Spaces of Participation

Randa Aboubakr is a professor of English and comparative literature at Cairo University.Sarah Jurkiewicz is a post-doc researcher and research coordinator of the “Spaces of Participation” and the “Liminal Spaces” project at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.Hicham Ait-Mansour is associate professor of sociology at Mohamed V University in Rabat, Morocco. He is an associate member of the Arab Council for Social Sciences.Ulrike Freitag is a historian of the modern Middle East specialized in the history of the Arabian Peninsula in its translocal context, the director of the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, and professor of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.

• Notes on TransliterationIntroductionRanda Aboubakr, Sarah Jurkiewicz, Hicham Ait-Mansour, and Ulrike FreitagPart I Rethinking Participation in Formal and Informal SpacesProtests as a Space for Contentious Politics and Political Learning among Youth in Morocco: The Case of Mohamed V Avenue in RabatHicham Ait-MansourThe Concept of Participation in Cairo’s Unplanned AreasAzzurra SarnataroCitizen Collectives in Post-2011 Egypt: Contestation MechanismsMona KhalilInterstitial Spaces and Controlled Participation: The Youth Center of Hay Mohammadi during the Years of Lead in MoroccoYasmine BerrianeParticipation in Spaces of Exile: The Making of Change in a Palestinian Refugee Camp in the West BankDorota Woroniecka-KrzyżanowskaPart II Reconfiguring Space through ContestationThe Challenge of Reconstructing Public Space: The Case of Mohamed V AvenueMokhtar El Harras and Youness BenmouroThe Muslim Brotherhood and the Creation of Spectacles in Nasr CityMai AyyadTopographies of the Discourse of Resistance in the Public Sphere: A Case Study of the Activists of the February 20 MovementMouloud AmgharPart III Alternative Spaces of Cultural ProductionMock Translation as Sociopolitical Commentary in the Egyptian Digital SphereRanda AboubakrSpaces of Culture in Casablanca: Isles of Creativity in an Often-hostile OceanFadma Aït MousPart IV Space Reclamation and Cultural ActivismCultural Heterotopias and the Making of the PoliticalYazid AnaniGenius Loci: The Spirit of the PlaceRenad ShqeiratCulturepreneurship and Reclaiming Urban Space in Kuwait CitySarah Jurkiewicz

“From art spaces to sports clubs to community gardens to digital realms—the contributors draw our attention to how different groups across the Middle East ascribe social and political meaning to the multiple heterotopic landscapes they inhabit, contest, (re)claim, and indeed produce through participatory practices. The editors have done a wonderful job of bringing together what might seem to be quite different and unrelated case studies (from Cairo to Kuwait to Rabat to the West Bank) in an integrated, innovative, interdisciplinary, and highly readable collection.”—Farah Al-Nakib, California Polytechnic State University"An engaged and engaging volume, showcasing firsthand ethnographic and interdisciplinary research on the intersection between space and participatory practices across the Arab world. Through varied and empirically rich case studies this collection of essays shows how space (both physical and virtual) is made operational through lived action, and how activism and academia can be combined subtly and fruitfully."—Nelida Fuccaro, New York University Abu Dhabi