War, Violence, Displacement, Migration and Families Research Group

Eight of the 15 AFWG Core Group members have launched six projects to investigate war, violence, displacement, migration, and families. The projects focus on displaced Sudanese elites in Cairo; post-war displaced Lebanese urban poor families in Beirut; female-headed households in the aftermath of male head-of-household migration in Beirut; the politics of marriage under conditions of war and violence in Palestine; citizenship and national identity among transnational families moving between Lebanon and the United States and Canada; and kinship and business among Arab diasporic families in Michigan. These six projects focus research attention on the impact of violent disruptions on family class positions, on household heads' decision-making, on marriage and family formation, on familial political identities, and on family economies in multiple sites. Ibrahim Elnur is exploring how social classes are reshaped by migratory flows, how these changes affect knowledge between and among generation, social class, and political party. He is investigating how communication occurs within landed and online communities representing the diaspora of Sudanese elite in Egypt. Jihad Makhoul is interviewing families, mothers and daughters in Beirut to compare coping strategies among urban poor families of different ethnic and religious backgrounds and families that have moved to or within urban areas. Her work explores children's health as a result of displacements. Mona Khalaf has identified a sample of over 100 Beirut households with whom she is conducting interviews regarding the effects of male household head migration on the family. Her research focuses on the role of women prior to male migration, changes that take place when the male head-of-household is away, and further changes when the male returns. Lamis Abu Nahleh, Penny Johnson, and Annelies Moors are researching the ways in which changing political and economic conditions in Palestine have affected motivations for marriage, including marriages prompted by political activism. They will compare differences in marriages and weddings between the first and second Intifada; analyze marriages coordinated by political organizations; observe collective marriage ceremonies; interview women who choose to marry political prisoners; and compare marriages in refugee camps and prisons with those in other settings. Ray Jureidini is interviewing families who hired domestic workers at various historical periods in the 20th century to assess the changing nature of family dynamics in relationship to the changing ethnic and religious populations of domestic service in Lebanon. His project traces the demographic transformations of domestic service and their impact on family relations. Nadine Naber is interviewing and observing Arab and Arab-American store and restaurant owners and their families in Ann Arbor and Dearborn, Michigan. Her project assesses how business ownership and employment relate to family structure and dynamics, class, nationalism and assimilation.

War, Diasporas, and Reproduction of Social Class (Ibrahim Elnur)

Displaced Arab Families: Coping and Changes in Post-War Beirut (Jihad Makhoul)

Male Migration and Feminization of the Lebanese Family (Mona Khalaf)

Marriages and Movements, Weddings and Wars (Annelies Moors, Penny Johnson, Lamis Abu Nahleh)

Historical Trajectories of Domestic Workers in Lebanon (Ray Jureidini)

The Transnational Circulation of Families in a Time of War: Lebanese Border Crossings, Lebanon and Michigan, Summer 2006 (Nadine Naber)

War, Violence, Displacement, Migration and Youth Research Group

Seven of the 15 AFWG Core Group members have launched research investigations on the impact of war, violence, displacement, and migration on youth in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. The research projects focus on an historical analysis of the category of "youth" in the Arab world; the development of the ideas of civic service and charitable giving among youth leaders in Egypt; the construction of imaginaries of desire among Palestinian youth; the impact of competing national television targeting youth in the aftermath of civil war in Lebanon; the construction of the "girl child" as a problem space in modern state-building projects in Egypt; a genealogy of the transformation of family domestic service over a half-century of social disruption in Lebanon; and the shifting literary grounds on which progressive Egyptian writers represent the nation and the place of youth in the national imaginary. Omnia El Shakry is examining primary historical source material in order to analyze the shifting meanings of the category of "youth" from the 19th to the 21st century in these Arab countries. Barbara Ibrahim is conducting interviews with Arab youth at the American University in Cairo to understand the dynamics which lead to or inhibit civic service and charitable giving within and outside family systems. Ray Jureidini is interviewing Lebanese families and foreign domestic workers in Lebanon to uncover the relationships between the family members and the domestic worker over the past half-century. Eileen Kuttab is conducting focus group surveys to compare Palestinian youth with Arab youth in general to identify perceptions of desire unique to Palestinian youth as a result of extended colonial occupation. Suad Joseph is interviewing Lebanese families who have exported family members to the United States and Canada, those who want to but have not yet migrated, Lebanese who are recent migrants in the US and Canada, and Lebanese return migrants to Lebanon. Her work investigates the changes in notions of child-rearing, citizenship, civic responsibility, national identity, and family commitments. Hoda Elsadda is conducting interviews with Egyptian authors of the 1990's to investigate changes in literary representations of the youth, the nation, and the state-building project in Egypt. Martina Rieker is collecting data on the ways in which girl children are supported to or inhibited from intellectually developing and, as a consequence, the ways in which they do or do not become subjects of the modern state. With mobility, speed, and freedom as defining criteria of modern subjects, she will explore what limits exist to the production of the "girl child" as a liberal subject of Arab state-building projects. Zeina Zaatari is analyzing TV shows on three Lebanese satellite television stations to assess ways in which these TV shows, with their political persuasions, influence university-age students in post-civil war Lebanon.

A Genealogy of the Concept of Youth: Emerging Categories in Egyptian Public Discourse (Omnia El Shakry)

Pathways to Participation: Youth and Service in Egypt (Barbara Ibrahim)

Palestinian Youth: Construction of Desires and Imaginaries in Different Social Contexts (Eileen Kuttab)

Transnational Lebanese Families and Youth: Moveable Citizenship (Suad Joseph)

Representations of Gendered Relations in the Literature of the 1990s in Egypt (Hoda Elsadda)

Lebanese Youth: Public Media, Learning Desire, and the making of Young Citizens (Zeina Zaatari)

Collecting Data, Constructing Desire: The Girl Child as Problem Space (Martina Rieker)