5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

In this panel, five sociologists from the Arab world who have been engaged in researching the Arab uprisings in its two waves (in 2011 and 2018 /2019) reflect on how their positionalities shaped their conceptual and methodological approaches, and formed their experiences of researching the uprisings. These countries are Syria, Egypt, Morrocco, Iraq and Lebanon. Some of the key themes they will address are: a) interrogating the binary of insider and outsider, b) the relevance of auto ethnography in researching uprisings, c) navigating power dynamics in research and writing, d) the complexities of positionalities, the contradictory and temporal aspects of positionalities in relation to their research; e) navigating the tension between orientalist and anti-orientalism in their research; f) interrogating dominant scholarly and disciplinary paradigms of uprisings; and g) how they managed to address dominant views about the post-colonial state, the histories of militaries, sectarianism, nationalist discourses and counterrevolutions, especially when the latter are shaped by the baggage of history. While addressing the challenges in their ongoing research journey, they will end the panel with sharing their mistakes and the role of reflections and some of the advice for young scholars who study their own revolts and movements in the region.