FRAMINGS: RETHINKING ARAB FAMILY PROJECTS i Copyright Page Copyright by the Arab Families Working Group ii FRAMINGS: RETHINKING ARAB FAMILY PROJECTS THE ARAB FAMILIES WORKING GROUP VOLUME I iii Dedication Page iv Table of Contents Preface (viii) Acknowledgements (xi) Arab Families Working Group (xvi) Arab Families Core Group Members (xvi) AFWG Core Member Biographies (xvii) Affiliates of the Arab Families Working Group (xxvii) Research Assistants (xxviii) Part One: 1. Introduction: The Arab Families Working Group Suad Joseph and Martina Rieker (1) Part Two: Research Projects 2. Public Discourse a. Introduction: Families in Public Discourse Annelies Moors (31) b. Law and Public Policy Penny Johnson and Annelies Moors. (48) c. Education and Public Discourse Penny Johnson, Barbara Ibrahim and Zeina Zaatari (65) d. Mass Mediated Public Discourse: Constructing the Family and Youth Omnia El Shakry and Annelies Moors (92) v 3. Border Crossing a. Diasporas, Border Crossings and the Flexible Boundaries of Arab Families Nadine Naber, Ray Jureidini, Ibrahim El Nur and Eileen Kuttab (118) b. New Forms of Forced Migration, Expulsion and Displacement: The Palestinian Case Eileen Kuttab (149) 4. Producing Modern Families Through Data Martina Rieker, Barbara Ibrahim, Penny Johnson and Annelies Moors (177) Part Three: Literature Reviews Context to Literature Reviews Penny Johnson and Zeina Zaatari (210) 5. Literature Review: Egyptian Families Sherine Hafez and Rania Salem with Alyce Abdalla (212) 6. Comparative Analysis of Research on Family in Lebanon Zeina Zaatari (252) 7. Thinking About Palestinian Families: Foundations, Ruptures, New Directions Penny Johnson and Lamis Abu Nahleh (297) Part Four: The Arab Families Working Group Project Suad Joseph (327) Part Five: Bibliography of Arab Families Introduction and Methodology vi Zeina Zaatari and Fawn Scheer (347) a. Sources in English (355) b. Sources in French (486) c. Sources in German (494) d. Sources in Arabic (496) Index (520) Compiled by Zeina Zaatari and Fawn Scheer with Hania Subhi, Ghalia Gargani, Kathleen Juten, Kathryn Quanbeck, Nahla Zarroug, Randa Osman, Rania Salem, Sarah Sadek, and Tonia Rifaey. vii Preface The Arab Families Working Group, formally launched in May 2001, is a collective of fifteen scholars who carry out research on families and youth in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and their diasporas. AFWG was organized to develop interdisciplinary, comparative, and collaborative theories and methods to frame new paradigms for the study of Arab families and youth. AFWG began with twenty-four members. Over time, several members could not continue their work with AFWG and a couple of new members were invited to join. The membership of AFWG stabilized at fifteen in 2004. AFWG is a dynamic, continually growing research collective which redefines itself and its field of study as it learns more about both the subject of study and the work of interdisciplinary, comparative and collaborative research. Part IV of this volume gives a brief outline of some of AFWG’s organizational evolution. Here I summarize the brief outline of this intellectual journey to situate Volume I of the AFWG project. This book represents the theoretical framings which emerged in the first three years of the Arab Families Working Group project, which we have called Phase I (2001-2004). Phase I consisted of two or three meetings a year in which we critically examined the state of the literature, the key paradigms, and the methodological choices strategically deployed to study Arab families over the previous half century. We spent considerable time thinking through the work of a collaborative project crossing a dozen disciplines, covering three countries, which brought together scholars, many of whom did not know each other. The work focused on developing frameworks for analysis. From this framing we organized our work around two key project groups: Public Discourse and Youth (Chapter 2) Research Project Group and the Border viii Crossings Research Project Group (Chapter 3) along with a subsidiary project of the Public Discourse Group – the National Data Project Group (Chapter 4). During Phase II of the AFWG project (2004-2007), we generated the initial contours of what evolved into thirteen empirical research projects to be carried out by the fifteen Core Group members in the three countries and their diasporas. The projects changed as we debated and critiqued individual and collective proposals. Preliminary research for these thirteen projects was carried out during Phase II. As we immersed ourselves in the empirical projects, it became clear that the actual research we were pursuing crossed the boundaries of our research project groups so much so that we found it far more productive to return to our work in the Core Group as a whole, rather than working through the smaller research project groups. We dissolved the project groups and integrated their work back into the Core Group. Phase II of the AFWG project represents the transition between the initial formulation of research