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Khamasin

The Khamasin: Journal of Political Science was created in 2006 by The American University in Cairo’s Department of Political Science. Intended to serve as a forum for learning and dialogue within the AUC community and beyond, Khamasin responds to a desire voiced by both students and faculty to encourage a community of exchange at both the departmental and school levels and to reach out to a larger readership on contemporary issues of social and political importance. 

About Khamasin

As an interdisciplinary journal, Khamasin seeks to publish theoretical, field and research-driven studies which address a variety of issues within the scope of political science in particular, and social sciences and humanities in general. Khamasin welcomes submissions from undergraduate and graduate students from universities in Egypt and beyond from various disciplines relating to political science and/or broadly concerned with the Middle East and North Africa.

Submission Guidlines

Revolutions on the Rise: Reflections on Global Crises

Revolutions have historically been forceful attempts to overthrow systems, governmental, social, and/or institutional, that perpetrate perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression. The Algerian independence revolutionary war (1953-62) ended the French occupation of Algeria and reclaimed the land, political and social institutions, and freedom, dignity, and equality for Algerian citizens. The Bolshevik Revolution toppled the Russian monarchy and instilled a supposed socialist system, which at the time, established a new bipolar and economically juxtaposed camps, the capitalists and the communists. Durriya Shafiq organized peaceful acts of civil disobedience, in 1956, and gained Egyptian women suffrage, after years of Egyptian women’s systematic exclusion from political and public life.

Revolutions have the capacity to change life on the personal and international levels. Since the 2008 economic crisis, and the myriad of socio-political global events that have been made more visible by the advancements made in information and communication technology – Haiti Earthquake (2010), Julian Assange and WikiLeaks (2010), Occupy Wall Street (2011) the Arab Spring (2011), the Killing of Osama Bin Ladin (2011), the Rise of ISIS and Fall of Syria and Libya (2011), Joseph Kony (2012) Black Lives Matter (2013), Racially Diverse Emojis Introduced (2015), the US Presidential Elections (2016), BREXIT (2016), the Paris Agreement (2016), Global Advances in feminist movements such as #MeToo and its global chapters (2017), the Epstein Scandal (2019) the Covid-19 Pandemic (2020), inter alia. A wider and more interconnected world has brought forth a new type of revolution; where support for a cause is unobstructed by geographic location and demographic information. Yet this has also come with its own set of new and unfamiliar challenges

Systematic inequality has motivated resistance and political contestation in everyday life, but also in academic scholarship which has opened up new avenues and modes of inquiry in the social sciences. This issue focuses on highlighting the possible root causes of social grassroots movements occurring all over the world, with a special focus on what the Middle East region can learn to avoid similar fates.

This issue welcomes critical scholarship that, preferably, comparatively addresses intersectional factors of oppression and the social real or possible ramifications on the stability of the political system – these can include feminist, environmental, civil, and/or socio-economic and political movements), comparative political economy, with a focus on currency devaluation and its effects on quality of life, comparative foreign policy analysis and what it means for the future of international cooperation, stability, and status-quo.

Submissions can deal with Egypt, the Middle East, or other areas, and can address this subject in a comparative or international framework. We welcome submissions that center on gender, wealth, and resource distribution (local and global) as a focus of their analysis, including how social, political, and economic phenomena feature in international politics. We also welcome interdisciplinary submissions from across the social sciences that draw upon critical and post-rationalist theories or methodologies or speak to the relationship between power and injustice.

Submissions may come in the following visual and written forms

  • Research papers in the range of 4,000 - 6,000 words  
  • Book reviews in the range of 1,000 - 2,000 words 
  • Political film and/or art reviews in the range of 2,500 - 3,000 words
  • Roundtables/Interviews in the range of 2,500 - 3,000 words

Interested authors must submit one-page proposals in English for electronic submissions to the Khamasin faculty editors by email.

The deadline for proposals is March 16, 2023, at 11:59 Cairo Local Time (CLT). Late submissions are not accepted.

Submission Guidelines

Proposals are only considered in Microsoft Word format, along with an email including the paper’s title, the authors’ name, and a 75-word abstract of the intended article. manuscripts submitted for consideration must not have been previously published elsewhere including online or as a working paper, in English or any other language. Text and reference note style should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style. All manuscripts must use footnotes rather than endnotes or in-line citations.

Additional Details on the Submission and Publication Process

In October/November and April/May of each academic year, the editor will announce a call for papers for the spring and fall issues of Khamasin respectively. The fall Issue of Khamasin is launched in November. The Spring Issue of Khamasin is launched in May.

Below are the projected deadlines for submission, leading to the eventual online publication for the spring issue

  • Announcement of call for proposals for spring Issue by: early February (launch of Spring issue)
  • Deadline for proposals for spring Issue due: March 16, at 11:59 CLT
  • Editor review of draft one of submissions due: March 27, at 11:59 CLT
  • Deadline for draft two of submissions due: May 18, 11:59 CLT 
  • External review of draft two of submissions: May 21 –  June 15
  • Final drafts: June 22
  • Layout: Late June
  • Publication: Late June
khamasin book cover

Current Issue - Spring 2022

This edition of the journal took as its point of departure and inspiration the grassroots feminist burst of activity in the past several years in Egypt. Women and girls have taken to social media to highlight issues ranging from street harassment and assault to domestic violence, marital rape, gang rape, seeking legal and public action. The visibility of these stories has forced a national conversation that has long been denied.

Khamasin Issues

Publication cover page

Spring 2021

During the process of this issue’s publication, the Israeli government has once again used force against peaceful worshipers in the Al-Aqsa mosque while simultaneously displacing Palestinians from their homes. In solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle against colonialism, we have decided to adopt a picture manifesting the Palestinian struggle.

Spring 2020- Khamasin

Spring 2020

The authors in this issue completed their submissions under difficult conditions of lockdown and isolation, while also living through a historical moment where communities around the world were confronting governments with their colonial and imperial legacies and ongoing racialized structures of violence. 

Khamasin Book Cover

Fall 2019

The selected papers in this Fall 2019 issue address a range of interrelated and timely topics in the present period, including border policing, political exclusion, the mobilization of space and nature as part of state formation, the politics of media and communication, and collective struggle in policed spaces. The papers in this issue begin a discussion around the relationship between state policies, political resistance movements, and our scholarly work and responsibilities as members of academic institutions.

Khamasin fall 2008

Spring 2018

This is the fifth issue of Khamasin: Reflections on Society and Politics in the Middle East. In this issue, Reham ElMorally elaborates in her paper why having an intersectional post-colonial perspective is crucial in gender mainstreaming of international development projects. Besides, Ashrakat Abdelsamad’s article “Bolivian Experience with Neoliberalism: What Lessons for Egypt?. Hana Shaltout article titled “Salama Killa, The Destiny of Arab Revolutions: A Theoretical Analysis for the Purpose of Crystallizing a New Strategy of the Left”.  A comparative Survey of Research Papers by Arab Scholars 2004-2014 by Othman Omran Khalifa, Aisha Hassan Abdallah, and Nasser Youssef.

Previous Issues

For previous Khamasin Issues click on the issues below:

 

Contact Us

The Department of Political Science
AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74   
New Cairo 11835, Egypt   
t: +2.02.2615.1945 

polisci@aucegypt.edu