced migration. Those changes have been associated with insecurity and social injustice particularly among vulnerable groups of refugees and forced migrants, as well as disadvantaged groups in host communities. At the same time, in countries that did not witness conflict or dramatic socio-political changes, marginalization, social injustice and deprivation amongst vulnerable groups are also widespread. Implications of inequalities on health and wellbeing need to be addressed and analyzed using social scientific approaches.
The call for proposals in Cycle 8 invited researchers to examine health beyond the biological condition of absence of disease and encouraged research that addresses mental, psychosocial and physical health within a multidimensional conception of wellbeing. We were also interested in the relationship between health and livelihoods— the latter is understood to go beyond the economic dimension of work or ‘making a living’ to address a broader understanding of how people achieve economic security, including social activities, relationships with family, friends and co-workers, as well as the relationship with the environment.
Cycle 8 call for applications was launched on August 13th, 2020 and closed on January 28th, 2021. One hundred and six applications were received from 11 Arab countries: 44% individual researchers, 41% research teams, 12% institutions and 3% collectives. Women represented 43% of the applicants.
On the last day, the Selection/Advisory Committee issued the following statement:
In this eighth cycle of the ACSS Research Grants Program under the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict,” we selected seven individual and team projects reflecting a diversity of disciplines and issues. We were heartened by the increased number of proposals submitted this cycle given the intensive work required for submitting those proposals, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the limits it is imposing on research and scholarship in the Arab region and beyond. The Committee is acutely aware of the challenges posed by the pandemic to conducting fieldwork, accessing archives, collecting data and traveling for research, in addition to its impact on scholars’ productivity. We are particularly impressed with the flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness exhibited by some proposals to work around and through these challenges, and are cognizant of the added ethical limitations of conducting research in a COVID-safe manner, for both the researchers and research participants.
It was not a surprise, therefore, that many of the proposals we reviewed, and several of those we selected for funding, focus on COVID-19 and the ways in which Arab societies have coped with the pandemic. However, we noticed that few proposals in the application pool placed the scholarly inquiry about COVID-19 within the historical and social scientific literature on epidemics and pandemics and provided specific methods and tools to understand the current pandemic in its social and political context.
Like last year, proposals from some Arab countries dominated the pool (particularly from Morocco), while some other countries were not represented (Iraq, Bahrain, Djibouti, Kuwait, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and UAE). While we were glad to see more countries represented (such as Palestine and Libya), our hope is that soon all Arab countries will be represented in the application pool. We also hope that proposals will cross national boundaries to offer comparative and cross-cultural analysis, connect with scholarship produced in other countries and build scholarly networks across the region. We also welcome a focus on underrepresented topics, such as those that engage seriously with the concept of livelihood and those that examine governmentality and the bureaucratic logic of health policies.
Hania Sholkamy, Associate research professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo
Jocelyn DeJong, Professor of Public Health at the American University of Beirut
Livia Wick, Associate professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut
Michelle Obeid, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester
Omar Dewachi, Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology at Rutgers University
Soha Bayoumi, Allston Burr Dean of Kirkland House, Assistant Dean of Harvard College, and Lecturer in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University
Suhad Daher-Nashif is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sociology and Anthropology of Health, and Programme at Qatar University
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: الشيخوخة والهشاشة والرعاية الصحية: دراسة سوسيولوجية مقارنة بين الوسطين الحضري والقروي بمدينة فاس وضواحيها
Translation: Ageing, vulnerability and health care: A comparative sociological study between the urban and rural areas in Fes and environs.
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: هشاشة المعيش والصحة لدى النساء المهاجرات من إفريقيا جنوب الصحراء بالمغرب: مدينتي الرباط والدار البيضاء نموذجا
Translation: The vulnerability of livelihood and health among female migrants from south of the Sahara in Morocco: The case of Rabat and Casablanca.
