Report of the Regional Consultation Workshop on Urban Rights Activism in the Arab Region

Abstract

The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut convened, on 4 July 2019, a regional consultation workshop on “Urban Rights Activism” at the American University of Beirut. This workshop is a component of AI’s project on “Transnational Social Movements in the Arab Region”. The workshop gathered about thirty academics and activists from Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and Lebanon who discussed: i) the histories and legacies of urban activism, the actors engaged in urban rights activism, and their organizational and institutional setups; ii) their frames and strategies of action, as well as their communication tools and networks; and iii) the urban as an opportunity for providing “real utopias” for activism and political change. In this report, we start by sharing the ideas and framings that guided the conceptualization and organization of the workshop, following which we provide a summary of the key themes that emerged from this day-long discussion.