AG68 - Saisir les mondes arabes et musulmans post-2011 : propositions analytiques et enjeux méthodologiques

Ten years after the uprisings that shook the Arab world, the time is ripe for an in-depth critical review of what has changed in our practices, methods and knowledge. Beyond the notion of merely taking stock and decreeing whether (or not) 2011 should be seen as a turning point, the aim of this workshop is to reflect on the politically-focused social sciences in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and in particular on methodological issues, challenges, obstacles and innovations in empiricism in the post-2011 context. This distance-taking implies analysing how the research community undertakes work on the region today, when access for conducting field work is hindered by violent conflict and growing authoritarianism. To better grasp these developments, participants will propose a historiography of academic studies and knowledge production on the region. A further methodological challenge is that of avoiding approaches limited to analysing the present in binary terms - revolutionary outcomes v. authoritarian restorations - or focusing on processes of mobilisation while neglecting the consequences in terms of the recomposing of the institutional field.

Responsable: Manon-Nour Tannous, Université de Reims-Champagne Ardenne, France

The cycle of mobilizations that occurred in the Arab Worlds since the end of 2010 has recently shook up the dominant perspective behind “political transitions” in contemporary political science. This cycle has led, in some cases, to multiple facetted regime changes. Drawing on the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, this paper aims at questioning the processes of transition by studying the interactions between the space of social movements and the institutionalized politics field. Then, it suggests some theoretical and methodological tools in order to better understand what Michel Dobry calls the re-composition of ‘collusive transactions’ after a political crisis (Dobry, 2009). Therefore, it shows how transitions are based on the power field's re-composition in a context where the legitimacy of the institutions and the new political regime remains fragile due to the persistence of multisectoral protests. Though the transitology perspective is fraught with rationalist and universalist presuppositions, it raises the question of how the researcher can assess the degree of completion of revolutionary outcomes: did the institutional change promised or initiated by revolutionaries take place, and if yes, to what extent?

The geographic name of the Gulf, Persian or Arabian, has famously been the subject of long-lived nationalist claims. This geopolitical divide has also deeply affected social sciences’ researches on the region. Reflecting on the historiography of the field and following a sociological approach of research institutions, this paper questions the processes through which the fields of Gulf Studies and Iranian Studies have been gradually constructed in the American and British academia. On the one hand, it focuses on retracing the asynchronous historical formations of these two sub-fields of area studies. It unpacks their progressive delination as distinct and legitimate fields, shows the tension between the two and, conversely, their convergence at times. On the other hand, based on the sociology of academic and scientific actors, it analyses the relationship between academics and other types expertise holders (from the fields of journalism, diplomacy, intelligence). Finally, looking into the political economy of research institutions (public funding and private donations of Iranian diasporic benefactors) it demonstrates how all these factors intersect to influence the political and scientific orientation of the study centers and the shifting boundaries of these fields of study.  

Syrian studies have presented a paradox since the beginning of the uprising. While security issues undermined the possibility of carrying out intensive fieldwork, the events triggered both high public demand for information on the situation and new academic interest. This presentation analyses the “new” Syrian studies that have resulted from the uprising. Objects of interest, places, approaches have all been reshaped by the tenuous relationship between the researcher, the field and the public opinion. While scholars did produce academic literature on Syria in the first decade of the twenty-first century, several aspects remained understudied, with, for example, a lack of studies of Syria’s modern history. This situation underwent major change after 2011 as Syria attracted attention. A careful analysis of the last decade in Syrian studies may help to understand how the uprising has affected research and how the new works reframe our understanding of Syria. This presentation is based on both internal and reflexive observations from time spent in different centers, interviews with members of think tanks, universities and the press, and a keyword analysis of the main search engine. Current developments on the ground frame topics and methodology in a specific way. From this perspective, we can reconstruct several sequences of research (2011-2; 2013; 2014-2016). These are accompanied by a new mapping of the knowledge produced. The Syrian crisis led other actors to become involved in the production of reports, analysis and political guidelines.