groups and the reintegration of the projects into the Core Group. The results of Phase II empirical research are now being submitted as two special issues of two different journals. Phase III of the AFWG Project (2007-2011) focuses on in-depth data gathering on the thirteen empirical projects. We plan for Phase III research to generate Volume II of the AFWG edited series. Phase III has already begun to generate subsidiary research projects from the initial thirteen. This could lead to Phase IV of the AFWG project in the following years. Each of the chapters in the volume is the result of collaborative efforts even when it is written by one author. Other collective members often read and commented at different versions of the chapters and provided input and critical feedback to the authors. Volume I took on a life of its own -- writing, rewriting, and reformulating the AFWG research project. The process of writing co-authored chapters was challenging yet exciting. Most of the chapters were written ix with several authors contributing to different sections and to the critical revisions. Once the chapters were done, they were reviewed for editing and formatting. Chapters were sent back to authors or team leaders for additional questions and comments. Two final rounds of edits were conducted. The table of contents and the arrangements of the chapters changed over time as well with continuous feedback from Core Group members. The Part One gestures towards the work that has been done and needs to be done to reframe research on Arab families. Part Two presents the conceptual framework of our shared engagement with theoretical and ethnographic material on Arab families. Chapter 2, in Part Two, is the product of the Public Discourse and Youth whose theoretical tools and the analytical spaces of law, public policy, education, and media are still constitutive of our research projects. Chapter 3 represents the work of Border Crossings project which looked at movements across national, ethnic, and regional borders and across public and private spheres. Chapter 4 focuses on the making of families through statistical analysis, a very popular tool of population studies. Part Three, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 examine the trends in research and analysis in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. Part Four, the final Chapter 8 offers a brief organizational genealogy of the AFWG research project. Suad Joseph Coordinator, Arab Families Working Group x Acknowledgements The Arab Families Working Group is the outcome of the work and support of many people and institutions. There are more people to thank can be thanked in these pages. We are grateful to Hoda Rashad, Director of the Social Research Council of the American University of Cairo for offering the first funding that allowed AFWG to leverage additional funding. Leila Bisharat, Representative, Cairo UNICEF, matched the funds offered by AUC’s SRC. Barbara Ibrahim, Representative, Cairo Population Council also matched the funds then, Ibrahim ElNur of the Cairo Population Council offered AFWG the first large grant. Dina Craissati, Cairo office of the International Development Research Center added to the sum. These grants allowed AFWG to hire our first research assistant and hold its first meeting in May 2001 in Cairo. We are additionally grateful to Hoda Rashad for allowing AFWG to hold numerous Core Group meetings at the Social Research Council seminar room. Provost Tim Sullivan of AUC has given AFWG offices at AUC since 2001, allowed us to funnel our first grants through AUC, to host our website on AUC’s servers, to use libraries and other facilities. He continued to support AFWG throughout his tenure as Provost, until he retired in 2008. AUC President John Gerhart was also a very strong AFWG supporter, as has been current AUC President David Arnold. Raising funds was always time consuming and crucial. The Population Council offered the first significant funding and continued to fund AFWG for several years, including allow us to use their offices for one of our Core Group meetings and releasing their staff to assist in the organizational and financial arrangements which needed to be made. At the Population Council, xi AFWG is especially grateful to Barbara Ibrahim, Representative, Cairo office at that time, and Ibrahim Elnur, Director of the Middle East Awards Program at that time. Population Coucnil staff Moushira Elgiziri and Nahed Sakr worked above and beyond the call of duty to support AFWG. AFWG is deeply grateful to the International Development Research Council, Ottawa, for four grants which have underwritten the bulk of AFWG’s work. We are especially grateful to IDRC program officers Pamela Scholey, Emma Naughton, Eileen Alma, Rawwida Baksh, and their staff for continued support. The work would not have been possible without their guidance and commitment. Ford Foundation has been critical to the AFWG project, supporting us with two grants. Emma Playfair and Dina ElKhawaga and their staff brought vision and perspective to our project.