Asef Bayat Research Articles

AGENCY AND POWER OF COASTAL COMMUNITIES: Assembling Micro Infrastructures as Everyday Resistance and Resilience in North Jakarta's Port

AbstractThe rise of the global supply chain has intensified the circulation of goods and capital across the world. While the body of literature on the politics and political‐economy aspects of logistical expansion has grown, little attention has been given to understanding how coastal fishers’ communities interact with the ongoing development of mega infrastructure. I argue that it is essential to place spatial and temporal specificity at the centre of analysis to further understanding of everyday resistance and resilience. In this article, I use a case study of the Port development in Jakarta to argue that renegotiating and reworking space and place amid the development of the mega port is a form of nonviolent everyday resistance and resilience that operates under, but also against, the capitalist political‐economy configuration. I focus on everyday resistance, particularly Asef Bayat's concept of quiet encroachment, and resilience literature to demonstrate the development and contested usage of micro and temporary infrastructures, both at household and community levels, as a material example of how diverse groups in communities exercise their agency and power, and express everyday resistance and resilience differently. Through this article, I aim to contribute to the broader literature on a situated political urban ecology, particularly on everyday resistance and resilience in postcolonial urbanism.

Sexual and reproductive health and rights through a screen: on technology and accessibility in the Arab region

Abstract In the Arab Region, the availability of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) resources is hindered by structural sociocultural barriers. In response to these challenges, youth and activists have turned to digital platforms such as websites, blogs, and social media accounts to improve access to SRHR information and services. The coalescence of such digital platforms has created a complimentary social space that exists to improve the sought for an equal, accessible, and empowering SRHR environment. Drawing from Asef Bayat’s concept of social non-movements, this research analyzes SRHR in repressive and conservative settings within the Arab region. The methodology employed includes a digital ethnography on SRHR-related online platforms and an online anonymous survey with young Arab individuals. Through the analysis, it becomes evident that online mobilization efforts may be framed as social non-movements and the role of such digital platforms is imperative to the improvement of youth’s SRHR. Recommendations for improvement include prioritizing comprehensive sexuality education through reformation of curricula, normalizing SRHR and engaging communities in locally and culturally sensitive discourses, disseminating SRHR through media and outreach programs, enhancing accessibility and support, creating more cohesive networks of support and knowledge, and promoting trusted SRHR services and platforms. The coupling between the online space, which has proven to fill in gaps that exist socially, with the formal healthcare system is bound to produce strides in the advocacy for gender equality and equitable access to healthcare in the region.

Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring, by Asef Bayat

Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring, by Asef Bayat

Religion and politics in Morocco: Islamic, Islamist, and post-Islamist dynamics

This paper aims to map the terrain of religion and politics in modern and contemporary Morocco. Seeing the chronological and intellectual diversity within Moroccan religious thought and politics, this paper proposes three major historical periods to facilitate approaching the topic: the pre-/ colonial, the colonial, and postcolonial times. The first pre/-colonial period is hybrid; it coincides with the rise of the first generation of the Moroccan Nahda renewal, before the colonial period, although it lived into the colonial period and played important roles in it for liberation. I mark this with the ?Islamic? label, since Islam was the only common identity marker for any project of renewal in an intellectually ?homogeneous? society. As to the colonial period, this Islamic identity became stronger since the colonial administration tried to weaken this identity and the social fabric and its related institutions, be they religious brotherhoods, religious endowments, or Sufi orders; at a certain moment in 1930, the colonial administration played on linguistic differences to divide and rule, and in another occasion, in 1953-1955, it tried to dethrone the nationalist Sultan and replace him with a docile one. Here, again, the ?Islamic? identity marker of society and politics was further emphasized as a force of unity, thus the label of Nationalist Islam in this stage, despite the variety of currents within the nationalist movement. As to the postcolonial period, it is a phase in which the modern debates over the format of the nation state, the place of religion in politics, democracy, liberalism, socialism, and secularization become part of Moroccan thought and politics. Thus, three major labels are used to describe the variety of political Islams in society: the Ultra-Orthodox Islam, the Orthodox Islam, and Critical Islam. And since they all share Islam as an identity but interpret it differently, I borrow the term from Asef Bayat to call this period the ?post-Islamist? period, since the actors with the Islamic label are multiple, and no one single trend or project manages to win to enforce its Islamist interpretation on society and political stakeholders. More importantly, this diversity of interpretations is what saves the ?Islamic? from rigidity and turns it into its fluidity of pre-modern times, i.e. to the ?Islamic? as a lived spirituality and moral compass, as a theocentric way of life, in a forthcoming post- Islamist society, a secular world and neoliberal economies.

