Project Begun on the Role of the Arts in the Arab Spring

It has been such a long time since my last post, and much has happened. Last August I discovered the work of Sultan Barakat, director of the Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development Unit and the University of York. In particular, I was interested to read about his meeting with the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers nearly ten years ago, the proceeds of which are located here. In it he mentions the current problems with reconstruction and development initiatives, namely, that they tend to focus almost exclusively on state and economy which does not deal with underlying cultural issues which may have caused the original conflict. This lack of cultural development hindered progress, in Barakat's opinion. He never overtly mentions music or the arts, but the way he was discussing culture he might as well have. Since he is only in York and I am in Leeds, I pay him a visit, thinking it is always good to network, but not thinking anything concrete would come of it. After a pleasant half an hour, Barakat (although by this time we are on a first name basis) presents me with a proposal he has written on request from the British Council for research into the role of the arts in the Arab Spring. He says that there is nothing mentioned at present about music in this report, but perhaps I should write that in. Without hesitation, perhaps the last time in this enterprise that I did not hesitate, I agreed. It was such a perfect fit considering my research area. That was the last I heard about it for quite some time, which was really very disappointing, but it gave me time to continue writing up my thesis, which I continued to do throughout the autumn.

Near the end of October, I get a message from the PRDU inviting me to a meeting with the British Council regarding the proposal I helped out with. This meeting was very interesting: the British Council were very excited about the project and were imagining that, if this project was successful, they could roll out similar projects all over the world. The proposal needed some tweaks, however, which I did quickly before my half-term family holiday, but, again, that was the last I heard for quite some time. I began to think it was never going to happen.

Anyway, it did. Eventually. At the start of December I was informed that I was to go to Egypt for two weeks in less than a week to begin field work. If I had been ten years younger with no dependants, I might have jumped, but it was impossible for me, but the project began anyway, although I have as yet not done any field work, rather working from home or York, collating data and organising the field work placements. So far the project has collected data from Egypt and Morocco and soon I, yes I, will be going to Tunisia, and the rest of the team will later go to Libya. The purpose of the project is to attempt to understand how the arts and social change affect each other and what role, if any, has the British Council and other international institutions played. In addition, the British Council were keen to know what they might be able to do in the future in these situations. Very exciting. It is too early to discuss the findings yet, but so far there is little evidence to contest my theories on the nature of music and conflict espoused elsewhere on this blog. All very promising! In the meantime, I have had to take an official break from the PhD, even though I was only a couple of months short of submitting a draft.

The project is due to end in mid-June, but there is talk about a public dissemination phase, which would presumably include radio, national press, popular journals, websites and possibly even television. That would be exciting to be part of that, but we shall see.

Meanwhile, I will begin sharing some of the links I have been discovering.