Towards a ‘democratic knowledge’ turn? Knowledge production in the age of the Arab Spring

Abstract

This contribution (and the special issue as a whole) marks a modest attempt to initiate an investigation into what is called here ‘democratic knowledge’. This is done with special reference to the Arab Maghrib (in this instance Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt). This focus is deliberate. In the wake of the Arab Spring it is apposite to shed light on the potentiality of a ‘democratic turn’. Perhaps no other phenomenon equals the emerging ‘laboratory’ of ideas in terms of impact-making on the ‘political’, specifically. Indeed, the Arab Spring has highlighted the importance of ideas and values. They are set to shake Maghrebi polities and societies out of their furled state of stupor resulting from close to five decades of postcolonial (mis)rule. The article opens up with a critical discussion of knowledge and knowledge production, accounting for diverse understandings and their intellectual genealogy. It then turns to the question of decolonising democratic knowledge practices, highlighting challenges facing transitology as well as knowledge production in newly democratising settings.

Keywords:

• Arab Spring
• democratic knowledge
• knowledge production
• democratic learning
• democratisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. ‘Habituation’ is a term that belongs to D. Rustow.

2. This notion invokes Rousseau's Emile in which reconstituting the individual's identity for the travails of citizenship involves both generative (retention of good habits and old moral teachings) and degenerative (corrupting new influences) processes through new education. See Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1979. Emile: Or on Education. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, esp. the translator's introduction captures this idea of a quasi ‘noble savage’ in the figure of Emile as he undergoes new education but one which is founded on previous moral teachings; see, pp. 3–29.