Analisis Komparatif Model Dialektika Pos-Islamisme di Dunia Islam antara Arab Saudi dan Iran

<p><em>This study aims to analyze the relationship between Islam and the state in Saudi Arabia and Iran, using the approach of post-Islamism. Post-Islamism is a concept that refers to the shift of Islamist groups towards modernity and democracy. It was first introduced by Iranian intellectual, Asef Bayat, in the 1990s. Since then, it has been used to analyze the phenomenon of political Islam in different countries, especially after the Cold War. In Saudi Arabia, changes have occurred since Mohammed bin Salman was appointed as crown prince in 2016. In Iran, civil society actions, such as the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, have driven the change. The research problem is to compare the post-Islamism model that occurs in Saudi Arabia and Iran. The comparative case study method with library research techniques was used. The research findings show that the pattern of post-Islamism in Saudi Arabia differs from that of Iran. In Saudi Arabia, post-Islamism is top-down, starting from state politics without civic movement. However, Iran illustrates the opposite - it is bottom-up and initiated by civil society against the state.</em></p>

Citizenship in the Writings of a Post-Islamist Ex-Muslim Brother: The Case of Ruhayyil Gharayiba

The literature on post-Islamism has paid little attention to citizenship and has largely ignored how conceptual reform on this topic is supported by reinterpretations of the sharia. This article addresses this issue by focussing on the Jordanian ex-Muslim Brother Ruhayyil Gharayiba, who has been at the forefront of post-Islamist reform in his country, including with regard to citizenship. Based on an extensive reading of Gharayiba’s own work in Arabic as well as multiple interviews with him, it seeks to answer the following question: to what extent and how has Gharayiba built a conceptual as well as a legal basis for his post-Islamist ideas on citizenship and what does this tell us about the development of post-Islamism in relation to Asef Bayat’s writings on the subject? It shows that Gharayiba is, indeed, a post-Islamist and uses concepts on citizenship similar to those used by Egyptian post-Islamists, but goes further by also providing legal support for his views and pushing beyond the idea of a “civil state with an Islamic authority”. As such, the example of Gharayiba concurs with Bayat’s writings on post-Islamism, showing that continued religiosity can be combined with reform that goes beyond even that of the wasatiyya.

Converting ordinary resistance into collective action: Visibility struggles, discreet antiracist mobilisations and intermediation work in the French banlieues

ABSTRACT Working-class neighbourhoods are often seen as political deserts, but can one identify discreet mobilisations that might prefigure broader movements? During fieldwork in poor urban areas in France, we observed different ways of opposing the everyday injustices of discrimination. These practices differ from the infrapolitics analysed by James Scott: the actors manifest forms of publicisation closer to what Asef Bayat calls ‘the art of presence’. The article starts out from an analysis of these non-organised practices and then examines the processes that enable feelings of injustice to be converted into more structured collective actions. Based on ethnographic studies in three working-class neighbourhoods in France over three years, the investigation highlights the conditions of emergence and publicisation of collective action by focusing on the role of intermediaries and re-placing discreet mobilisations in their institutional context of emergence.

Unemployed Workers’ Centres (1978–): Spatial Politics, “Non‐Movement”, and the Making of Centres

AbstractThis paper revisits the histories of Unemployed Workers’ Centres to consider the politicisation of unemployment in the UK. Drawing upon archive material and over 50 oral histories, it considers the emergence of centres as a response to a crisis of increasing unemployment and retrenchment of the welfare state. The paper indicates how Asef Bayat’s concept of “non‐movement” proves useful for capturing a wider sphere of labour organising, moving beyond more conventional spaces and actions. This approach critically revisits the role of centres in conversation with emerging work in labour geography and social movements studies around the fostering of solidarities. It reveals tensions around their making, whilst also stressing the potential of seemingly small acts when held alongside campaigns. Revisiting this repertoire of activity reveals the persistence of trade union engagements with communities beyond the workplace, as well as a critical insight into the politics of space in forging such alternatives.

