On the Edge: Post-Conflict Political Generations of Women and Youth Activists in the ‘Second Wave’ of the Arab Spring

Abstract

The mass popular mobilizations calling for radical regime change in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq in 2019 were billed the ‘Second Wave’ of the Arab Spring. The use of the same framing device for calls to collective action and protestors’ efforts to inscribe their actions in the precedent of 2011, lends credence to the idea of social movement diffusion. Yet this reading takes an ahistorical perspective that fails to consider how previous cycles of popular contention differed markedly in the countries under study, and how these in turn shaped distinct mobilization dynamics. The panel proposes to use the historical trajectories of the four countries to investigate the impact on the political subjectivities of women and youth activists and how these informed the ideational, organizational, and strategic dimension of their activism. This is accomplished through a theoretical framework consisting of two prisms of analysis that draws on the concepts of governmentality and political generation. First, the papers situate the investigation in the post-conflict nature of Algeria, Sudan, and Iraq and post-war state consolidation through the governmentality of women and youth. They will investigate institutional and punitive mechanisms for the governance of women and youth and how these shaped political subjectivities to craft the citizens required by the reconfigured state. Second, the papers place the 2019 uprisings in a longer timeframe of contention, taking into consideration previous cycles of mass mobilization and their impact on the formation of political generations. This includes specific investigation of intergenerational power dynamics alongside political learning processes that informed the modes of collective action and the meanings ascribed therein among the 2019 activists. This dual lens reveals an activism of women and youth in these uprisings that was collectively understood as ‘on the edge’. Their activism pushed the boundaries of acceptable modes of contention and engagement without crossing into full-on civil strife. Simultaneously, their activism created a new frontier for understanding intersectionality where activists go beyond the tropes of ‘womanhood’ and ‘youthhood’ as imposed by the post-conflict state. The panel consists of four papers, one from each of the countries of the ‘second wave’ of the Arab Spring and draws on original data sets and new rounds of fieldwork.

Title	Details
Women, Protest and Backlash: Igniting Feminist Mobilization in Sudan	View Paper Details
Disrupted Youthhood, Ruptured Youth: Post- Conflict Social Imaginaries and Diverging Mobilization Dynamics among Iraqi Youth	View Paper Details
The Role, Experiences and Challenges of Female Politicians during and after the Algerian Hirak	View Paper Details
Of Tishreen and Its Symbols: Women in Protest	View Paper Details