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Le praticien des établissements de soins de santé de base en terrain de vulnérabilité : entre les exigences du terrain et celles des politiques de santé
Nationality: Palestinian, & Jordanian
Project Title: Health and Kindergartens: Reflection on the building laws and regulations in East Jerusalem under the pretext of establishing public facilities
Samar Al-Hajj (Principal Investigator), Jihad Makhoul (Co-Investigator), & Marc Michael (Co-Investigator)
Nationality: Lebanese, Lebanese, & Egyptian
Project Title: Examining Illness and Injury Narratives and Barriers to Access Surgical Care among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
Adel Takruri (Principal Investigator), Inad Nawajah (Co-Investigator), Sahar Hassan (Co-Investigator), & Tamer Sarsour (Co-Investigator)
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: The effects of political conflict and social inequalities on healthcare quality and delivery in Palestine: resiliency in the face of adversity
Abla Amawi (Principal Investigator), Manal Al-Ghazawi (Co-Investigator), Ali Almetleq (Co-Investigator), & Ghaleb Alazzeh (Co-Investigator)
Nationality: Jordanian
Project Title: The Intersection Between Early Marriage and Adolescent Childbearing on Perinatal Reproductive and Mental Health among Syrian Refugees in Jordan
The Arab Council for the Social Sciences is pleased to announce the selection of seven research projects for the seventh cycle of its Research Grants Program (RGP). Cycle 7 of the program is the first cycle on the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict”, and this theme will continue for two more cycles: cycle 8 in 2020 and cycle 9 in 2021. The Advisory Committee of the program convened in a three-day meeting from January 30th to February 1st 2020 to select the winning projects.
The theme of the program responds to current turmoil and conflicts in the Arab region that have resulted in mass movements, displacement and migration, negatively affecting the health of people. Particularly in areas where conflicts have been widespread and prolonged, these developments have been accompanied by immense feelings of insecurity and social injustice, particularly among those who have become marked as vulnerable groups such as refugees, forced migrants and disadvantaged groups in host communities. At the same time, in countries that have not witnessed conflict situations, neo-liberal practices such as the increasing privatization of public services and the retreat of the state from offering them, have equally exacerbated the sense of social injustice and deprivation.
The call for proposals in Cycle 7 invited researchers to adopt social science approaches to the study of health, going beyond the narrow biological definition of health as absence of disease, to study health as a social experience and highlight the political, economic and cultural factors that affect it. Researchers were encouraged to examine how health relates to means of living and sense of security and go beyond the economic definition of livelihood to delve into the relationship with family, friends, work colleagues and the environment. Importantly, the call urged researchers to study health and livelihoods in their relationship to vulnerability and vulnerable groups in conflict and precarious situations and strongly encouraged them to grapple with the ethics of doing research in such contexts.
The RGP call for applications was launched on July 25thand closed on November 27th, 2019 and was open to individuals, research teams as well as collectives and institutions. Seventy-one applications were received from 11 Arab countries: 50% individual researchers, 38% research teams, 11% institutions and 1% collectives. Women represented 37% of the applicants.
On the last day, the Advisory Committee issued the following statement:
“In this seventh cycle of the ACSS Research Grants Program under the theme of “Health and Livelihoods in the Arab Region: Wellbeing, Vulnerability and Conflict,” we selected 2 individuals, 2 teams and 3 institutional projects reflecting a diversity of disciplines. In our selection process, we reemphasized the focal idea in this grant cycle of promoting the social sciences of health as an important lens through which to think about conflict and vulnerability across the Arab World.
We noticed that the majority of the shortlisted applications came from Morocco while other countries were not sufficiently represented (e.g., Egypt and Tunisia). Across the range of proposals, we encountered a focus on practice-based public health and applied social science. Many of the proposals we reviewed included an expansive understanding of conflict, represented by various forms of structural violence and contestation, even though it was not always articulated in those terms. We awarded proposals that honored the social scientific framework of the call for applications, which meant that we reviewed some high-quality proposals that did not meet that eligibility criterion. We particularly welcomed team proposals that brought social scientists and health professionals together. We generally favored proposals with a strong research design, particularly those that are operationalizable, with a clear methodology and explicit discussion of ethical considerations. By contrast, we reviewed some very exciting projects that, unfortunately, lacked methodological rigor or elaboration on how the research will actually be carried out. We noticed that many projects needed to tighten the proposed research design and clarify the connections between the methods and research questions.
In the future, we hope to see wider representation from more Arab countries, ideally through a comparative research lens, a more focused engagement with social scientific literature, more in-depth and long-term ethnographic research, and a strengthened interpretive focus. We also hope that future proposals will explicitly conceptualize and interrogate what conflict and vulnerability are, instead of taking them as a given.”
