The fifth ACRPS Arab Graduate Students Conference drew to a close on 5 October 2026. The third and final day of the conference shifted gears with two sessions, followed by an introductory session on the Arabic Encyclopedia project, “Arabica”. During the conference, 54 researchers from approximately 50 Western universities presented papers drawn from their doctoral dissertations across a range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.
Day Three
In the Politics and International Relations track, Khaled Sayed Ali presented “Economic Development Under Military Regimes: A Comparative Study of the Nasser and Sisi Eras in Egypt,” comparing Egypt’s development trajectories under the two governments. He introduced the concept of “fettered development” to examine persistent dependency, inequality, and the relationship between economic policy and military rule. Youssef Sharaf’s “A State of Two Speeds: Administrative Elite Recomposition in Mubarak’s Reform-Era Egypt, 1990s–2000s,” examined how neoliberal reforms reshaped Egypt’s administrative elite. His presentation highlighted the emergence of donor-backed technical offices alongside the existing bureaucracy, creating a hybrid state structure that connected international donors, government institutions, and business elites.
Day three of the Economics, Public Policy, Energy, and Urban Studies track looked at topics covering SME exports in conflict-affected economies, renewable energy policy, workforce retention in Qatar, and participatory urban planning in Egypt. Bilal Abu Jafar’s “Exporting Under Volatility: Firm Responses of Palestinian SMEs in a Conflict-Affected Economy,” examined how Palestinian SMEs navigate movement restrictions, logistical uncertainty, financial constraints, and regulatory barriers when accessing international markets. Mamdouh Abdelkader presented “Fiscal Policy and the Transition to Renewable Energy: Empirical Evidence from US Industrial Electricity Generation,” comparing the impact of fossil fuel taxes, clean energy incentives, and public research support on renewable energy adoption. He found that policies directly affecting energy prices produced the strongest and fastest effects. In “The Predictive Factors of Turnover Intentions and Counterproductive Work Behaviour Among Social Service Employees in Qatar,” Alyaa Almaadeed analyzed the demographic and workplace factors associated with employee turnover intentions and counterproductive behaviour, highlighting sector, nationality, education, age, and gender as important factors shaping workforce outcomes. Pakinam Hassan’s “Perceptions on Improving the Participatory Urban Planning in Alexandria, Egypt,” explored how residents can be more effectively involved in urban planning decisions, identifying barriers including centralized decision-making, limited trust, and weak public awareness.
The Migration and Refugee Studies track examined how migration is shaped not only by movement and legal status, but also by systems of knowledge and classification. Hassan Mortada presented “The Abridged Subject: Empire and the Anteriority of the Immigrant in Library and Information Science,” challenging the conventional understanding of the immigrant as a category created after migration. He argued that systems of classification can predetermine and sustain “immigrantness” beyond physical movement or changes in legal status, with Library and Information Science playing an important role in preserving these categories over time.
In the History, Philosophy, Literature, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies track, Latifah Alrdaian presented “Between Reality and Fiction: Saudi Women in the Works of Jean Sasson and Zoe Ferraris,” comparing fictional and non-fictional portrayals of Saudi women between 1990 and 2019. She examined how genre, narrative authority, and Orientalist frameworks shape representations of gender, agency, and constraint. Saifeddine Jemli’s “From Group Agency to Plural Agency: Republican Perspectives on Collective Agency Between Hannah Arendt and Philip Pettit,” compared the approaches of the two thinkers to collective political agency, arguing that Arendt’s account of collective action offers important insights for understanding freedom and non-domination within republican theory. In “Toward an Engaged Counter-Orientalist Scholarship: Wikipedia and the Reproduction of Orientalist Epistemic Injustice,” Mounir Saifi examined how Orientalist assumptions can be reproduced through digital knowledge platforms. Focusing on Wikipedia, he looked at how citation practices, narrative framing, and editorial control can shape whose knowledge and perspectives are represented.