پیشروی آرام دستفروشان زن در مترو تهران

The impediments facing women in Iran in areas of employment have caused their elimination from the formal job market and have inclined them to informal employment. This situation has caused a surge in gender discrimination against women in employment and has made earning a living more difficult for those from lower economic classes. The current paper is a qualitative study, with data gathered from observations and in-depth interviews with 26 women peddlers on Tehran’s Subway. One of the major problems with these women peddlers is their encounters with authority agents. The research seeks to answer this question: “What are their tactics to handle the authority agents?” The theoretical framework of the paper is based on the theory of Asef Bayat’s “quiet encroachment.” The findings of the study show that women’s tactics to reduce the risk of an encounter with authority agents include: avoidance and reduction of travel in insecure stations (with more agents); avoidance and reduction of entry through the insecure stations; concealing their merchandise; reduction of the amount of their merchandise; pretending to be a commuter; seeking the favor of the authority agents; befriending the authority agents; obedience; escape; collecting the merchandise on display in case of attack by agents, and avoiding the station CCTV as much as possible. Keywords: peddling, women peddlers, quiet encroachment, authority agents, tactics

Interview with Professor Asef Bayat

Interview with Professor Asef Bayat

Book Review – Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring by Asef Bayat

Book Review – Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring by Asef Bayat

The bargaining of a sacred place: relocation of a Hindu temple in Malaysia

ABSTRACT Drawing on Asef Bayat’s ‘art of presence,’ this paper analyses how Malaysian Indian Hindus reinvent the Tirtha – a sacred location identified for building a Hindu temple – and make it liminal. I contend that the reinvention is a quiet encroachment strategy for Indian Hindus to safeguard community temples against urban development. I base my argument on empirical data gathered from in-depth interviews and ethnographic approaches. I anchor my argument on a case study concerning a demolished and relocated Hindu temple in Penang. I additionally demonstrate how the liminality of a Hindu temple is rationalised and made plausible with rituals for relocation, namely the Balathanam ceremony.

The Scope of Area Studies in the Era of Globalization

Area Studies has always been approached ambivalently since its political birth after the Second World War. Despite a quiet acknowledgement of the contribution of Area Studies in the production of knowledge from the local lens to correct the ‘universal’ Western perspective of the knowledge produced by social sciences, questions are raised about its very existence in the era of globalization. This paper addresses the problematic of the marginalized position of Area Studies. The discussion will include; i) articles by Arif Dirlik, Ravi Arvind Palat, Tessa Morris-Suzuki to address the problematic of marginalization of Area Studies; ii) the articles by Edward Said, Aijaz Ahmad, Dispeh Chakrabrty, Vivek Chibber, and Kuan-Hsing Chen to assess the limits of Postcolonialism and Marxism in deconstructing Eurocentrism of Area Studies; and finally iii) the scholarly debates by Asef Bayat, David Ludden, Neil Smith, Naoki Sakai, Christian von Soest, and Alexander Stroh to discuss the utility of comparative method as a bridge to ford the rifts between Area Studies and social sciences. It is necessary to broaden the scope of Area Studies by engaging in cross-regional as much as cross-disciplinary research with the social sciences and other disciplines which are trying to meet the demands of transnational pressures generated by the global capitalism. The selected scholars highlight the need to revise Area Studies by proposing new approaches to free it from Eurocentrism and to make it more interdisciplinary to meet the demands of globalization.

