Scholar Spotlight: Rima Majed
One of our favorite features returns from the holidays!
The weekly MENA Academy Scholar Spotlight returns, as we ask one of the scholars in our network a little about themselves and their work. This week: AUB’s Rima Majed!
Rima Majed is an assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut. She specializes in social mobilization and sectarianism, primarily in Lebanon but also in Iraq. She’s the co-editor (with Jeffrey Karam) of an impressive new book about the 2019 uprising in Lebanon (you’ll be hearing a lot more about that book soon!). She’s written some of the most thoughtful and incisive pieces on popular mobilization in Lebanon, placing the 2019 protest wave into a much wider theoretical and temporal lens. Her 2019 piece with Lana Salman in Middle East Report is one of my favorite early takes on those events, really capturing nicely the counter-sectarian politics of solidarity which emerged in those momentous days. She’s currently a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard. I was thrilled when she joined the POMEPS Steering Committee last year.
Learn more about Rima Majed!
What are you reading right now?
I am currently reading The Age of Counter-Revolution by Jamie Allinson. It is a great read because it shifts the debate away from the failure of the Arab uprisings to a discussion on the success of the counter-revolution. It offers a way to think of the historic events unfolding in the Arab region beyond the consequentialist approach that tamed much of the literature. The book is a theoretically rich, and it builds on a wealth of secondary sources to make the argument that we are in an age of counter-revolution.
I particularly find such work to be a breath of fresh air at a time when the historic revolutionary waves in the Arab region since 2011 (and later 2019) are stalled and the prospects for change seem too hard. This book reminds us that the field of (im-)possibilities are not only shaped by what revolutionaries do, but also - and very importantly - by what the counter-revolution looks like. In making this argument, Allinson does not diminish the heroic and historical events that took place in the region since 2011. He seriously engages with them as revolutions, and sheds light on how the counter-revolution managed, with different tactics and at several levels, to halt the revolutionary progress.
As a scholar of social movements and a participant in the Lebanon Uprising of 2019, I found Jamie Allinson’s book to be a great addition to the study of revolutions without falling in the traps of dismissing their revolutionary aspects or downplaying their importance.
What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?
The OpenDemocracy article I wrote on Oct 18, 2019, less than 24hours into the Lebanon uprising. I never thought that I will be so driven by a real life event to write. I wrote it in one go, without much editing, under a rush of emotions. As a scholar of social movements and revolutions, it felt special and weird to find myself in the middle of a revolution in my home country.
Writing during the first few months of the uprising seemed so much easier and lighter. I was driven by my lived experience, by being in the street, by wanting to make sense of the unfolding events, and by the things I knew from reading the literature and following the first wave of uprisings.
Unfortunately, this ease and clarity of writing faded away with time as the story of Lebanon unfolded in the most difficult ways possible. Today, I try to regain my love for writing by reminding myself of how joyful it was to write when our scholarly work made sense in real life beyond the walls of academia.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a book that explores the contradictions of revolution with a focus on Lebanon’s 2019 revolution and the sectarian-neoliberal structures of Lebanon’s polity and society. This project is still in early stages, but it builds on my previous work on sectarianism, political economy, and uprisings.
What’s your dream research project, and why haven't you done it yet?
To build a center for social movements study based in the Arab region that offers a space for theorization, empirical research and intellectual exchange within and beyond the region. Such a centre would be a place to grapple with big questions of social and political change in the 21st century. It would not be focused on a narrow study of protest only, but a more holistic study of social, political and economic life through the lens of contentious politics from below. This is an ambitious project that requires time dedication, teamwork, and financial resources; but I hope that it will see the light one day.
What scholar(s) besides yourself do you think is currently doing the most interesting work on MENA politics?
So many scholars doing great work! I want to start with a shout out to colleagues from the region who are producing great work despite all the difficulties. The work of Amr Adly on Egypt’s political economy, the work of Rabab El Mahdi or Dina Makram-Ebeid or Nadine Abdallah on labor and uprising in Egypt, the research of Bassel Salloukh or Jamil Mouawad on state and sectarianism in Lebanon, the ethnographies of Elizabeth Saleh or Munira Kahyyat on workers and farmers in Lebanon, the work of Sawsan Abdelrahim on forced migration and public health, the research of Abaher El Sakka on culture and development in Palestine, etc. The list is long and I don’t want to forget anyone, but I want to acknowledge the importance of these works produced under the difficult conditions of knowledge production in the region.
Of course, there are also excellent works coming out from outside the academy, mainly from independent researchers, think tanks and research centers, and often in Arabic. These too are equally important in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the region.
Specific fields that I see burgeoning with great research more recently include the study of gender in the region with great empirical and theoretical advances from scholars such as Ghassan Moussawi, Zahra Ali, Maya Mikdashi, Nermin Allam, Sara Mourad, Sophie Chamas, Layal Ftouni, etc. The conversations on political economy and uprisings in the region are also developing in interesting directions with the works of scholars such as Angela Joya, Maha AdbelRahman, Adam Hanieh, Gilbert Achcar, Joel Beinin, John Chalcraft, Joseph Daher, Hesham Sallam, Muriam Haleh Davis, Koan Boagart, Bretch De Smet, Jamie Allinson, Killian Clarke, Chantal Bearman, Ali Kadivar, Jannis, Grimm, Mandy Turner, Laleh Khalili, Miriyam Aouragh, Rafeef Ziadeh, Nada Matta, etc. Finally, I find the work of Basileous Zeno on sectarianization in Syria to be very refreshing, and I hugely appreciate the work of Lama Mourad on local governance and forced migration.
The list can go on for another 10 pages, but I will stop here and hope that we can celebrate all of the excellent research on MENA politics by building on each other’s work and enlarging the spaces for discussions and collaborations.
What’s one resource / opportunity that you wish more MENA politics scholars knew about and took advantage of?
The Palestinian Oral History Archive (POHA) at AUB, and their Nakba project (https://aub.edu.lb.libguides.com/c.php?g=342715&p=2477020). It is a brilliant collection of archive and oral histories, and it has so much to offer for anyone interested in the history and politics of Palestine or settler-colonialism more broadly.
What's your current favorite MENA pop culture thing?
I love Khateera’s videos, I’ve used many of them in the classroom when teaching about gender and sexuality in the MENA region. If you haven’t come across their work already, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@Khateera
What are the most pressing challenges for your generation of scholars?
I fear that the huge transformations taking place at universities everywhere are changing what the university as an institution and a space means in society. The neoliberalization and financialization of education means that spaces for critical thinking and labor conditions for faculty members within universities are deteriorating. I worry about the future of academia and academic knowledge production in the field of MENA politics and beyond because of the crackdown of both authoritarianism and market-tyranny.
Thank you!