Cultural production and social movements after the Arab Spring : Nationalism, Politics, and Transnational Identity

The editors are grateful to the DI for providing the opportunity to engage in areas of research that are topically significant for the wider global community. The DI has been most supportive in allowing us to engage in travels and research around the topic of the book. Moreover, the DI and QNRF generously funded a book workshop that was held in Doha in January 2018 that assisted the editors in synthesizing the individual chapters and produce a coherent, integrated, and polished edited collection. We owe special thanks to the Research Office at the DI, especially its Director Mr. Raed Habayeb and the senior officer Ms. Miriam Shaath. We wish to acknowledge our contributors and express our deepest gratitude to them, for without their patience and unwavering commitment this book would not have been possible. Their chapters are insightful and thought-provoking. It was a pleasure to work with each of them. Likewise, our deepest gratitude goes to Rory Gormerly, our acquisitions editor at I.B. Tauris, for his enthusiastic support and watchful eye throughout the process. Equally, the editors wish to thank Yasmin Garcha for her guidance and tireless support during the publication process. Among those who have given us sustenance, we cannot fail to mention our graduate students and research assistants at the DI, including Amel Boubekeur, Talaat Mohamed, Tareq Alrabei, Anne Vermeyden, Zainab Abu Alrob, and Thomas Dolan for their friendly and efficient support. We are highly indebted to colleagues at the DI and the collaborating institutions, and all those unnamed others, too many to be named personally, who encouraged us to continue, offered us inspiration, and generously gave of their time and expertise, carrying us through to the completion of this project. We are particularly impressed by the incredible spirit, wisdom, and strength of the Arab peoples, especially the indomitable youth who came together, demanding the personal rights and freedoms that Arabs have so long been denied. Their message of peace and hope was easily delivered to the rest of the world through their cheering, singing, praying for their freedom in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen inspiring countless others all over the world. It is to their formidable spirit and inspiring resilience that this book is dedicated. The editors would like to thank their families and loved ones for their loving support and patience. xii By the end of 2010 and into 2011, the eyes of the world were on the public squares in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain, as millions of people poured into major city centers and streets. These mass gatherings in public spaces presented unprecedented forms of solidarity to bring about change through sheer determination, an awakening to the power of the collective beyond a simple articulation of demands. The modes of collective expression and action far exceeded the ready interpretations of social and political theories of how mass movements could be constituted via the complicity of many demands. Something more was at stake. A gathering force seemed to hold the key to a dynamic that surpassed the postcolonial idea of a nation or a people. A collectivizing "We" was emerging, almost palpably visible in the communicative force of diverse individuals and groups in public spaces and later in mediated but equally engaged responses. The "transcultural" as a strategy of nomenclature is not only meant to counter the hegemony of nationalist ideologies or nation-based and region-based analytic frames, current in both area studies and social and political theory. It is also used here as a mode of trans-sociality, one that signals the complexity and historical depth of collective expressions and actions. The implosions of social, cultural, political, and economic realities that have unsettled the power structures of state formations and processes of subjectivation have also strongly accentuated how identity is and always has been a flux of cementing, meaning-giving practices, assumptions of belief, and habits of thought. The historically given and naturalized categories and conditions of ethnicity, religion, governance, citizenship, gender, socioeconomic status, and nationality were subjected to widespread and profound renegotiations that have entailed both the discovery of new cultural forms and the recovery of the force of resonant popular discourses. In the aftermath of 2011, studies of mass movements, too numerous to list, have sought to identify prior histories and trajectories and to articulate attendant shifts in social and political spheres, modes of acculturation, the self-perception and self-placement of collectivities, and the failings of national traditions, policies, and institutions. Apart from firsthand testimonies and book-length accounts of the uprisings, the first theoretical insights into the unprecedented