Muwatin’s 23rd Annual Conference “Democracy in the Public Square”
Muwatin’s 23rd Annual conference will tackle question related to the future and prospects of democracy in Palestine and beyond in view of global developments and recent trends. Without neglecting issues that are popular amongst politicians including the “one” or “two” state solution, the Fatah Hamas rift or reconciliation, and the like the conference will try to delve into a debate that can help lead to answers to questions of the ambitious youth, and avoid the discourse that does not attend to proactive engagement with our future including putting an end to the prolonged occupation, unemployment, dependence, and other factors that make the future ambiguous and the horizon absent.
Conference speakers will address the neoliberal political economic reality, and its role in transforming democracy into a mere set of procedures, that frequently contradicts with such main pillars of democracy as equality, justice, and freedom. These and other questions will be tackled from a variety of perspectives engaging local and international cases and examples of marginalization and exclusion (of youth in particular), media, law, urban planning, education, the role of universities, violence, subject formation and transformation, the usurpation of the public sphere, elections, neoliberal social engineering and its impact on the Palestinian national project, questions of immigration, international solidarity, popular sovereignty, amongst other issues.
These issues will be discussed by a variety of international and local experts and academics from various backgrounds and regions, from a wide range of perspectives. The conference will leave room for the dialogue between attendants and conference speakers.
For the conference programme, list of participants, and abstracts of presentations, please use the links below.
