This is part of the MENA Politics Newsletter, Volume 2, Issue 2, Fall 2019. Download the PDF of the full issue here.
Hello from APSA’s Department of International Programs.
First, we want to congratulate the MENA Politics Organized Section on an impressive first year of activity! This is a great time for MENA Politics at APSA—we are excited to announce that APSA’s grant from CCNY has been renewed for two more years, which will enable us to continue our MENA Programing with a growing community of MENA scholars in and outside the region. Over the past summer, the APSA held the first part of the 2019 MENA Workshop in Abu Dhabi; extended our partnerships with political science departments at Cairo University and the American University of Cairo to support graduate students and faculty; and collaborated with the MENA Politics section and POMEPS to organize a Research Development Group at the APSA Annual Meeting in Washington DC. In addition, we have open calls for exciting opportunities that we hope you can disseminate among your contacts and networks.
This year’s APSA MENA Workshops, which are the 6th in our series of annual workshops in the Arab Middle East and North Africa, focused on “Women and Politics: MENA Experiences.” The program began with a one-week program at the New York University-Abu Dhabi, UAE from June 9-13, and culminated with a second week in Rabat, Morocco from October 14-18. Across both weeks, fellows discussed readings and shared experiences connected with the workshop themes. They also received feedback on research manuscripts, attended professional development sessions, and heard from guest speakers from government and civil society. Following this workshop, alumni received 3 years membership to APSA and the MENA Politics Organized Section.
Starting in 2020, the MENA workshops will run as a single 7-day workshop with follow up programming at the APSA annual meeting. We are currently reviewing the final applications and the selected team will be announced before end of November.
Over the next two years APSA will continue its collaboration with CQMR and ICPSR to support scholars based in Arab MENA countries in undertaking rigorous training in qualitative and quantitative methods. Currently, we have an open call for applications for the IQMR summer program taking place in June 2020 in Syracuse, NY. The deadline is December 12, 2019. Similarly, we are finalizing a call for participation at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) summer program, taking place in June and July 2020 at Michigan University.
The departmental collaboration initiative continues to attract interest from faculty members and departments at Arab Universities. APSA is renewing its collaboration with departments at Cairo University and the American University in Cairo (AUC) to offer graduate students and faculty members advanced methodological training in areas such as using R, conducting interviews, doing archival research, as well as organizing dissertation writing workshops and seminars on creative teaching techniques for early career faculty. We are also in discussions with Alexandria University and Birzeit University for new programming.
The Arab Political Science Network (APSN) organized a roundtable at APSA’s annual meeting to discuss the interests, challenges and priorities of MENA-based scholars of political science. APSN will be hosting an information session and a panel at MESA in New Orleans on Friday November 15. All MESA attendees are welcome to attend both events. In addition, APSN is soliciting applications from PhD students and junior faculty in the Arab world for the 2020 Research Development Workshop on Citizenship, Legal Status and the State in the MENA. Deadline for applications is January 10, 2020. The Network is also offering conference travel grants for individual paper and full panels. Deadlines are January 16, 2020 and June 18, 2020 respectively.
Finally, the call for papers and panels for the 2020 APSA annual meeting in San Francisco is currently open. We look forward to collaborating with the MENA Politics section to offer travel grants for up to 6 early-career Arab scholars attending the MENA Research Development Group (RDG). The RDG is an annual event organized by the MENA Politics organized section featuring a full day of research feedback and professional development discussions that take place the day before the APSA annual meeting.
If you are interested in the learning more or getting involved with the APSA MENA Project, please contact us at menaworkshops@apsanet.org.
Best to all in the coming months and stay well!
Ahmed Morsy and Andrew Stinson
APSA MENA Project
menaworkshops@apsanet.org