The conference will be held in English and Arabic and take place online via Zoom
on 11 and 12 of May 2022
2pm – 6:15 pm, Central European Time.
3pm – 7:15 pm Lebanon, Syria and Palestine time.
Initiated by social movements, the revolts in the Arab world over the last decade have reinforced the relevance of inclusive political systems based on fundamental socio-economic rights. Given the massive material and immaterial destruction, the unprecedented levels of war crimes and forced displacements societies in some Arab countries are confronted with, it comes as no surprise that the initial hopes of creating just and sustained processes to overcome authoritarianism, poverty, and imperial interventions have diminished. Furthermore, Israeli dominance on the Palestinian society in its different localities appears to be as strong as ever. However, cycles of mobilization and protests continue albeit under fundamentally changed circumstances.
In countries subject to counterrevolutions, the space for dissent has diminished to levels lower than they were prior to the conflict. In addition, the analytical confusion about conflict dynamics has made it clear that protests and uprisings in conflict zones under overall imperial conditions cannot be adequately analyzed by adopting mainstream research strategies, tools and epistemologies. Researching back by innovatively creating transformative epistemologies and methodologies has thus become one of the fundamental challenges for KnowWar.
Against this background and based on reconfiguring solidarities in conflict and war zones, the research project KnowWar rests on the following pillars:
- To research on solidarities in and between marginalized Syrian, Palestinian, and Lebanese communities in Lebanon,
- to work out a concept of solidarity economy under conditions of armed conflict in Syria and colonial occupation in Palestine, and
- to conceptualize epistemologies for transformative research strategies.
At this final online conference, we will discuss our initial research results and explore possible pathways for the future.
To attend the online conference, please register here
Conference program:
