Mayssun Succarie

Wednesday, 13 January 2016, 5.00 pm - 6.30 pm |
Forum Transregionale Studien, Wallotstr. 14, 14193 Berlin

The Rise of Young Arab Leaders: Elite Forms of Pan Arab Organizing in the Twenty-First Century


Mayssun Succarie

(King’s College London / Affiliated EUME Fellow 2015/2016)

Chair: Nadine Abdalla
(Kairo / EUME Fellow 2015/2016)   

Abstract
In this talk Succarie will present an in-depth analysis of the Young Arab Leaders (YAL), which was formed in 2005 and is headquarted in Dubai. This form of pan-Arab youth organizing, which brought together and promoted the rise of youthful leaders (most of whom were in their 30s and 40s) in both the state and private sector, was pivotal and foundational for other forms of youth organizing that proliferated in the region during this period. Like other forms of youth organizing in the region, namely global NGOs as well as local youth organizing groups, it is intimately connected to a vast network of global institutions and personal associations. Since the organization is projected as representative of the “transnational global elite” in the Arab world, the talk will critically reflect on the local meaning and significance of this concept.

Mayssun Succarie received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009, and a MA and BA from the American University of Beirut. Since then she has lectured in anthropology and development studies in universities around the Arab region (American University of Beirut; American University of Cairo) and the United States (Columbia & Brown Universities). Her research interests focus on youth, education, development and social movements in the Arab region, with a particular interest in studying the political, economic, cultural and social structures and processes that tie the region in complex and contradictory ways to the larger global political economy. Her first book, Youth Rising? The Politics of Youth in the Global Economy (co-authored with Stuart Tannock) was published in 2015 by Routledge's Critical Youth Studies series. In 2015, she started teaching at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London.

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