المنتدى

The APSA MENA Newsletter, a newsletter emerging from the MENA Workshops of the American Political Science Association (APSA), is a community-building initiative designed to serve as a platform for Political Science researchers interested in the Middle East and North Africa. The newsletter aims to build a community that connects junior researchers studying the region and serve as a resource to support their research. The newsletter aims to publish short pieces addressing the variety of methodological, theoretical, empirical, and ethical concerns reflected in the study of the MENA region. More importantly, it encourages dialogue, engagement, and conversation between different disciplines and fields in the study of the MENA region.

For the inaugural newsletter, editors have chosen the following theme: “Frontiers of Contemporary Research on the Middle East and North Africa.” At present, the MENA region offers a wide variety of opportunities for young scholars to conduct innovative research. Yet, security breakdown and instability in many countries present outstanding substantive, methodological, and ethical limitations and challenges to scholars of the Middle East in general, and to junior scholars in particular. The editors invite submissions pertaining to personal experiences, reflections, difficulties, findings, and impressions of studying MENA politics. Editors encourage submissions from scholars across the Middle East and North African research spectrum on topics related, but not limited to, emerging research fields, challenges during fieldwork, methodological issues, ethical concerns of studying vulnerable populations, and the difficulties of conducting research in authoritarian contexts.

The newsletter provides scholars with a valuable opportunity to “bounce their ideas around” in a friendly, amiable but professional forum while networking with peers interested in similar substantive/methodological/regional fields. Submissions should be between 800-1000 words, and submitted to menanewsletter@apsanet.org. Editors welcome referenced pieces that share research findings as well as personal reflections.

 

The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2016. For questions and comments, feel free to contact the editors at menanewsletter@apsanet.org.

 

Editors

Abdul-Wahab Kayyali
May Darwich