Myanmar’s hidden-in-plain-sight social infrastructure: nalehmu through multiple ruptures

ABSTRACT This article examines nalehmu, a set of informal relational practices for negotiating power across scales which have facilitated access and enforced accountability through mutually recognized norms and social sanctions in Myanmar. Like Asef Bayat’s “quiet encroachment” in the Middle East, nalehmu is Myanmar’s discreet and prolonged practice of agency that has enabled ordinary people to survive and better their lives despite the multiple ruptures in Myanmar’s history, as seen most recently in the February 2021 coup d’état. The paper analyzes how nalehmu serves as a hidden-in-plain-sight social infrastructure across three different scales: relations of mutuality, obligation, and reciprocity between individuals; implicit connections for accessing goods, services, and recognition; and a means of interacting with the state via the nalehmu economy. This analysis seeks to do more than add a different case to studies of urban Southeast Asia, but also to help produce further theorization that takes seriously the actually existing contexts and practices in the global South.

Music, Migration, and Public Space: Syrian Street Music in the Political Context

Due to the lack of social systems supporting the cultural productions of migrant societies in Turkey, the venues and opportunities to which migrant musicians have access for the maintenance of their musical practices are limited. Under the given circumstances, especially in the first years after their arrival, street musicianship emerged as a new musical practice for Syrian musicians in Istanbul, and Beyoğlu District, the city’s cultural and political center, has become the venue for street musicians’ performances. Despite undergoing a rapid neoliberal transformation, Beyoğlu district, with Taksim Square and Istiklal Avenue, is a venue of interaction among locals, tourists, and various migrant groups from diverse social classes and identities. As such, it still possesses the potential to be the public sphere which can operate as the space of “a democratic ideal.” For migrant musicians, the street music practices, which fill the very heart of city with their voices and sounds, are means of claiming their existence in the city as potential actors of this public sphere. However, conducting the interaction with the other public space actors and the state officials through street music is not an easy task for Syrian musicians, and it requires the use of tactics from them. In this article, I summarize the given circumstances of Syrian street music performances and discuss the Beyoğlu district in the frame of being—or not being—a public space. I propose street music practice as political action, a “social non-movement”, as Asef Bayat calls it, and situate migrant musicians as political actors who are possible allies of other subaltern groups in Turkey.

A Comparison Between Hobsbawm’s and Bayat’s Views on Non-Western Social Movements

Until the 1960s, literature on social movements had been limited to such movements that emerged in the West in the modern period-. These movements had organizational structures and leaders and contributed to a revolution. This narrow framework contained parallelisms to the progressive theory of history and modernization theory. Researchers such as Antonio Gramsci, Michel de Certeau and James Scott, and approaches such as ‘history from below,’ subaltern studies and post-colonial theory played a key role in expanding and enriching views on social movements. Eric Hobsbawm’s studies on social movements in both pre-modern Europe and contemporary Latin America and Asef Bayat’s studies on contemporary Middle Eastern social movements have contributed to the expansion of the field by going beyond the boundaries of the social movements’ literature inspired by modernization theory. In this article, Hobsbawm’s and Bayat’s studies on social movements are discussed comparatively, though the continuity between them is emphasized., Both their philosophical and theoretical foundations as well as their concepts and typologies are examined in the context of their contributions to the literature. Especially in Latin America and Middle East countries, where legal practices and regulations are insufficient and the existing political and bureaucratic mechanisms cannot represent the public, there are social movements that create a ‘passive revolution’ in Gramscian sense. Indeed, both Hobsbawm and Bayat studied non-Western social movements that were unorganized, leaderless, without a manifesto and non-revolutionary in the first place. Thus, by emphasizing different forms of social movement and opposition, they contributed to the critique of Eurocentric and modernist prejudices in the literature of social movements.

