Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM): Imagining Futures - Dealing with Disparity, Phase II

MECAM’s research activities are organized in five interdisciplinary Research Fields (IRF):
1) Aesthetics & Cultural Practice addresses questions of how aesthetic forms and cultural practices influence the process by which models and imaginations of the future are expressed and (re-)negotiated. It also investigates the ways in which disparities, political and societal transformations influence aesthetic and cultural practices.
2) Inequality & Mobility focuses on social and economic inequalities, the resulting sense of insecurity, and their role in the (re-)negotiation of visions and models of the future. The IRF specifically explores how distinct forms of disparity (incl. concrete policy decisions) drive or restrain mobility and how in turn, mobility can exacerbate or mitigate inequality.
3) Memory & Justice discusses legacies of the past, including their legal, political and cultural perceptions and frames in relation to different assessments of the present and to models and (re-)negotiations of the future. Research will shed light on the ways in which differential access to political power shapes questions of accountability, factfinding, amnesty, judicial reforms, human rights claims and the legitimate sources of law in post-conflict societies and beyond.
4) Resources & Sustainability investigates how societies in general and political decisionmakers in particular deal with burgeoning socio-economic disparities and growing environmental problems. This IRF studies which economic models might ensure a politically, socially and ecologically sustainable future. Especially rentier and extractivist economic models in the Maghreb are explicitly addressed here as these models generate particular forms of disparities and thus also interesting visions of the future.
5) Identities & Beliefs examines co-existing, sometimes competing identities and belief systems which are partly impacted by political power dynamics. Disparities are felt, perceived and articulated very differently from the vantage point of diverse identities and beliefs, resulting in pluralistic ways of (re-) negotiating imaginations and models of the future.

MECAM’s five IRFs are complemented by three areas of methodological exploration cutting across research fields. The first area in this regard is devoted to considerations of gender, diversity, epistemologies, translations and research ethics. The second area are historical and comparative perspectives. The third area is digital research methods which are increasingly seen as drivers of scholarly innovation but which also contribute to deepening disparities in global knowledge production due to the differences in access between the Global North and the Global South.