As-Tsaqafah (Islamic socialization) in planning public spaces – Malaysian experience

Of late it is noticeable that public spaces have considerably become a significant element in urban fabric as it relates very much with the quality of life of community. A meaningful planning and design of public spaces is crucial as it encourages positive activities for communities to make it more active and lively. Public spaces like parks, pocket gardens, outdoor seating and eating areas, and pedestrian malls are among the trend of this contemporary era among city dwellers globally. Unfortunately, most of the current ideas of planning and designing the public spaces are simply focused to provide spaces for people to do their leisure without respect to Islamic human moral and behavior. Thus, this paper addresses the importance of incorporating the element of as-tsaqafah (Islamic socialization) in planning public spaces. The Islamic perspective is far different from the Western adaptation and modernity style in the social activities. The issues of the right of women, children, family law, security, privacy and gender relationship are seldom being considered and observed in planning public spaces. As such, this paper discusses this issue in the context of Malaysian experiences. Observation on the selected case study was undertaken and analysis indicates that the element of as-tsaqafah is not a priority in planning and design public spaces. It is hoped that this paper could promote some Islamic values and approaches in planning public spaces, taking into consideration the importance of as-tsaqafah values

Inter-Community Cooperation in Ethnically Plural Societies. Shi`i-Maronite Relations and the Alliance between the Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah in Lebanon

At the intersection of political science, history and social anthropology, this dissertation asks for the givens and conditions of inter-communal cooperation in the ethnically-plural setting of Lebanon. It explores the social base of the party alliance between the mainly Maronite Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and the Shi`i Muslim Hizbullah (“Party of God”), which began in 2006, upon their leaders signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). It analyzes the formation of this alliance against the historical background of Maronite-Shi`i relations in the area of modern Lebanon since the late 7th century, portrays its development and effects and reconstructs the social microstructure and the motives of supporters. The core period of investigation extends from May 2005 until May 2018, covering the time of the FPM-Hizbullah alliance (including the preceding phase of consultations) up until the 2018 Lebanese general elections (including their immediate aftermath). As of the 1960s, Shi`i actors gradually created a new Lebanese national narrative that countered the prevailing Maronite centered nationalist discourse. After the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90), this included especially Hizbullah. With the Syrian army present in huge parts of the country, the power relations had, for the first time in modern Lebanon, shifted in favor of the Shi`i community. Now, their counter-hegemonic activism received both Syrian and official Lebanese support. The formerly privileged Maronite community now comprised most opposition and thus experienced the exact opposite scenario. Since the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, however, the self-styled secular Christians of the FPM – notorious for their staunch opposition to Syrian tutelage – and the “pro-Syrian” armed Islamists of Hizbullah formed a previously unthinkable alliance that groups together huge sections of the Lebanese Shi`a and Maronites alongside other Christians. It withstood the storms of the 2006 July War (Israel vs. Hizbullah/ Lebanon) and the spillover effects of the civil war in neighboring Syria (2011–) in which Hizbullah is openly involved since 2013. This requires us to rethink notions, depicting inter-community relations in the region as a pervasive zero-sum game of sectarian make-up. This dissertation argues that the alliance that came about in the wake of the MoU is neither a mere opportunist elite project, as the grassroots have an important share in it, nor can it be explained exclusively in terms of a “minority alliance,” as multiple shared interests, common values and needs of the participating constituencies play an important role. The outcomes it yielded on the inter-communal and inter-personal levels moreover challenge persistent assumptions about the conflict-prone coexistence of religious communities in Lebanon and in the wider Middle East. In fact, the simultaneous belonging of the FPM´s and Hizbullah´s core constituencies to different religions and diverging socio-cultural milieus did neither pose principal obstacles to the parties´ close political cooperation nor to their bases´ progressive social integration. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the findings disclose a sphere of the social in Lebanon which neither sectarianism nor clientelism have ever successfully penetrated. The theoretical framework applied captures this sphere within the “field of inter-community relations,” under recourse to the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

Transformations of Trade Unionism

The historical experiences of workers organizing in Europe and the United States figure among the many forms of workers’ resistance resulting from the variety of labour relations in the global past. They cannot and will not be uniformly duplicated or copied from their present form in the global transformations of labour and workers’ movements that we are witnessing today. Nevertheless, in the twentieth century trade unionism as a form of collective agency among workers became a global phenomenon. With growing numbers of workers being exposed to wage labour and labour markets, the cases of workers organizing in the original heartlands of trade unionism in Europe and the United States can provide a historical background for future prospects and transformations. Based on comparisons of long-term developments and focusing on transnational connections, Transformations of Trade Unionism shows that historically there have been many varieties of trade unionism, emerging independently or transforming older ones, and that these varieties and transformations can be explained by specific and changing labour regimes. The case studies all start from Dutch examples, or incorporate a Dutch element, but the comparative and transnational approach connects these histories to general developments in Europe and United States from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 2: Living, Making, Value

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 2 includes papers from Living, Making and Value tracks of the conference

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

Palestinian Labor in West Bank Settlements

Since the late 1970s, Palestinians have worked in West Bank settlements, with approximately 30,000 to 40,000 Palestinians currently employed in construction, factories in industrial zones, and plantations. My analysis of Palestinian labor on the settlements begins with the historical, political, legal, and economic context of Palestinian labor in three jurisdictions: in Israel, on the settlements in the West Bank, and in PA-controlled Area A. Fundamental to the analysis is to go beyond the restrictions of nationalist discourse to recognize both intranational tensions and that labor exploitation occurs in all jurisdictions. My fieldwork and analysis were conducted over three years (2013-2016) in the West Bank and are based on interviews (with Palestinian workers, lawyers, PA officials, and union and labor advocates), Israeli government documents, Knesset meeting transcripts, attending Israeli labor court hearings, and working with Palestinians in Jordan Valley settlement plantations. The Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority ignore labor rights demands of Palestinian workers and are not serious about upholding labor laws. As noncitizens under Israeli occupation, Palestinians have turned to Israeli labor courts and unionization efforts to demand their labor rights according to Israeli labor laws. Although both working on the settlements and turning to Israel to demand labor rights undermine the goal of an independent Palestinian state, for Palestinian workers in the West Bank, the primary concerns are pragmatic ones - the economic details associated with just getting by rather than with political or national ambitions. With increasing calls for boycotts against the settlements, Palestinian labor has become a critical issue in the debate over whether the settlements are beneficial or detrimental for Palestinians. Settlement advocates argue that they are benevolent employers of Palestinians even though there is irrefutable evidence that the settlements and the Israeli occupation are fundamental barriers to the Palestinian economy and that, furthermore, the experience of the Palestinian workers is exploitative. Yet, increasing disillusionment with the Palestinian Authority, no prospects for an end to the occupation, and the growth of Israeli right-wing political parties that support settlements are key indicators that Palestinian labor on the settlements will continue and increase in the coming years

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 1: Change, Voices, Open

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 1 includes papers from Change, Voices and Open tracks of the conference