Report of the Consultation Workshop on Anti-Globalization Transnational Social Movement in the Arab Region

Abstract

The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut convened on January 23, 2019 a consultation workshop on “The Future of Anti- Globalization Social Movements in the Arab Region” in Beirut. This workshop gathered a number of academics and activists in civil society (around 20 participants) from several Arab countries, including Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and Lebanon. This intensive convening aimed to reminisce experiences that would serve in conducting a comparative analysis on Arab countries in the past three decades, especially in the aftermath of the Arab revolutions and the profound turmoil they have brought at the national and regional levels, in parallel with the dramatic changes in the global political and economic order. This entailed combining the field experiences, findings, and insights of two distinct groups: activists working in the arenas of civil society and social movements, and academics. Whereas the former group is predominantly preoccupied with public affairs and issues of democratization, civil freedoms, social justice, labour rights, and marginalization, the latter works on the same issues but from a more theoretical perspective and a lens that is more generic and capturing of the comparability at the international level.