roundtables

 

Developing Critical Security Studies From Doha

In this roundtable, participants in the Critical Security Studies Hub at The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University Qatar (#IAS_NUQ) – a partnership between IAS and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) that is also known as the Qatar Hub – reflect on the meanings of security and insecurity from a multiplicity of perspectives, thoughts, traditions, and disciplines. Drawing on critical approaches within border studies, migration studies, legal studies, youth studies, and feminist studies, the essays in this roundtable challenge the way we normally conceive of and understand security frames and questions.

 

Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Palestine: Revisited (2023)

In light of the genocidal war and mass destruction caused by the Israeli military in their assault on the Gaza Strip since October 7th, 2023, we have decided to republish a series of essays, first published in 2019, originally in the context of Gaza’s “Great March of Return” demonstrations. The series of essays, titled “Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Palestine” discusses and questions the usefulness of the R2P doctrine for Palestine. The events of the recent weeks, including the scale of the violence, massive displacements, and use of ignominious dehumanizing language by Israeli representatives now unequivocally confirm that Palestinians are either subject to or at immediate risk of being subjected to all four types of international crimes that the R2P doctrine was supposed to protect them from.

 

Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Palestine (2019)

As Palestinians commemorate the Nakba’s seventy-first anniversary amidst particularly violent Israeli reactions to the ongoing Great March of Return, this virtual roundtable brings together a number of scholars, activists, practitioners, and legal experts with longstanding commitment to justice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to discuss the applicability, usefulness (or lack thereof) and overall significance of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine for Palestine.

This roundtable is a first in a series of virtual roundtables organized by the Beirut School for Critical Security Studies. Our goal is for these roundtables to serve as platforms for exchange and discussion.

 

Regionalisms and New Regional Dynamics

 The ‘New Regionalisms Working Group’ of the Arab Council for Social Sciences held an online workshop on 27 March to discuss themes raised by Adam Hanieh’s working paper on ‘Space, Scale, and Region: Thinking Through the New Dynamics of the Middle East’. The workshop was attended by 20 invited participants from the Middle East, North America, Europe, and Asia.