Opportunities

Workshop, University of Glasgow, 22-23 July 2026

The organisers invite you to attend a two-day workshop critically examining decentralised, autonomist, and federalist modes of political organising in West Asia and North Africa. The workshop aims to be a space of interdisciplinary exploration of historical lineages, contemporary manifestations, and future possibilities of decentralised governance in (post)uprising and (post)revolutionary contexts.

Papers are welcomed which engage with any of the below themes. Submissions from academics and activists from the WANA region are especially welcome.  

• Challenges to state centred approaches to federalism and autonomy
• Historiographical analyses of councils, committees, and autonomist movements during uprisings or revolutions
• Locally rooted philosophies or conceptualisations emerging from autonomist organising
• Comparative work on autonomist practices in the region and in other contexts
• Practical and theoretical evaluations of transformative potential, contradictions, and limitations of autonomist organising
• The relationship between autonomist organising and identity, including ethnicity, race, religion, gender, and class
• Democracy, ecology, gender, and pluralism in decentralised political thought
• Governance in wartime or crisis conditions, where many autonomist projects originate

To encourage participation from the region, it will be possible to present via zoom. Additionally, a small transport fund is available for presenters who do not have institutional or project-based funding. Support levels will depend on the number of applications.

The Department of Economics of the University of Bologna is inviting applications for a fellowship for one Palestinian Visiting Scholar or PhD student whose research activity has been disrupted by the ongoing conflict in the region. The fellowship duration is 3 months, covered by a lump sum payment of 10,000 EUR (gross amount).

Contact: Prof Marco Casari, Department of Economics (marco.casari@unibo.it)

Conference, University of Cambridge, 17–18 September 2026

The Syrian Academics and Researchers’ Network in the UK (SARN UK) is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for its 2026 international conference, co-hosted with the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies (MAC) at Newnham College, University of Cambridge.

This year's theme, “Syria in Transition: Knowledge, Memory, and the Everyday Aftermath,” invites Syrian and Syria-focused scholars to reflect on the evolving role of academic, cultural, and intellectual work in shaping Syria’s futures. At a moment marked by deep political uncertainty, contested narratives of reconstruction, and widening gaps between exile and those inside the country, the conference offers a space to come together in critical solidarity.

We welcome papers that explore how Syrian scholars, artists, and practitioners — wherever they are — engage with the complex legacies of violence, displacement, and resistance, and how their work contributes to imagining more just, plural, and inclusive futures. We are particularly interested in proposals that bridge disciplines and challenge inherited binaries of inside/outside, past/future, victim/agent, or state/society.

We accept individual as well as co-authored paper proposals.

Papers are invited for the 3rd workshop of this multi-year research programme funded by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS). The aim of this project is to involve scholars from a wide range of disciplines in the commencement of an organised effort to utilise an extensive range of sources to recover evidence of the ‘voices’ of ‘subalterns’ across the pre-modern and modern terrains of both rural and urban society across the Persianate world. 

The third workshop on subalterns across the entire Persianate world in the Zand and Qajar periods will be held at the University of Edinburgh, UK, on 27-29 October, 2026. 

Papers from PhD students, ECRs and unaffiliated scholars are encouraged.

RSVP to anewman@ed.ac.uk by Friday, 12 June, 2026.