Who we are

The project group consists of five persons: Prof. Dr. Florian Zemmin as the host; Prof. Dr. Mohammed Bamyeh as the Einstein Visiting Fellow; Dr. Nayera Soliman as postdoctoral researcher; and Okba Elamoud and Abdul Rahman Shaheen as PhD students. Essential to the project’s design and success is the participation of a range of people from within our networks, in Berlin, and in the Arab social science community, especially through the Arab Council for the Social Sciences.

How we work

The postdoctoral researcher and the two PhD students are pursuing their individual research projects, on Arab feminist
conceptualizations of home; on Arabic concepts of modernity and tradition; and on Arabic concepts of revolution, resistance, and struggle, using methods of conceptual analysis.

Essential to our working process as a group is our networked approach in identifying sociological concepts and in interrograting these historically and from a variety of perspectives. We are interested which sociological concepts people within our networks consider most relevant or problematic and hence in need of interrogation. And we invite their contributions. As such, our working process is indeed very much processual.

Which results are most important

In addition to the individual research of its members, the project produces a critical, historically informed, and compar-
ative lexicon of 60 key concepts. The lexicon is conceived as one infrastructure of global knowledge production and
theory. Next to the lexicon, the project includes a podcast series on key concepts. Both will be published on the website
arabicsociology.net.

What remains to be explored

Having started the project in April 2025, we are eager to see it evolving, and are especially looking forward to suggestions
and contributions from within our networks. And we are open for surprises!