Ihsan Mejdi
Postgraduate Researcher
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
About me:
I am a PhD candidate at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies and a reciepient of the al-Qasimi scholarship. Prior to pursuing my doctoral degree, I obtained a master's degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University in 2019, Budapest, Hungary. I also completed my undergraduate studies at Hacettepe University in 2017, earning a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Public Administration, Ankara, Turkey.
Publications
BOOK CHAPTERS
2022- The Precariat of ’Nahj Esbania’: The Anthropology of Street Economy in Tunisia (Arabic). In Suq Nahj Esbania: Street Economy in Tunisia. Edited by Sofian Jaballah. FTDES.
2022- Leading with Locally Produced Knowledge: Development in Jemna, Tunisia (co-authored with Celeste Koppe). In Handbook on Participatory Action Research and Community Development. Edited by Randy Stoeckerand Adrienne Falcón. Edward Elgar Publishing.
2019- Religious Secular Tension in Tunisia Since 2011 (co-authored with Zeba Rehman Khan). In Islamic Movements in the Middle East, Ideologies, Practices and Political Participation. Editd by P.R. Kumaraswamy, Md. Muddassir Quamar, and Manjari Singh. KW Publishers.
TRANSLATION
2023- al-Mghatta Valley: An Open Space for Double Absence: A Story of Stranded and Forsaken Migrants at the Margins of the State. Migration Report by the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights. Tunis
INTERVIEWS
2022- An Incomplete Revolution: A Conversation with Mohamed Haj-Salem. Published by the Society for Cultural Anthropology, Member Voices, Fieldsights.
2018- Interview with Asef Bayat : Revolution, Politics of Fun, and Post-Islamism (in Arabic). Published by Masalik, Tunis.
CONFERENCES PARTICIPATION
2022- XV Convegno SeSaMO Conference Università di Napoli L’Orientale, Napoli. Explaining Crisis, Beyond Chaos. The Middle East and North Africa in Global Change . Presented paper:The Meaning(s) of Research as Relationship: Ethnography, Revolution, and the Politics of Post-Uprisings in the Middle East.
2019- A Scholarly and Political Dialogue with Benoit Challand at the Central European University, Budapest. Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology Lecture and Discussion Series on Politics and Depoliticization: The Dialectics of State-Society Relations: Lessons from Post-2011 Tunisia and Yemen.
2018- Hacettepe University, Ankara. The Annual Meeting and International Conference of the Consortium for Research in Political Theory. Presented paper:Secularists/Islamists ‘Tentative Friendship’ and the Possibility of Agonistic Democratic Transition in Post-revolutionary Tunisia.
NEWS ANALYSIS, OPINION
How EU policies have turned Tunisia into Africa's graveyard. Middle East Eye (2023)
Tunisia's new president has a big job in first 100 days. Anadolu Agency
Algeria election: Who is running for president?. Anadolu Agency
PROFILE - Algeria’s new president: Longtime official who praised protests. Anadolu Agency
Turmoil in Tunisia amid race for political power. Anadolu Agency
An ''epigram'' inscribed by memories and read by a revolution. Aljazeera (Arabic).
Tunisia: A booming civil society, a fragile democracy, and endless challenges Ahead. Nawaat-blog
‘Two truths and a lie’ about ennahdha’s post-Islamism. Nawaat-blog
Jemna: Genesis of a model, or end of a social experiment?. Nawaat-blog
France’s colonial fantasies In Tunisia. Nawaat-blog
“Manich Msamah”: Resistance in times of consensus. Nawaat-blog
Redeyef youth in Lampedusa: marginalized at home, unwanted abroad. Nawaat-blog
Research Unit:
Centre for Middle East Politics C-MEP
Research Project:
My doctoral project is an anthropological examination of the local politics of revolutionary Tunisia. I am interested in understanding the ways in which marginalized communities in southern Tunisia make sense of the state during times of political transition.
My research includes the following themes; revolution, state, time, transition/democracy, kinship.
Research Supervisory team:
