Economic grievances were at the heart of the Arab uprisings which erupted a decade ago. The centrality of those grievances and the workers articulating them has led to a growing research community focused on organized labor in the Middle East and North Africa. In April 2021, Dina Bishara and Ian Hartshorn convened a virtual workshop through Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations bringing together a wide range of scholars writing in the area. POMEPS then invited those participants, as well as others who had not presented papers, to participate in a follow-on workshop to continue the discussion in September 2021. The papers in this collection are one of the fruits of this increasingly robust scholarly network.
Introduction: Labor and Politics in MENA
Dina Bishara, Cornell University
Ian Hartshorn, University of Nevada, Reno
Marc Lynch, The George Washington University
Samar Abdelmageed, The British University in Egypt (BUE)
COVID-19 and Algeria’s Labor Movement
Ashley Anderson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Chantal Berman, Georgetown University
Youth and Labor Discourses in the MENA region: A Tournament of Narratives and their Implications
Nada Berrada, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Unemployed and Unaware? Communicating Labor Policy Changes to the Saudi Workforce
Ahmad Binobaid, King Saud University
Jonas Draege, Oslo New University College
Andrew Leber, Harvard University
The Case of Turkish Labor Mediation: Disenfranchising the Workers
Doga Eralp, American University
The emergence of labour market outsiders among GCC citizens
Steffen Hertog, London School of Economics
The Landscape of Labor Protest in Jordan: Between State Repression and Popular Solidarity
Matthew Lacouture, University of Chicago
Amal Mowafy, USAID Scholars Activity, The American University of Cairo (AUC)
AbdelRahman Nagy, Sawiris Foundation for Social Development
The Many Leverages of Tunisian Labor
Ahmad Al-Sholi, Stony Brook University
To regulate or not to regulate? Jordan’s approach to digital ride-hailing platform Careem
Tina Zintl, German Development Institute (DIE)