Habib Ayeb, born in Tunisia, is a social geographer, researcher and Associate Professor at the University Paris 8 in Saint Denis (France) since 1992. His domains of researches are: Competitions over resources, including water and land, in rural and agricultural areas, Poverty and marginalization dynamics and processes, Social changes, resistances and uprisings (Arab spring), Development, Environment and Climate changes, Food sovereignty. He is, currently, conducting comparative researches mainly in Egypt and Tunisia. He has worked in several different institutions including the Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia, the University of Paris 8-St Denis, CEDEJ (Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Juridiques et Sociales), IRD (Institute of Research for Development) and from 2006 till now the SRC (Social Research Center). Habib Ayeb, is member of various institutions and networks, including: – Ecole Doctorale des Sciences Sociales “Milieux, Cultures et Sociétés du Passé et du Présent”. Paris Ouest-Nanterre University (Phd Supervisor); Laboratoire Mosaïques, UMR LAVUE (ex-GECKO) : Paris Ouest-Nanterre University. France; The International Advisory Board of The Journal of Peasant Studies; The Rural Network Thimar.
Rami Zurayk is Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the American University of Beirut and a member of the High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on Food Security (FAO/IFAD/WFP). He studied agriculture and soil science at AUB and Oxford University and was Country Representative of the International Cooperation for Development (UK) in Yemen between 1989 and 1991. He has worked in the Arab world on issues of agriculture, rural development and food security (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Western Sahara). A long-time civil society activist, he is a founding member of the Arab Food Sovereignty Network, of the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign and of the Land and People post-war livelihood recovery program. He has published extensively on issues of food, water, environment and food security. Of relevance to this conference are his two books “Food, Farming and Freedom” (2011, Just World Books) and Control Food, Control People: The Struggle for Food Security in Gaza (with A. Gough, 2013, Institute of Palestine Studies).
Reem Saad is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Her research interests include rural society, historical anthropology, and environmental issues. She received her D.Phil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where she was also the Ioma Evans-Pritchard Junior Research Fellow. She is the author of a monograph entitled “Social History of an Agrarian Reform Community in Egypt”, and co-editor (with Nicholas Hopkins) of the book Upper Egypt: Identity and Change. She was previously a research associate professor at the Social Research Center and Director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo.
Samer Shehata is the Colin Mackey and Patricia Molina de Mackey Associate Professor of Middle East Studies & Middle East Program Coordinator. He previously taught at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Georgetown University, New York University, Columbia University, and the American University in Cairo. He is the author of Shop Floor Culture and Politics in Egypt (SUNY Press, 2009 & American University in Cairo Press, 2010), and the editor of Islamist Politics in the Middle East (Routledge, 2012). His articles have appeared in both academic and policy journals, including the International Journal of Middle East Studies, MERIP, Current History, and Foreign Policy, and as book chapters and encyclopedia articles. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Al Ahram Weekly, and Al Hayat. He received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Ford Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation. He has been interviewed by many media outlets, including CNN, BBC, PBS News Hour, NPR, C-Span and Al Jazeera. He received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Politics from Princeton University.
