On March 16–17, 2013, CIRS held a second working group to conclude its research initiative on “Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran.” Experts and scholars from various multidisciplinary backgrounds reconvened in Doha to discuss their research findings and garner feedback on their individual paper submissions based on original areas of research that were discussed in the first working…
On Monday, April 1, 2013, CIRS hosted a talk by H. E. Bader Omar Al Dafa from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Al Dafa is a career diplomat, and served as Qatar’s Ambassador to Egypt, the United States, France, and Russia. He was also the Undersecretary General to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). H. E. Al Dafa is currently Ambassador-at-Large and also the Executive Director of the Global Dry Land Alliance. During his visit, Ambassador Al Dafa shared his experiences as a diplomat and commented on current trends in Qatari diplomacy related to regional developments.
On April 22, 2013, Daniel Lucey, Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center and an expert on global virus outbreaks, delivered the final CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the 2012-2013 academic year. Titled “Global Travel and Virus Outbreaks 2003-2013,” the talk focused on past global outbreaks of respiratory diseases like SARS and H1N1, and a possible…
Rogaia Abusharaf, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and CIRS Faculty Fellow 2012-2013, led a Focused Discussion on “Debating Darfur in the World” on April 24, 2013. The lecture focused on the narratives that have been used by the Sudanese government, Western media, and diaspora communities to make sense of…
On May 18–19 2013, CIRS held a second working group to conclude its research initiative on “Weak States in the Greater Middle East.” Participants met in Washington D.C. to discuss individual paper submissions that collectively scrutinize the prevailing weak states discourse in the region. Through thematic topics and specific case studies, scholars employed a multi-disciplinary approach…
The Women’s Studies Circle made up of members from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and Qatar University, led a Focused Discussion supported by CIRS on June 5, 2013. The discussion was moderated by Hatoon Al-Fassi, a women’s rights activist and historian teaching at Qatar University. During the discussion, a group of women from various academic and professional backgrounds discussed Qatar’s ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The group focused specifically on Qatar’s reservations to CEDAW and its implications on gender equality.
On September 7–8, 2013, CIRS held a two-day working group to discuss, amongst other things, the economic and political push and pull factors of Arab migration to the region, the historical migration trajectory, the current conditions and varied experiences of Arab expatriates residing and working in the Gulf, as well as future trends in regional…
George Naufal, Assistant Professor of Economics at the American University of Sharjah and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture titled, “The Economics of Migration in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries” on September 9, 2013. The lecture mapped the history of non-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Arab workers…
The Consortium of Arab Policy Research Institutes (CAPRI) at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) and the Center on Knowledge-to-Policy for Health at AUB collaborated with CIRS to host a workshop on September 12, 2013, entitled “Knowledge Translation: Bridging the Gap between Research and Policy II”. This one-day event brought together…
Luciano Zaccara, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University SFS-Qatar, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on the topic, “Do Elections Matter? Reflections on the 2013 Iranian Presidential Polls” on September 30, 2013. Answering this question in the affirmative at the start of the lecture, he went on to explain why elections are so important to the Iranian political system.…
On October 5–6, 2013, CIRS held a two-day working group under the research initiative “The Evolution of Gulf Global Cities.” Scholars from various multi-disciplinary backgrounds as well as urban practitioners and architects examined historical, social, economic and political aspects of urban transformations in the Persian Gulf. During the working group, group discussion bridged past and present…
Abdullah Al-Arian, Assistant Professor of History at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture titled “From Revolution to Coup: Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood” on October 7, 2013. Testament to Egypt’s importance in the Arab World, he argued that “whatever happens in Egypt has a tremendous impact on the…