Across the globe there are increasing levels of severe poverty coupled with state repression, conflict, displacement and military occupations, all of which are leading to the deepening of the structures of inequality globally and at the national and local levels. In addition, various ways and forms of marking social and cultural difference also raise issues of discrimination and inequity. As a reaction, the world has witnessed intensifying forms of global and local protests, movements, insurgencies and resistance. In the Arab region, inequality between social groups and classes has risen markedly in the past two decades with increasing regional and sub-regional disparities within countries. These intersect with various other structural forms of difference including regional, ethnic, linguistic, religious, tribal and so on. Significantly, Tunisia, the country of an “economic miracle” according to the IMF and the World Bank, was the first country to initiate the wave of “Arab uprisings”, in no small part due to the “miracle” being focused on the capital and northern coastal cities, not the interior of Tunisia or the south.

The literature exploring the varied manifestations and consequences of social inequalities and social difference in the Arab region has been limited compared to the volume of analysis of the phenomenon in other regions. In fact, there has been little or no effort thus far to provide a comparative perspective to document and account for the emergence, intensification and trajectories of inequality. Historical perspectives are also lacking and there is little attempt to position the Arab region within the global context when discussing such phenomena and trends. The ways in which various types of inequalities have played a role in, and had an impact on, the Arab uprisings and their aftermaths also need to be investigated.

Crucially, there has also been little analysis in the region on the prevailing discourses on social inequality, difference, discrimination, deprivation, exclusion and poverty, whether in research, public perceptions or policy interventions. Here, Social Science knowledge production needs to be particularly investigated: How are issues of inequality and difference being discussed and taught in schools and college curriculums across the Arab World? What theoretical paradigms are being deployed to study social inequality in the Arab world? How does the work of Arab scholars compare, converge or diverge with the work of scholars working in the global north and other parts of the global south?

The conference was organized around the following four main sub- themes:

This theme focuses on the processes, mechanisms and political economy of the production and reproduction of inequality and difference. The roles that state actors, the transnational and local capitalist class, multinational economic and development institutions, and other relevant actors play are examined under this theme. Special attention should be given to the continued rentierization of Arab economies and neo-liberal policies and well as the discourses and practices of Islamist political movements on inequality whether they are in, or out, of power. Furthermore, the articulation between mechanisms of accumulation by dispossession and social and regional marginalization are examined. Here rural dynamics are important to understand including the consequences of impoverishment and dispossession of small farmers on local and family small farmers and global (national) food sovereignty and well as how “export-oriented agriculture” exacerbates local social and spatial marginalization and food insecurity?

Specific questions include:

– What is the relationship between inequality and different forms of capitalism and financial power (global/transnational, regional, national, local)?
– How and when do policies and political processes lead to social exclusion, disempowerment and deprivation?
– How are these processes and policies legitimized? What kind of ideologies, theories or other forms of knowledge production is invoked to justify and legitimate them?
– What role have economic policies, such as privatization, deregulation, and liberalization undertaken in the past decade played in reducing or furthering social inequalities?
– Are new forms of state emerging in the Arab region? Has the welfare state disappeared? What impact does decentralization, devolution of state authority and federalism have on inequality?
– What role does political power play in defending, reproducing and deepening social inequalities?
– Is there an “Arab neoliberalism”? What similarities or differences exist between the Arab countries and other regions (be they structural [e.g. oil economies], cultural [e.g. pan-Arabism], or otherwise) that bear particularly on the issue of inequality and class differences?
– How has state power been used to advance neoliberal policies in the Arab world?

This theme explores inequality and difference in the Arab region through a spatial lens. The papers under this theme explore how inequalities are inscribed spatially and how difference is manifested through conceptions, perceptions and experiences of space and place. What are the geographies and scales of inequality in the Arab region and how are they produced and reproduced? What processes that have been described as “the shrinking of the commons” are taking place in the Arab region, through the diminution and privatization of public space, mobility and services, including basic services and housing? How is this related to the expansion of militarization and securitization, and the need of protecting the ruling elite from the threat of a stigmatized “other,” and/or neoliberal objectives of expanding capital accumulation through real-estate speculation? A particularly neglected area of study is the competition between agribusiness and small farmers over agriculture resources, such as land and water, and the subsequent impoverishment, dispossession and marginalization of rural populations and peasants. Poverty, social exclusion and food insecurity (at the local and family level) are among the most visible consequences of such processes.

Specific questions include:

– Should the rural/urban divide be rethought in light of rampant urbanization, the restructuring of the countryside and the political and discursive marginalization of the rural?
– How do urban policies and projects consolidate neoliberal economies at the expense of the commons and collective rights?
– What are the mechanisms of security and militarization in cities, towns and regions, and their impacts on dwellers’ mobility and spatial practices?
– What is happening to public spaces in cities, towns and villages, with a special attention to the frameworks regulating the collective use of the commons over time?
– What is the impact on natural environments, resources and landscapes, and their social and economic roles in the daily lives of dwellers?
– What are the threats to the “right to the city” (housing, infrastructure, basic services, mobility, public space)?
– What kinds of resistances, insurgencies and interventions are emerging to counter these processes and claim back the commons and access to resources (including agricultural resources) and services?