Family Matters: Theorizing State and Family in the Arab Region

The family remains one of the critical social institutions in the Arab world, and yet it is highly under-theorized. Most particularly, there is a relative under-theorization of the relationship between family and state – the two leading, competitive, and co-constitutive central social institutions of the Arab region. This lecture addresses how culturally situated notions of "self," "rights," and "citizenship" play out in the context of different political regimes and in the context of the pressures and processes of globalization. The lecture also provides an overview of the empirical work conducted by the Arab Families Working Group and a recent state of the art critical review of family studies scholarship in the Arab region. 

Simultaneous Arabic interpretation will be provided.