In 2011, Arab youth took to the streets in their thousands to demand their freedom. Although it is too early to speculate on the ultimate outcome of the uprisings, one auspicious feature stands out: they reveal the genesis of a new generation sparked by the desire for civil liberties, advocacy for human rights, and participatory democracy. This unique volume explores some of the antecedents of the upheavals and anticipates alternative venues of resistance that marginalized youth - from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine to Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iran - can mobilize to realize their emancipatory expectations. Themes covered include the forging of meaningful collective identities in times of risk and uncertainty; youth militancy, neighborhood violence and youth gangs; the surge of youthful activism; and youths' expressive outlets through popular arts and street music.

An anthology of contributions from eleven renowned specialists in the field who deal with topics that effect Arab youth in the Middle East the most, such as demographic growth, rising unemployment, and the difficult prospects of their future. Apart from studies on violence and youth in the Algerian civil war, the book offers new insights into generational conflicts and attempts by contemporary youth to overcome their alienation by creating their own eclectic cultural solutions to the problems of tradition and modernity. The book is based on the latest research and opinion surveys held in different Arab countries.

An anthology of contributions from eleven renowned specialists in the field who deal with topics that effect Arab youth in the Middle East the most, such as demographic growth, rising unemployment, and the difficult prospects of their future. Apart from studies on violence and youth in the Algerian civil war, the book offers new insights into generational conflicts and attempts by contemporary youth to overcome their alienation by creating their own eclectic cultural solutions to the problems of tradition and modernity. The book is based on the latest research and opinion surveys held in different Arab countries.

Young Arabs are too often reduced to the figures of the potential terrorist, the migrant or the exotic icon of the revolution. But the reality is much richer. Coming from both sides of the Mediterranean, the researchers in this book travel off the beaten track by exploring how young Arabs spend their free time. The case studies take in a wide range of countries, including Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and all manner of activities, from football to rap music, café culture to sex work. Drawn with sensitivity and humour, Arab youths presents an exceptional portrait of a generation that is much talked about but rarely listened to. This book gives a voice to young men and women who, as heirs of plural traditions, animated by new ideas and influenced by various cultural movements, are inventing the future of their societies in the midst of radical change.

In the West, news about the Middle East is dominated by an endless stream of reports and commentary about civil war, sectarian violence, religious extremism, and economic stagnation. But do they tell the full story? For instance, who knew that university enrolment in the war-torn Palestinian territories exceeds that of Hong Kong, or that more than a third of Lebanese entrepreneurs are women? Change is on its way in the Middle East, argues Bessma Momani, and its cause is demographic. Today, one in five Arabs is between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Young, optimistic, and increasingly cosmopolitan, their generation will shape the region’s future. Drawing on interviews, surveys, and other research conducted with young people in fifteen countries across the Arab world, Momani describes the passion for entrepreneurship, reform, and equality among Arab youth. With insightful political analysis based on the latest statistics and first-hand accounts, Arab Dawn is an invigorating study of the Arab world and the transformative power of youth.

The 2011 Arab uprisings led to a great proliferation of studies on the situations in the Arab countries of the Mediterranean, with particular attention given to their young people, whose role was particularly central. Eight years on, in-depth exploration is still needed of the conditions in which millions of (mainly young) people demanded change. In this context, this volume examines the state and diversity of the forms of socioeconomic, political and cultural marginalization facing the region's young men and women, as well as the strategies and routes of contestation by which they escape them. Through the interdisciplinary empiricism of this book, based on the results emerging from the SAHWA Project (funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, grant agreement n° 613174), we aspire to build a complex description and analysis of the current situation of the Arab Mediterranean youth. The aim is to fathom out young people's patterns, agency and living conditions, focusing on the relational character of the juvenile worlds actively constructed by themselves. The authors explore the main trends that are reflected in the social strategies, cultural constructions and changes within the Arab youth population, and whether the creation of new lifestyles and the emergence of youth cultures are an indicator of sociopolitical transitions. To answer all these questions the researchers have conducted a comprehensive study in five Arab Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. Based on mixed method research the data collection is composed of two primary sources: the SAHWA Youth Survey 2016 (2017), in which 10,000 young people were interviewed; and the SAHWA Ethnographic Fieldwork 2015, involving more than 200 young people.

What is 'Arab' about Arab subcultures? This is the first book to set out to delineate different ways of studying and theorising Arab subcultural groups and practices, including film, graffiti, music, live art performances, Arab techies and youth cultures. Contributors tackle a number of questions including: How is the study of Arab subcultures to be theorised? How are we to analyse such creative processes in a new worldliness characterised by trans-temporality and trans-subjectivity? Arab Subcultures effectively opens up a critical and interdisciplinary dialogue about Arab subcultures with different fields of enquiry, including anthropology, philosophy, art criticism and cultural studies, at the heart of which lies the key intellectual task of re-imagining the uneasy relation between aesthetics and politics in the age of revolutions.