dimensions of collective expression and action have been slow to come, initially offered in works by Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, and Judith Butler; in critical historical readings by Cover Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Eid Mohamed and Ayman A. El-Desouky Part 1 Senses of Belonging: Explorations of Transcultural Spaces 1 Transculturation in a Changing Arab World: Engaging Contexts in Conversation Eid Mohamed 2 Hédi Bouraoui: On Transcultural Belonging Abderrahman Beggar 3 Changing Geography: Transcultural Arab Identity in the Age of the EU Katie Logan 4 The Fractured Music of Arab-Jewish Friendship in Waguih Ghali’s Beer in the Snooker Club and Ismaël Ferroukhi’s Free Men Caroline Rooney Part 2 Migration and the Challenges of Subjectivation 5 Poetics of the Virtual: Technology and Revolution in the Poetry of Sghaier Ouled Ahmed Hager Ben Driss 6 Identity Politics and Digital Space: Adel Abidin’s Abidin Travels: Welcome to Baghdad Jenna Altomonte Part 3 Transcultural Dimensions in Contemporary Arab Literature and Culture 7 Transcultural Identity Formation among Canadian-Arab Youth: Nurturing Self-Knowledge through Metissage and Blunting Canadianness as an Alterity Melissa Finn and Bessma Momani 8 Reshaping Social Practice in Post–Arab Spring Egypt: Expression of Identity and Affiliation in New Media Mohamed ElSawi Hassan 9 Syrian Refugees as a Hybridizing Force in the Jordanian Society Barkuzar Dubbati 10 Ontological Citizenship: A Realignment of Rights and Responsibilities between the Individual and the State(s) in Twenty-First-Century Migration and Transnationalism Saeed Khan Part 4 Occupying Interstices and the Aesthetics of Dissent 11 Echoes of a Scream: US Drones and Articulations of the Houthi Sarkha Slogan in Yemen Waleed F. Mahdi 12 Interstitial Space of the Art of Protest Hamid Dabashi Index Part I. Senses of belonging: explorations of transcultural spaces. Chapter I. Transculturation in a changing Arab world: engaging contexts in conversation / by Eid Mohamed ; Chapter II. Identity politics and digital space: Adel Abidin's Abidin travels: Welcome to Baghdad / By Jenna Ann Altomonte ; Chapter III. Transcultural Arab identities in the West: Canadian -- Arab youth navigating culture, identity, and belonging / by Bessma Momani and Melissa Finn ; Chapter IV. Reshaping social practice in post-Arab Spring Egypt: expression of identity and affiliation in new media / by Mohamed Hassan -- Part II. Migration and the challenges of subjectivation. Chapter V.Refugees as a hybridizing force in the Jordanian society / by Barkuzar Dubbati ; Chapter VI. Ontological citizenship: a realignment of rights and responsibilities between the individual and the state(s) in 21st century migration and transnationalism / by Saeed A. Khan -- Part III. Transcultural dimensions in contemporary Arab literature and culture. Chapter VII. Changing geography: transcultural Arab identity in the age of the EU / by Katie Logan ; Chapter VIII. The fractured music of Arab-Jewish friendships: Waguih Ghali's Beer in the snooker club and Ismaël Ferroukhi's Free men / by Caroline Rooney ; Chapter IX. Hédi Bouraoui: Transcultural sense of belonging / by Abderrahman Beggar ; Chapter X. Poetics of the virtual: technology and revolution in the poetry of Sghaier Ouled Ahmed / by Hager Ben Driss -- Part IV. Occupying interstices and the aesthetics of dissent. Chapter XI. Interstitial space of the art of protest / by Hamid Dabashi ; Chapter XII. The chaos of a scream: a critical reading of Houthis' Sarkha in Yemen / by Waleed F. Mahdi "This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. The so-called Arab Spring challenged conventional wisdom and certainties about the Arab world where its effects continue to be felt as well as in the diaspora. This book provides an original contribution to current social and cultural theory on Arab social movements by giving a fuller historical and critical treatment of contemporary artistic and cultural production from the region and beyond. Thematically structured and covering culture, media, politics, and literary studies, the book uses a range of theoretical material that engages readers in three key ways. First, it adopts a critical standpoint with respect to the term "Arab Spring," recognizing the multiple interpretations and varied geographical, historical, and political realities of the term. Second, its focus on carefully selected case studies - namely, Egypt, Tunis, Syria, and Yemen - adds depth to analysis of the cultural, literary and artistic dimensions that operate fluidly across the Arab world. Third, it presents a methodological case study for the growing community of researchers involved in interdisciplinary education. Together, the contributors to the book show how the interplay of politics, culture, and media across varied locations has and continues to shape emergent Arab social forms and a region on the cusp of historical and cultural change."-- Provided by publisher