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LoginDIBF Panel Discussion Delves into Social Thinking Paths in Gulf and Challenges
Doha, May 23 (QNA) - The 35th Doha International Book Fair's cultural salon has hosted a panel discussion on the social thinking in the Gulf: paths and challenges.
The panel - presented by Social sciences researcher Abdulrahman Al Marri and moderated by writer Mohammed Youssef Al Araki - addressed the social thinking evolution in the Gulf region as well as its intellectual and systematic paths throughout the past decades.
Al Marri drilled down on the evolution of social writings in the Gulf, highlighting that the early beginnings of social thinking have been linked to the journalistic writings and magazines that emerged since the 1920s, which sought to make sense out of the mutations experienced by the emerging modern Gulf societies at the time.
The rise of the modern nations and the independence of the Gulf countries have witnessed the projection of writings that addressed the formation of cities and modern societies, such as Doha, Kuwait City and Manama ahead of the emergence of the academic studies specialized in social issues, Al Marri explained.
A third strand, he outlined, emerged in the 1980s, represented by critical scholarship concerned with the concept of society and its mutations.
Al Marri further underlined that these strands have been pursuing a multitude of paths to fathom out the Gulf society through a broad synthesis of tools that included press op-eds, academic studies and thoughtful authorships.
A combination of systematic issues has ensued these paths, Al Marri noted, including dealing with the society either as an abstract concept or a theoretical borrowing detached from actual social reality.
Delving into the preeminent challenges facing the social thinking in the Gulf, Al Marri bifurcated these challenges into theoretical, practical and institutional. He clarified that the theoretical ones are linked with understanding the local society and its relationship with the broader regional periphery.
The Gulf societies can't be studied away from the cultural and historical contexts and the reciprocal relationships of influence between it and its periphery, Al Marri underscored.
As for the practical and institutional challenges, Al Marri stressed the importance of forming specialized scholarly groups that would help develop social studies and expand their domains.
He underscored the need for further institutional support and fund social sciences programs, in addition to laying out clear-eyed academic visions that determine the priorities of research and postgraduate topics. (QNA)
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