The Arab Families Working Group (AFWG) is a collective of sixteen scholars from universities, NGOs and research foundations whose work focuses on youth and families in Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt and their diasporas. Founded in 2001, AFWG is committed to advancing the state of empirical and theoretical knowledge on Arab families and articulating research processes and outcomes with practitioners and policy makers. AFWG projects include comparative, transnational, interdisciplinary, and collaborative work on the three countries and diasporic Arab families in the United States and Canada.
Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt emerged as the foci for AFWG work because of the critical mass of ethnographic and historical studies available on these countries. Each country, with a long history of institution building around family studies and women’s studies, also represents different historical developments and regional dynamics. Palestine is a state in formation, having endured a half century of dislocation, occupation, war, violence, and national liberation movement. Lebanon, while rebuilding its state and society, continues to be unstable after seventeen years of civil war. The Egyptian state and society is slowly transforming under pressure of structural adjustment and socio/political challenges. Comparisons of these data-rich countries and their diasporas provides a critical basis for future research on families and youth in other Arab countries.
Additionally, AFWG's commitment to advancing knowledge on the Arab World has led to AFWG's current work. Aimed at training a new generation of scholars in engaged research in their own communities, AFWG organizes and conducts training workshops in proposal writing and research design for graduate students and junior faculty in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. AFWG also develops and disseminates research-related resources to further aid emerging scholars in moving their projects forward. These resources include information regarding foundations and other institutions that fund research in the Arab World, methodological resources, and examples of successful proposals.
AFWG is hosted at the University of California, Davis (USA)
AFWG thanks the following institutions for their support and contributions towards AFWG's work: The American University in Cairo, (Social Research Center and Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies), The Population Council, Cairo, The Lebanese American University, Beirut (Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World), Birzeit University, West Bank (Institute of Women’s Studies), and The University of California, Davis (Anthropology, Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, and Middle East/South Asia Studies).
"The newly formed Association of Middle East Children's and Youth Studies plans to become a forum for scholars interested in children and youth in the Middle East. Contact them at: amecystudies@gmail.com"
The Arab Families Working Group is founded and organized by Dr. Suad Joseph.
She can be contacted at sjoseph@ucdavis.edu.
For their support and funding, the Arab Families Working Group would like to thank:
- The Ford Foundation, Cairo
- The International Development Research Center, Ottawa and Cairo
- The Population Council, Cairo
- UNICEF, Cairo
- The Social Research Center, American University in Cairo
- The University of California, Davis