Tarik Ghodbani is a lecturer at the Department of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Oran, director of the Laboratory for Research on Geographic Space and Urban Planning (EGEAT), associate researcher at the Center for Social and Cultural Anthropological Research (CRASC), and member of the Scientific Council of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS). He holds a PhD in Social Geography from the University of Oran (Algeria) and University of Paris 8 (France). After completing his PhD, he lived abroad to pursue research projects in collaboration with such institutions as the Fulbright Foundation (2013 – USA), and DAAD (2011 – Germany). He currently supervises students’ dissertations on social transformations, and local and environmental governance systems. He has published (with other researchers) articles on development issues in the Maghrib in international peer-reviewed journals. In addition to research, Ghodbai works as a local development expert on evaluation projects addressing the problematics of involving local communities in development and environmental protection plans. Book publications: الإنسان والبيئة على الساحل الغربي الجزائري (Man and the Environment: the Moroccan Algerian Coast)
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Agriculture, Farmers and Development in the Context of War and Occupation: A Case Study of Southern Lebanon
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Resistant Ecologies in a Landscape of War
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Construction de l’Etat postcolonial et résistances aux mécanismes de dépossession (Maroc-Tunisie)
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Pastoral Ressources, Transhumance and Social Conflicts in the South of Morocco
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Environmental Exploitation, Impoverishment and Ecojustice Learning within Social Movements in Morocco: The Case of the Movement on the Road’96 (MOR’96), Imider
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Palestinian Agricultural Working Women in the Jordan Valley, Occupied Palestinian Territory: Politics, the Economy, the Environment and Healt
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Environmental and Social Justice Movements and Protests in Morocco from Imider to Jerada: A Comparative Study
Nationality: Algerian
Project Title: The Land and Pastoral Society in the Western Steppe of Algeria: The Land Issue between Environmentalism and Inequalities
Habib Ayeb, born in Tunisia, is a social geographer, researcher and Associate Professor at the University Paris 8 in Saint Denis (France) since 1992. His domains of researches are: Competitions over resources, including water and land, in rural and agricultural areas, Poverty and marginalization dynamics and processes, Social changes, resistances and uprisings (Arab spring), Development, Environment and Climate changes, Food sovereignty. He is, currently, conducting comparative researches mainly in Egypt and Tunisia. He has worked in several different institutions including the Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia, the University of Paris 8-St Denis, CEDEJ (Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Juridiques et Sociales), IRD (Institute of Research for Development) and from 2006 till now the SRC (Social Research Center). Habib Ayeb, is member of various institutions and networks, including:
– Ecole Doctorale des Sciences Sociales “Milieux, Cultures et Sociétés du Passé et du Présent”. Paris Ouest-Nanterre University (Phd Supervisor)
– Laboratoire Mosaïques, UMR LAVUE (ex-GECKO) : Paris Ouest-Nanterre University. France
– The International Advisory Board of The Journal of Peasant Studies
– The Rural Network Thimar
Rami Zurayk is Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the American University of Beirut and a member of the High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on Food Security (FAO/IFAD/WFP). He studied agriculture and soil science at AUB and Oxford University and was Country Representative of the International Cooperation for Development (UK) in Yemen between 1989 and 1991. He has worked in the Arab world on issues of agriculture, rural development and food security (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Western Sahara). A long-time civil society activist, he is a founding member of the Arab Food Sovereignty Network, of the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign and of the Land and People post-war livelihood recovery program. He has published extensively on issues of food, water, environment and food security. Of relevance to this conference are his two books “Food, Farming and Freedom” (2011, Just World Books) and Control Food, Control People: The Struggle for Food Security in Gaza (with A. Gough, 2013, Institute of Palestine Studies).
Reem Saad is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Her research interests include rural society, historical anthropology, and environmental issues. She received her D.Phil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where she was also the Ioma Evans-Pritchard Junior Research Fellow. She is the author of a monograph entitled “Social History of an Agrarian Reform Community in Egypt”, and co-editor (with Nicholas Hopkins) of the book Upper Egypt: Identity and Change. She was previously a research associate professor at the Social Research Center and Director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo.
Samer Shehata is the Colin Mackey and Patricia Molina de Mackey Associate Professor of Middle East Studies & Middle East Program Coordinator. He previously taught at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Georgetown University, New York University, Columbia University, and the American University in Cairo. He is the author of Shop Floor Culture and Politics in Egypt (SUNY Press, 2009 & American University in Cairo Press, 2010), and the editor of Islamist Politics in the Middle East (Routledge, 2012). His articles have appeared in both academic and policy journals, including the International Journal of Middle East Studies, MERIP, Current History, and Foreign Policy, and as book chapters and encyclopedia articles. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Al Ahram Weekly, and Al Hayat. He received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Ford Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation. He has been interviewed by many media outlets, including CNN, BBC, PBS News Hour, NPR, C-Span and Al Jazeera. He received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Politics from Princeton University.
