COSMOS TALK

06 April 2022 | h 12:00-14:00 (CET)

ALESSANDRA MARCHI, University of Cagliari

Molecular changes in social activism in MENA countries since 2011: A Gramscian reading

The growing interest in Antonio Gramsci’s thought in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, notably after the 2011 Arab uprisings, transpires in a growing body of literature, mainly in sociology and political science, mostly focused on key Gramscian categories such as hegemony, civil society, subaltern, passive revolution. The radicalization and multiplication of the forms of dissent in several sociopolitical contexts of the MENA region has been growing for decades, notably in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. Gramsci developed a theoretical approach aimed at resisting state hegemony and repression, and in particular at deconstructing the manufacturing of consent and counter-revolutionary strategies during revolutionary moments. This paper sheds light on those multiple dimensions of Gramscian thought by exploring the concept of molecular resistance and molecular transformation. This concept is fundamental to explore the transformative sociocultural impact of prolonged mobilization and contentious actions during the pre and post-2011 revolutionary moment. It is also critical to grasp the complexity and richness of Gramscian heuristic apparatus and its impact on scholarship on a global level. Gramsci’s molecular approach makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the manufacturing of political subjectivity and collective will, social transformation and revolutions, political ‘transformism’ and restoration. Thus the Gramscian method applied to the sociopolitical analysis of the Arab countries aims at demonstrating how the ostensible duality between hegemony and subalternity is in actuality a dialectical multifaceted and relationship.

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