DAKWAH, KESENANGAN, DAN SENSE OF COMMUNITY: SAHABAT HIJRAH PEKANBARU

The topic of fun among Indonesian moslem youth has long been a serious concern for a some of scholars. In several academic studies, fun is often seen as a single variable that has not Islamic tendency, so that fun is considered to endanger the morality of youth. In short, fun culture of Indonesia’s youth is described as a moral panic discourse. This opinion is increasingly finding its momentum when previous studies discussing Islamist groups such as the Salafi managed to find an anti-fun narrative that was echoed by them. However, recent studies have shown that Salafis are also involved in pleasurable activities. This paper does not discuss about fun in the Salafi group, but criticizes previous views which always view fun as a moral panic discourse among youth. It is true that in some cases fun becomes a moral decay source for youths, but in other cases, fun also becomes an instrument for Moslem youth to disseminate Islamic discourse and others. Borrowing the concept of ‘Islamic fun’ from Asef Bayat, this paper explores about the culture of fun among moslem youth in Pekanbaru. This article aims to determine: First, to find out how the Sahabat Hijrah Pekanbaru community uses fun as an instrument of da’wah among moslem youth in Pekanbaru. Second, knowing how moslem youth in Pekanbaru negotiate their Islamic identity through fun activities. Third, knowing the extent to which fun is appropriated into youth da’wah activities such as Sahabat Hijrah community. Finally, this study aims to determine fun as social capital to strengthen the sense of community among moslem youth in Pekanbaru. Through fieldwork (ethnography) by studying data through observation, personal communication and documentation, this article shows that fun and Islam in the Sahabat Hijrah community are related with each other and are continuously negotiated by their followers.

The Political Implications of Urban Displacement: Notes from Two Fieldwork Research Projects in Casablanca

Abstract Resettlement programs have always been in the political agenda of public institutions and administrators of Casablanca since its growth during the French Protectorate. Today real estate and private multinational capital sneak into local and national powers, pushing public authorities to clear land for new urban development through demolition and resettlement of local residents. The dwellers of areas such as the old town centre (medina) and the slums (karyan) increasingly react to displacement by challenging this urban agenda frontally with their bodies and words, but often also deploying what James Scott calls “weapons of the weak”, i.e. implicit acts of resistance and symbolic dissent. Reversing Asef Bayat’s statement, we consider residents of these stigmatized neighbourhoods “revolutionaries without a revolution”, partisans of an intimate cause of their own, that aims at having a home and surviving in a hostile city. Our reflections are the product of two separate fieldwork researches: one with the inhabitants of informal neighbourhoods, another with residents and former residents of the old medina. The two cases show how resettlement affects the sense of belonging and of cohesion of low-income classes by uprooting the founding element of the everyday life: the house. The uncertainty about the possibility to keep their own home deeply conditions the implicit social pact with the monarchy apparatus, and may represent one of the conditions that are undermining the allegiance to the monarchy itself.

Entrepreneurial Systems of Syrian Refugees as Stimulators of Host Economy: Case of Ouzaii (Lebanon)

Abstract This article investigates the impact of the Syrian displacement on the economic and urban transformation in Ouzaii, a major informal settlement in the southern suburbs of Beirut that is characterised by a complex socio-political structure. It explores the potential of “entrepreneurial systems” that emerge when Syrian refugees become part of the host community and its economy. These systems include Syrian refugees as either part of the lower labour force, business owners, or entrepreneurs. The article locates these entrepreneurial systems within the spatial networks and investigates how Syrian refugees create opportunities for themselves and the host community given the specificity of the market that is subject to legal setups and mediated by the political party of Hezbollah. It uses the construct of “mixed embeddedness” by Kloosterman et al. and the notion of “quiet encroachment” by Asef Bayat to understand how the Syrian refugees were able to infiltrate into Ouzaii’s economy and become part of the “entrepreneurial systems” that stimulate the economic cycle and revitalise the urban space.

Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn Asadābādī Revisited: Reinvigorating the Emancipatory Potential of Post-Islamism

This article seeks to provide a framework for rereading the works of Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn Asadābādī/Afghani in accordance with the main characteristics of “post-Islamism”, which was coined and conceptualized by Asef Bayat. Although the term “post-Islamism” was not explicitly used by Asadābādī/Afghani himself, I argue that we may find some of the main features of a post-Islamist discourse in his works. Hence, in this article, post-Islamism does not refer to an era or a historical period, but to an intellectual discourse or project; it is understood conceptually rather than historically. I argue that, while Asadābādī/Afghani foresaw the need to acknowledge the legitimacy crisis of Islam, he nevertheless rejected the adoption of a purely secular perspective as a response. After identifying the fundamental pillars of Asadābādī/Afghani’s thought, I shall demonstrate how his approach corresponds to the reconciliatory position of post-Islamist thinking, which seeks to marry Islam with more modern values of individual choice and freedom.