Tarik Ghodbani is a lecturer at the Department of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Oran, director of the Laboratory for Research on Geographic Space and Urban Planning (EGEAT), associate researcher at the Center for Social and Cultural Anthropological Research (CRASC), and member of the Scientific Council of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS). He holds a PhD in Social Geography from the University of Oran (Algeria) and University of Paris 8 (France). After completing his PhD, he lived abroad to pursue research projects in collaboration with such institutions as the Fulbright Foundation (2013 – USA), and DAAD (2011 – Germany). He currently supervises students’ dissertations on social transformations, and local and environmental governance systems. He has published (with other researchers) articles on development issues in the Maghrib in international peer-reviewed journals. In addition to research, Ghodbai works as a local development expert on evaluation projects addressing the problematics of involving local communities in development and environmental protection plans. Book publications: الإنسان والبيئة على الساحل الغربي الجزائري (Man and the Environment: the Moroccan Algerian Coast)
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Geopolitics of “Time” and the Concept of Production of Colonial Temporal Patterns in Jerusalem
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Salvaging Labor Time: Scrap Metal and Syrian Workers inside Beirut’s Informal Economy
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Urban Risk and the Prospects of Environmental Justice: A Study of Unsafe Neighborhoods in Cairo, Egypt
Nationality: Syrian
Project Title: Architecture as a Craft: Enabling the Knowledge Heritage of Construction Crafts as an Alternative Approach to Justice and Environmental Development in the Construction of Space
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: The Environmental Degradation of the Oases and the Growing Impoverishment of its Population in Morocco: Ethnographies of the Lived Experiences
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Shrinking Spaces and Violated Communities: The Health, Livelihoods, and Living Conditions of Palestinians in the Biddu Enclave on the West Bank
Nationality: Algerian
Project Title: Social Technologies and Forms of Adaptation to Environmental Degradation: Multi-Criteria Analysis of Arid Algerian Regions
Habib Ayeb, born in Tunisia, is a social geographer, researcher and Associate Professor at the University Paris 8 in Saint Denis (France) since 1992. His domains of researches are: Competitions over resources, including water and land, in rural and agricultural areas, Poverty and marginalization dynamics and processes, Social changes, resistances and uprisings (Arab spring), Development, Environment and Climate changes, Food sovereignty. He is, currently, conducting comparative researches mainly in Egypt and Tunisia. He has worked in several different institutions including the Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia, the University of Paris 8-St Denis, CEDEJ (Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Juridiques et Sociales), IRD (Institute of Research for Development) and from 2006 till now the SRC (Social Research Center). Habib Ayeb, is member of various institutions and networks, including:
– Ecole Doctorale des Sciences Sociales “Milieux, Cultures et Sociétés du Passé et du Présent”. Paris Ouest-Nanterre University (Phd Supervisor)
– Laboratoire Mosaïques, UMR LAVUE (ex-GECKO) : Paris Ouest-Nanterre University. France
– The International Advisory Board of The Journal of Peasant Studies
– The Rural Network Thimar
Rami Zurayk is Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the American University of Beirut and a member of the High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on Food Security (FAO/IFAD/WFP). He studied agriculture and soil science at AUB and Oxford University and was Country Representative of the International Cooperation for Development (UK) in Yemen between 1989 and 1991. He has worked in the Arab world on issues of agriculture, rural development and food security (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Western Sahara). A long-time civil society activist, he is a founding member of the Arab Food Sovereignty Network, of the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign and of the Land and People post-war livelihood recovery program. He has published extensively on issues of food, water, environment and food security. Of relevance to this conference are his two books “Food, Farming and Freedom” (2011, Just World Books) and Control Food, Control People: The Struggle for Food Security in Gaza (with A. Gough, 2013, Institute of Palestine Studies).
Reem Saad is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Her research interests include rural society, historical anthropology, and environmental issues. She received her D.Phil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where she was also the Ioma Evans-Pritchard Junior Research Fellow. She is the author of a monograph entitled “Social History of an Agrarian Reform Community in Egypt”, and co-editor (with Nicholas Hopkins) of the book Upper Egypt: Identity and Change. She was previously a research associate professor at the Social Research Center and Director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo.
Samer Shehata is the Colin Mackey and Patricia Molina de Mackey Associate Professor of Middle East Studies & Middle East Program Coordinator. He previously taught at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Georgetown University, New York University, Columbia University, and the American University in Cairo. He is the author of Shop Floor Culture and Politics in Egypt (SUNY Press, 2009 & American University in Cairo Press, 2010), and the editor of Islamist Politics in the Middle East (Routledge, 2012). His articles have appeared in both academic and policy journals, including the International Journal of Middle East Studies, MERIP, Current History, and Foreign Policy, and as book chapters and encyclopedia articles. His opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Al Ahram Weekly, and Al Hayat. He received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Ford Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation. He has been interviewed by many media outlets, including CNN, BBC, PBS News Hour, NPR, C-Span and Al Jazeera. He received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Politics from Princeton University.
