A Joint Academic Initiative of the Renaissance Strategic Center (RSC), Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), Jordan, and the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies (IALIIS), Birzeit University, Palestine
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The Renaissance Strategic Center (RSC) at Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), in academic partnership with the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies (IALIIS) at Birzeit University, is launching a three-week summer school designed to provide students and practitioners with a critical and grounded understanding of the contemporary Middle East.
The program responds to a growing need for analytically rigorous and context-sensitive knowledge about the region. Public debates and policy frameworks often reduce the SWANA region to crisis narratives, focusing on conflict, displacement, or humanitarian emergencies in isolation. This program instead situates these dynamics within their historical, political, economic, and social contexts, emphasizing the structural forces shaping the region.
Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from political sociology, history, migration studies, international relations, and humanitarian policy, the course examines key themes including colonial legacies, state formation, ideological movements, labor migration, gender politics, refugee governance, and regional political transformations. Particular attention is given to forced displacement as a structural feature of societies and to the central role of Palestine in regional politics.
Hosted in Amman, Jordan, the program offers participants a unique opportunity to study these dynamics in one of the region’s most important hubs for humanitarian governance and refugee policy. Through seminars, field visits, guest lectures, policy workshops, and engagement with practitioners and scholars from across the region, participants will connect academic analysis with contemporary policy debates and field realities.
The summer school combines the policy expertise and field-based engagement of ARDD and the Renaissance Strategic Center with the academic excellence and regional scholarship of Birzeit University’s Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies. Together, the two institutions provide participants with a unique learning experience that bridges academic inquiry, policy engagement, and practical knowledge.
The course is designed for international undergraduate and graduate students, early-career researchers, and practitioners working in humanitarian, development, human rights, and policy sectors who seek a deeper understanding of the political and social dynamics shaping the SWANA region.
Through this joint initiative, RSC, ARDD, and IALIIS aim to foster critical scholarship, informed policy dialogue, and regional academic exchange while contributing to a new generation of scholars and practitioners capable of engaging with the complex transformations shaping the Middle East.
