Counter-Revolutions Vs. Counter-Marginalization Movements: (Re)Visiting the Online Tug-of-War a Decade After the Arab Spring

Ten years after the eruption of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, which had a wide range of eclectic outcomes, it became obvious that the transitions to democratization have been derailed in the so-called post-Arab Spring countries, with the exception of Tunisia. This presentation unpacks the complexity of the parallel surge in anti-authoritarianism resistance movements, on one hand, and repressive counter-revolutionary movements, on the other hand, in this post-Arab Spring mediated political and media environment.

Pandemics 101: Digital technologies, human values and building back better

Last year the former Italian PM Giuseppe Conte tasked former Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao with chairing a group of business experts and economists to develop a plan for Italy’s recovery from the Covid 19 pandemic.

The 121-page report, dubbed the "Colao plan", offered a roadmap for a digitalised and innovative economy, with greater gender equality and inclusion and sustainable growth.

Graduate Student Presentations - Colonialism on the Ground

Lucas de Lima Silva, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Brazil
Local-Regional relations and Colonial Villages of Indians in Dutch Brazil (1633-1654)

Michele Sollai, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva
Microcosms of colonial development: Italian and Ethiopian farmers at the crossroads of fascist empire building (1937-1941)

Between Region and Nation: Reimagining Basque Identity Within the French Nation-State, 1780-1870

The paper will explore the birth and development of an idea of region in the French Basque country in the aftermath of the French Revolution, thus countering the frequent view that regionalism, as a cultural phenomenon, was born in the late nineteenth century. It will argue both for the persistence of a specific ancien-régime style of localism in post-Revolutionary France and for the evolution of such localism into a new stereotyped regional identity.

Oxford Minds Panel Discussion - Identity: Past, present, and future transformation

The series

This term’s series explores social science’s big concepts. It examines the contested meaning and diverse application of some of the theoretical ideas that unify and challenge social scientists. It brings together the bright minds of Oxford, and high profile external speakers, to consider the range of ways in which we can think about ‘power’, ‘space’, ‘identity’, and ‘belonging’.

Religion is Secularised Tradition: Jewish and Muslim Circumcisions in Germany

This talk by Professor Lena Salaymeh is based on an article, co-authored with Shai Lavi, that is forthcoming in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. They demonstrate that the legal reasoning dominant in modern states secularises traditions by converting them into ‘religions’. Using a case study on Germany’s recent regulation of male circumcision, they illustrate that religions have (at least) three dimensions: religiosity (private belief, individual right and autonomous choice); religious law (a divinely ordained legal code); and religious groups (public threat).

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