Tarik Ghodbani is a lecturer at the Department of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Oran, director of the Laboratory for Research on Geographic Space and Urban Planning (EGEAT), associate researcher at the Center for Social and Cultural Anthropological Research (CRASC), and member of the Scientific Council of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS). He holds a PhD in Social Geography from the University of Oran (Algeria) and University of Paris 8 (France). After completing his PhD, he lived abroad to pursue research projects in collaboration with such institutions as the Fulbright Foundation (2013 – USA), and DAAD (2011 – Germany). He currently supervises students’ dissertations on social transformations, and local and environmental governance systems. He has published (with other researchers) articles on development issues in the Maghrib in international peer-reviewed journals. In addition to research, Ghodbai works as a local development expert on evaluation projects addressing the problematics of involving local communities in development and environmental protection plans. Book publications: الإنسان والبيئة على الساحل الغربي الجزائري (Man and the Environment: the Moroccan Algerian Coast)
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: New Environmental Policies in Morocco between Ecological Justice, New Forms of Poverty, and Social Marginalization: Ethnographies in Weekly Popular Markets in Rabat in the Wake of the “Zero Mika” or “Zero Plastic Bags”
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: Social Dynamics in Oasal Spaces: Environmental Changes, Adaptation Dynamics, and Life Practices: A Cultural Ecology Approach (The Case of the Jorf Oasis in Tafilalt)
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: The New Neoliberalism: Urban Areas in Moroccan Cities: Between Social Justice and Polarization
Nationality: Tunisian
Project Title: L’oasis de Jemna au Sud-Ouest tunisien : Mouvement social de protestation, stratégie civile de reconnaissance et État national dans un contexte de globalisation
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: The Sociology of Environmental Education andEcological Justice in Secondary Education in Morocco
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Environmentalism of Poverty and Dynamics of the Socio-Ecological System: A Study of the Relationship between Humans and the Environment in Egyptian Rural Areas
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Integrating Urban Farmers in Urban Development Plans as a Form of Resistance amid Political Instability: Palestine as a Case Study
Rami Daher is an Associate Professor at the School of Architect and Built Environment at the German Jordanian University (GJU) and a practicing architect. He taught at the American University of Beirut’s Department of Architecture & Design and at Jordan University of Science & Tech (holding position of Department Head between 2003 and 2006). Daher had earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Jordan (1988), a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota (1991), a PhD in Architecture from Texas A&M U (1995), and did his post-doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley (2001). Daher is a co-founder and a principal of TURATH: Architecture & Urban Design Consultants (1999-present), and Metropolis: Cities Research Council (2008- Present), the research arm of TURATH.
Ruba Salih is a reader in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, UK. Salih is a social anthropologist by training, is a Reader in Gender Studies at SOAS. She has worked and published extensively on transnational migration, diaspora and multiculturalism from a gendered perspective. In the last two years she has been involved (together with Sophie Richter-Devroe, Exeter University) in a research project on the Palestinian refugees, for which she is conducting fieldwork in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
Chahir Zaki is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Zaki teaches and conducts research on trade policy. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, an M.A. in Economics from Université Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Université Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne. His area of specialization is development economics. His research interests include international trade, trade policy, trade in services, computable general equilibrium modeling, and gravity models.
Fadma Ait Mous is an Assistant Professor at Ain Chock Faculty of Letters and the Humanities (University Hassan II of Casablanca) and Researcher at the Centre Marocain des Sciences Sociales (CM2S) at the same university. She is also research manager at Centre de Recheche Economie, Société et Culture (CRESC) de l’EGE Rabat (Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique). She holds a PhD in Political Science from Hassan II University in Casablanca where she wrote her thesis on the emergence of Moroccan nationalism from local to national networks. Her research is mainly focused on issues related to nationalism and social movements, gender and socio-political transformations, history and memory, social media, citizenship and migration; and her recent publications include the book “Le métier d’intellectuel. Dialogues avec quinze penseurs du Maroc” (With D. Ksikes, En Toutes Lettres, 2014) ; “The Interest of Moroccans toward their Euro-Med Neighbours”, In The Anna Lindh Report 2014 ; “Terres collectives et inégalités: le combat des soulaliyates” (with Yasmine Berriane, in La Revue Economia, April 2014).
