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Author: Forum Transregionale Studien

Female Agency and Colonial Repression: Memory and Archives in Tunisia

By Nora Lafi. Reflecting on the role of women under colonialism crucially contributes to debates on how
to write the history thereof in contemporary Tunisia. Based on a corpus of original archives relating to French repression of women designated “rebels,” it is shown how a focus on women’s agency makes it possible to write the history of colonisation differently and to cast issues of memory in a new light.

Breaking Bias: Entry Points for Gender Stereotypes in Judicial Decision-Making

By Beate Streicher. As part of her re:constitution project, Beate Streicher investigated the impact of stereotypes related to gender identity and expression, sex characteristics and sexual orientation on judicial proceedings and decisions within the European context and beyond, applying an intersection perspective. The multimethod approach combined an analysis of key cases from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) dealing with gender stereotypes, recommendations of international monitoring bodies such as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), and elite interviews with eight experts (six identifying as female and two as male) involved in CoE cooperation projects dealing with the topic such as the projects on Women’s Access to Justice (WAJ) and the respective courses from the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Programme.

The Potentialities for Globality in the Tradition of Critical Theory

By Johan Bolding Rasmussen. In this article, Rasmussen examines how Critical Theory can engage with global intellectual history. He suggests that by moving beyond Eurocentric perspectives, Critical Theory can address global challenges more effectively. Rasmussen proposes integrating diverse intellectual traditions to enrich critical discourse and enhance its relevance in a global context. According to him, “global intellectual history is the emergence of a promising and strong research field that combines intellectual history with the recent increase in attentiveness towards the global”. Similarly, “recent years have seen a significant number of research monographs” on the Frankfurt School emerge. Inherently universal, the literature does, however, raise crucial questions on its globality.

La rente et le changement institutionnel en Algérie – 5in10 avec Samir Bellal

Diplômé de l’Institut National de la Planification et de la Statistique (INPS) d’Alger et de l’université Lyon 2, Samir Bellal a enseigné dans de nombreuses universités en Algérie. Actuellement, il exerce en qualité de professeur d’économie à l’université Mouloud Mammeri de Tizi-Ouzou. Il a publié, fin 2017, « La crise du régime rentier – essai sur une Algérie qui stagne », paru aux éditions Frantz-Fanon, et en 2022, aux éditions El-Amel, « Rente, populisme et question économique en Algérie – réflexions sur un système en crise ».

Policing the Roma in the Service of Whiteness. Post-Pandemic Reflections from Bulgaria

By Francesco Trupia. Bulgaria’s bio-political population management remains instructive to showcase the embeddedness of the policies of white-enclosing with the diversely universal conditions of discrimination, scapegoating, and racism. Race is undoubtedly central to charting out the genealogical lines of past and present violence against Roma and other minority groups in Bulgaria.

New Approaches to MENA Prison Literatures After 2011

By Anne-Marie McManus. In the past fifteen years, the mass relocation of prison survivors, families of the disappeared, activists, and cultural actors from MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) countries to Europe and North America has placed carceral experience at the heart of contemporary debates and cultural work. The hubs of the new MENA diasporas are in western Europe, but the numerous MENA writers, activists, artists, and former prisoners who are producing work on prison today are to be found globally, from the Gulf and Turkey to North America. This emerging body of work and activism on prison in the MENA is inextricably tied to ongoing struggles for justice for the detained, the tortured, and the disappeared.

Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: A Paradigm Shift in Archaeological Knowledge Production

By Wendy Doyon. Within the global archive of archaeology created by the past two centuries of excavation in the Middle East and North Africa, a significant portion of archival documents, notes, and photos form a shadow archive of Middle Eastern history. It documents the knowledge transfer, techniques, craftsmanship, apprenticeship, material studies, and linguistic community of Arabic-speaking co-producers of archaeological knowledge. Rayyis Sayyid Ahmad Sayyid Dirāz and his family are the “Ghost Writers” par excellence of Upper Egypt. Their first-hand narrative of excavation over thirty years of work in the field is the best documented example we have of the fundamentally multilingual process of archaeological knowledge production in Egypt and Sudan.

“It is Crucial that Courts Uphold the Rights of Individuals” – 5in10 with Beate Streicher

Beate Streicher is a legal professional with extensive experience in international law, human rights, and advocacy. She is currently serving as a legal advisor on international law at Amnesty International Germany. She is skilled in drafting submissions for legislative processes and international monitoring, with a deep understanding of human rights law and a strong commitment to social justice and equity. Her re:constitution research project (2024/25) examines gender stereotypes in court proceedings and decisions, and her mobility period is being conducted at the Council of Europe Programme Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals.

War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine

By Denys Shatalov. The monuments we encounter in a territory tell us not so much about its past as about present ideology. The new study by Mischa Gabowitsch and Mykola Homanyuk, “Monuments and Territory. War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine” explores the fate of war memorials in the Russian-occupied territories during the first year of the ongoing full-scale war. The authors focus on war memorials honouring different eras and conflicts, from the medieval battle of Kalka to the Soviet War in Afghanistan and the Anti-Terrorist Operation in Eastern Ukraine (2014–2022), erected in Soviet times or during Ukrainian independence.

„Ḥamā lam tamut” (“Hama did not die”) – Remembering the Hama Massacre after the Fall of the Assad Regime

By Anna Christina Scheiter. With the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the brutal violence with which the regime had held on to power for 54 years came increasingly and overwhelmingly into the public eye. The Hama massacre in February 1982 is a momentous example of this violence. This central and defining event of Assad’s rule, which was a strong taboo for decades and has never been discussed or dealt with publicly, is now openly and freely commemorated for the first time and the victims are mourning on the occasion of its 43rd anniversary in February 2025. Addressing the Assad regime’s atrocities of the last 54 years openly at last and seeking justice for its victims is central for social reconciliation and a basis for the establishment of a new collective identity after the end of the dictatorship.