The study of urban politics and space in the Arab world continues to gain interest among scholars with different interdisciplinary backgrounds and experiences. In their work, they apply diverse social science and critical urban studies approaches to understand some of the dramatic changes affecting cities across the region. 

Many of the cities and public spaces in the region share common historical, cultural, socio-economic, and political organizational structures. However, the changing nature of domestic politics, neoliberal economic pressures as well as growing acute inequalities, civil strife and aggravating environmental conditions are profoundly transforming their built environments.

The Arab Political Science Network (APSN) and The Beirut Urban Lab (BUL) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) organised a webinar focusing on the latest research and developments in the study of urban politics and space. The invited scholars discussed research focusing on the resilient and changing dynamics and configurations of power in cities and built environments of the Arab region. They also reflected on questions of power and contestation, representation, and appropriation of urban space among other issues. 

Note: This event was held in English. The playlist is translated into Arabic.

Infrastructures are an insignia of modernity. They provide the architecture for circulation of good, utilities, resources, and they also facilitate the connection of people, societies, and places across the globe. Infrastructures are generating the conditions in which everyday life unfolds. Through infrastructure imperial powers have integrated the Global South into the Global world economy. International relations, trade, and war are often animated by infrastructures, which remain crucial to contemporary geo-economic domination in the Global South. Scholars of Philosophy, Science and Technology Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, and Geography have examined how infrastructures are imbricated in social relationships, and by extension in politics and economics. Their findings are raising critical questions about actors and agency in a physical world, the perils and promise of infrastructure, and interlinkage of affects and materials.

To explore this concept further, the Arab Political Science Network (APSN) organized a webinar to discuss the growing interdisciplinary work linking the role of infrastructure to political and economic policies in the Global South. The event featured experts from the Infrastructure, International Politics and Everyday life in the Horn of Africa project that examines transregional relationships between the Arabian Gulf and the Horn of Africa through the lens of port infrastructures and transport corridors in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Note: This event was held in English. The playlist is translated into Arabic.

How do scholars of political science in Africa teach the discipline? What are the main research agendas or topics that interest African scholars and how are they tackled around the continent? In this webinar, the panelists shed light on the interests, priorities, and challenges facing political science research and teaching in/on Africa. In a much challenging political, economic, and social climate that engulfs different countries across the continent, this discussion comes as an opportunity to reconnect with the discipline and one another.

The webinar examined how Africa is situated within global political science debates while exploring opportunities for decolonizing the discipline and offering new voices and approaches.

This webinar was organized by the Arab Political Science Network in collaboration with the African Association of Political Science.