Abdelkader Latreche is a Population Expert at the Permanent Population Committee of the Ministry of Developmental Planning and Statistics in Doha, Qatar. He previously worked at the Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute and has earned his PhD in Statistics, Demography and Sociology from Paris 1 University in Paris, France.
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Resistance, Piety, and Development: Hezbollah’s Capital of Resistance as Global City
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Constructing Educational Quality in the Arab Region
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Wealth and Educational Inequality: Evidence from Egypt
Nationality: Algerian
Project Title: اللامساواة المجالية بالجزائر: الشريط الحدودي المغربي الجزائري وإشكالية التنمية المعطلة
Spatial inequality in Algeria: the Moroccan Algerian borderline and problem of delayed development
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Citizenship: Between Discourse and Practice: Experiences of Sociopolitical Transformation in the New Egypt
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Narrating Beirut from its Inner Residential Neighborhoods
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: Reflections on Urban Activism and Development in Protracted Crisis: The Case of Saida
Nationality: Lebanese, Lebanese, & Egyptian
Project Title: Understanding Support for an Islamic Caliphate & Rule: The Role of Inequality, Mobility and Socio-Historical Contexts in Lebanon
Nationality: Palestinian, Moroccan, Moroccan & Moroccan
Project Title: Pharmacovigilance in the Arab World: A Comparative Study of Pharmaceutical Policies and Patient Safety in the Age of Access
Nationality: Egyptian, & Moroccan
Project Title: The Limits of the “City without Slums” Program in Morocco: When Slum-dwellers Resist
Nationality: Tunisian
Project Title: On understanding the Internal Migration, Poverty and Inequality nexus in Tunisia: A review of information on current trends and patterns, and their policy implications
Nationality: Moroccan
Project Title: نساء النينجا: قهر بطعم العبودية: دراسة حالة العامات الفلاحات ببركان
Translation: Ninja women: Slavery-flavored oppression: The case of women peasant workers in Morocco
Rami Daher is an Associate Professor at the School of Architect and Built Environment at the German Jordanian University (GJU) and a practicing architect. He taught at the American University of Beirut’s Department of Architecture & Design and at Jordan University of Science & Tech (holding position of Department Head between 2003 and 2006). Daher had earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Jordan (1988), a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota (1991), a PhD in Architecture from Texas A&M U (1995), and did his post-doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley (2001). Daher is a co-founder and a principal of TURATH: Architecture & Urban Design Consultants (1999-present), and Metropolis: Cities Research Council (2008- Present), the research arm of TURATH.
Ruba Salih is a reader in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, UK. Salih is a social anthropologist by training, is a Reader in Gender Studies at SOAS. She has worked and published extensively on transnational migration, diaspora and multiculturalism from a gendered perspective. In the last two years she has been involved (together with Sophie Richter-Devroe, Exeter University) in a research project on the Palestinian refugees, for which she is conducting fieldwork in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
Samer Attalah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics, School of Business at the American University in Cairo (AUC). He previously taught at the Department of Economics at McGill University. He earned his MA and PhD in Economics from McGill University and a B.Sc. in Engineering from the American University in Cairo.
Hassan Rachik is an anthropologist and Professor at the Hassan II University in Casablanca, Morocco. He is also visiting professor in several American, French and Arab universities. In his first researches he worked on the field of sacrificial rituals interpretation, from 1990 to 1992, and of social changes in rural environments, until 2000. Afterwards, he focused on the usage of ideologies (2003 – 2006), on the ideologization processes in religion and on the sociology of anthropological knowledge (2012). At the moment, he is working on common knowledge and its connections in political and religious ideologies. Among his publications: Le proche et le lointain. Un siècle d’anthropologie au Maroc (2012), L’islam au quotidien (2007) and Usages de l’identité amazighe au Maroc (2006).
Abdelkader Latreche is a population expert at the Permanent Population Committee of the Ministry of Developmental Planning and Statistics in Doha, Qatar. He previously worked at the Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute and has earned his PhD in Statistics, Demography and Sociology from Paris 1 University in Paris, France.
