Randa Aboubakr, Sarah Jurkiewicz, Hicham Ait-Mansour, and Ulrike Freitag, Eds. Spaces of Participation: Dynamics of Social and Political Change in the Arab World (Cairo, New York: The American University of Cairo Press, 2021). Pp. 302, 25 b&w illus. $78.67 hardcover. ISBN: 101617979899.

Abstract

Where do people meet, form relations of trust, and begin debating social and politicalissues? Where do social movements start? In this fascinating collection, scholars andactivists from a wealth of disciplinary backgrounds, including sociology, anthropology,history, and political science, take a fresh look at these questions and the factorsleading to political and social change in the Arab world from a spatial perspective.Based on original field work in Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, and Palestine, Spaces of Participation connects and reconnects social, cultural, and political participation withurban space. It explores timely themes such as formal and informal spaces of participation, alternative spaces of cultural production, space reclamation, and culturalactivism, and the reconfiguring of space through different types of contestation. Italso covers a range of spaces that include sports clubs, arts centers, and sites of protest and resistance, as well as virtual spaces such as social media platforms, in theprocess of examining the relationships and tensions between physical and virtualspace.