Introductory Session on the Arabic Encyclopedia “Arabica”
Following the research sessions, an introductory session was held on the Arabic Encyclopedia project, “Arabica”, launched by the Arab Center with the aim of producing a comprehensive digital encyclopedia in Arabic that is freely accessible to anyone seeking reliable knowledge in the language, with documented entries authored and signed by experts in their respective fields.
During the session, moderated by Dalya Younis, Dr. Tareq Hamoud, General Coordinator of Encyclopedia Arabica, spoke about the importance of the project. He explained that the process of producing entries goes through several stages of peer review and editing, which are reflected in their quality and academic rigor, and that the Encyclopedia represents a resource for preserving and documenting Arab culture. He stressed the pressing need for such a resource in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), given its potential to provide reliable Arabic-language content that can contribute to the development of AI knowledge database and language models. Anas Abu Samhan presented the stages through which an encyclopedia entry passes from authorship to publication: preliminary evaluation, originality checking, peer review, academic editing, linguistic proofreading, encyclopedic editing, and multimedia production. He noted that, as of the beginning of September 2026, the Encyclopedia had produced more than 12,137 entries comprising over 28 million words, including 6,666 entries across various fields of knowledge and 5,471 entries in the countries section. Mohammad Zeidan addressed the Encyclopedia’s publication process and the nature of its entries. He explained that it reflects the Arab cultural sphere, compared it with other Arab and international encyclopedias, and noted that it contributes to establishing an Arab tradition of encyclopedic writing. Abdelhadi Baiche presented a project to develop encyclopedia entries on the far right and discussed how Arab doctoral students in Western universities could contribute to producing knowledge on the subject more accessible to Arabic-speaking audiences. The session concluded with an open discussion, during which participants raised questions about the Encyclopedia, its methodology, and ways in which they could contribute to writing its entries.
Reflections from Participants
Participating doctoral students praised their overall experience at the conference and the opportunities it provided for academic discussion. Latifah Alrdaian thanked the organizers and highlighted the conference’s uniqueness in the Arab world in terms of its concept and organization. She noted that the feedback she received from the discussant and fellow participants served as valuable preparation for her forthcoming dissertation defense. Hicham Bouhadi expressed his appreciation for the opportunity the conference provided in exchanging ideas with fellow Arab researchers and building research networks. He emphasized that he benefited from the discussant’s comments on his paper as well and that the discussion opened up new research avenues for him. Ali Alrifae noted that the conference gave researchers an opportunity to discuss their ideas in their native language with experts who understand the contexts of the phenomena they study, while also receiving detailed and focused questions that can be difficult to encounter at Western universities. Mohammad Al-Masaeid, for his part, described his participation as a unique experience, noting that the comments by the academic discussants were among the conference’s most valuable outcomes and helped him refine his ideas. He added that the conference enabled interaction among researchers and introduced participants to research institutions related to the Arab world and affairs at both the Arab Center and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Pakinam Hassan noted that one of the conference’s distinguishing features was its multidisciplinary nature, which creates opportunities for cooperation and the development of partnerships with other researchers that could lead to future research projects. She added that the discussant’s comments opened new avenues that would help her further develop her ideas and prepare them for publication.
Conference Closing Remarks
The conference concluded with remarks by Dr. Ayat Hamdan, ACRPS Researcher and Chair of the AGSC Organizing Committee. She thanked the participants and praised the discussions that took place during the conference sessions, emphasizing their valuable role in the academic development of the participants. She also thanked the organizing committee for their efforts. This was followed by remarks from Dr. Harith Hassan, Academic Director of the Arab Center, who thanked the participating doctoral students and the organizing committee and encouraged the students to view the conference as the beginning of future cooperation and coordination with the Center.
Since its launch in 2018, the conference has brought together 287 participants from more than 140 universities across Europe, the United States, Latin America, and Australia, including those participating in this year’s edition.