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Collective Identity, Relative Deprivation and Social Mobility in Colonial Context: Palestinian Students from within the “Green Line” Attending the Hebrew University in Comparison with Birzeit University Ramallah & Jerusalem
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: The Politics of (‘Stability’): Work, Property and Class in Egypt
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Reclaiming a history of movement: Inequality in the writing of revolutionary histories in Egypt
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Poverty Alleviation in Cairo’s Informal Areas: The Role of the State and non-state actors after the revolution
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: La géographie urbaine des inégalités à Tripoli
Nationality: Sudanese
Project Title: Strategies of Development Negotiation and Conflict
Nationality: Algerian
Project Title: تناقضات السياسات التنموية في البلدان العربية الريعية: توزيع الريع كآلية لإنتاج وإعادة إنتاج اللامساواة الاجتماعية، حالة الجزائر
Translation: Contradictions of developmental policies in rentier Arab states: Rent distribution as a mechanism for the production and reproduction of social inequality – the case of Algeria
Nationality: Egyptian, & Tunisian
Project Title: Neo-Authoritarian coalitions and social mobilizations in fluid contexts: Egypt and Tunisia
Nationality: Palestinian, Palestinian, & British
Project Title: Rendering East Jerusalem Visible: A Case Study of Kafr ‘Aqab
Nationality: Lebanese, Lebanese, French, Lebanese, & Lebanese
Project Title: Academic international mobility and knowledge production: the case of Lebanon, France, Australia, Canada, Dubai, and Qatar
Nationality: Algerian
Project Title: Les transformations socioéconomiques dans les espaces oasiens du Sud algérien, le cas du Touat et de la Saoura
Rami Daher is an Associate Professor at the School of Architect and Built Environment at the German Jordanian University (GJU) and a practicing architect. He taught at the American University of Beirut’s Department of Architecture & Design and at Jordan University of Science & Tech (holding position of Department Head between 2003 and 2006). Daher had earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Jordan (1988), a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota (1991), a PhD in Architecture from Texas A&M U (1995), and did his post-doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley (2001). Daher is a co-founder and a principal of TURATH: Architecture & Urban Design Consultants (1999-present), and Metropolis: Cities Research Council (2008- Present), the research arm of TURATH.
Ruba Salih is a reader in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, UK. Salih is a social anthropologist by training, is a Reader in Gender Studies at SOAS. She has worked and published extensively on transnational migration, diaspora and multiculturalism from a gendered perspective. In the last two years she has been involved (together with Sophie Richter-Devroe, Exeter University) in a research project on the Palestinian refugees, for which she is conducting fieldwork in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
Abdelaziz EzzelArab is a Professor of Political Economy and History at the American University in Cairo (AUC). EzzelArab earned his BA from AUC in Economics and Political Science in 1975. He earned an MA in Economics from University of Toronto in 1977, and a Diploma in the Program on Investment Appraisal and Management from Harvard University in 1987. His Ph.D. in Islamic Studies came from Mc.Gill University in 2000.
Nationality: Egyptian
Project Title: Mechanisms of Access to Resources and Social Movement in Rural Egypt: A Study of Peasant Strategies and the Model of Agricultural Development between Reproduction and Change in the Context of the Revolution
Nationality: Jordanian
Project Title: Water for the Poor? Understanding Formal and Informal Water Governance in Neoliberal Amman
Nationality: Lebanese
Project Title: NGO-ization, Disciplining Dissent and Increasing Inequality within Palestinian Popular Resistance
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: The Palestinian Environmental Present: Development, Cultivation, and Spatial Practice in the West Bank
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Palestine is Holding a Party and the Whole World is Invited: Housing Development, Privatization, and the Production of the State in the West Bank
Nationality: Bahraini
Project Title: Sea of Sand: Land Reclamation and the Urban Development of Bahrain
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Development, Inequality and Popular Mobilizations: Towards Opening a Horizon for Alternative Development
Nationality: Palestinian
Project Title: Neoliberalism and the Transformations of Rural Palestine: The Case of Rawabi
Nationality: Syrian
Project Title: Reconstructing Livelihoods among Syrian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: A Multifaceted Approach
Nationality: Jordanian
Project Title: A Contested Public Realm: Development, Inequality and Mobility in Amman and Beirut
Nationality: Palestinian, Palestinian, & American
Project Title: Humanitarian Effects: Assessing Social and Physical Inequalities in the Urban Space of Jenin Refugee Camp