2020 Workshops

Sixteen fellows from countries across the Arab MENA region were selected to take part in this year’s workhsop. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, APSA was forced to postpone the in-person MENA workshop and have developed a two-part workshop program. The workshop began with co-leaders Samer Abboud (Villanova University, USA), Zaynab El Bernoussi (Al Akhawayn University, Morocco), Omar Dahi (Hampshire College, USA), and Salim Hmimnat (Mohamed V University, Morocco) leading a 4-week virtual program from July 27 to August 21. The online summer program interrogated several themes related to MENA Critical Security Studies and provided preliminary feedback on fellows’ research papers (see program schedule and reading list). The connections and discussions that began during the virtual program will be carried through to the in-person workshop at a later date. We believe that this revised structure offers the best opportunity for scholarly engagement in light of current health concerns and travel restrictions.

Workshop Theme
The 2020 MENA Workshop will engage academic and policy debates about security and international relations of the MENA region and consider alternative understandings of insecurity that focus on the research projects of scholars within the region. The program will also explore various methodological approaches in the study of insecurity and address the challenges that researchers from the region face in producing theoretically and conceptually legible research for a mainly English-speaking audience.

Thematically, the workshop will be theoretically grounded in critical approaches to Security Studies and International Relations, with discussions structured around two central themes. Discussions of insecurity will be framed through the question of what makes people insecure, rather than what makes them secure. By inverting the traditional questions of Security Studies that seek to answer how security can be achieved, this question asks fellows to think of the production of insecurity as the key variable to be explained. Discussions of securitization will reflect on how new patterns of securitization are emerging in the region. By widening the agents of securitization beyond the state, this approach highlights how private companies, social movements, political parties, and even municipalities, are implicated in contemporary securitization in the MENA region.

Should you have any questions or seek additional information contact menaworkshops@apsanet.org. Please do not contact the workshop leaders directly.

2020 Fellows

• Zaynab El-Bernoussi, Al Akhawayn University, Morocco
• Samer Abboud, Villanova University, USA
• Omar Dahi, Hampshire College, USA
• Salim Hmimnat, Mohammed University, Morocco
• Aida El Rehim, American University in Cairo, Egypt
• Aliaa Wagdy Youssef, Cairo University, Egypt
• Eya Jrad, University of Carthage, Tunis
• Fouad Touzani, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah University, Morocco
• Haidar Al Jubbori, Chiba University, Iraq
• Hanen Keskes, University of Nottingham, UK
• Mahjouba Kaoukaou, Regional Academy of Education and Training-Rabat-Kénitra, Morocco
• Mohamed Bakhit, University of Khartoum, Sudan
• Mostefa Bousbousa, University of Badji Mokhtar-Annaba, Algeria
• Mujtaba Ali Isani, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Saudi Arabia
• Nahrain Rasho, University of California, Davis, USA
• Rabia Suleiman, Rice University, USA
• Sean Lee, American University in Cairo, Egypt