Miriyam Aouragh has interests in mobility, interactivity, empowerment, grassroots activism and the construction of (imagined) online communities. She is studying the implications of new generation/Internet 2.0 for Palestinian and Lebanese activists.
Dr Miriyam Aouragh
Former Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellow
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Profile
Trained as an anthropologist at the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam), Goldsmiths University (London) and Birzeit University (Palestine), focusing on Race and Racism and Palestinian political movements, Miriyam Aouragh continued as a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam where she embarked on a study of the Palestinian Internet. She also taught on anthropology, sociology and ethnic and racial studies at the University of Amsterdam.
During her MA fieldwork she noticed the mushrooming of Internet cafes and wondered what the effect would be on Palestinians reaching out to the world, and for those ‘outside’ in exile to link up with those ‘inside’ the Occupied Territories. She observed and interviewed the Internet actors themselves: the Palestinian producers and consumers of the Internet. In order to grasp the complexities of ‘a nation in multiple states’ she employed a multi-sited approach by including Jordan and Lebanon in her general approach and fieldwork, which took place between 2001 and 2005.
During her time as a PhD researcher, Miriyam observed the development of the Internet in terms of new possibilities for overcoming immobility and in motivating interactivity, and how these social effects have enabled social movements to target broader audiences. After her PhD, the nature, style and political economies of what she termed ‘Cyber Intifada’, became her main research focus. Miriyam was awarded a Rubicon (NWO) grant to embark on this research at the Oxford Internet Institute. She currently studies the everyday political implications of Web 2.0 for Palestinian and Lebanese activist groups, the role of the Internet during the ongoing Arab revolutions, and teaches Cyber Politics of the Middle East at Oxford University’s Middle East Centre. Her Book “Palestine Online: Transnationalism, the Internet and the Construction of Identity” has been published by IB Tauris (2011).
Email: firstname.lastname at oii.ox.ac.uk
Research interests
virtual mobility, online empowerment, grassroots activism, Internet and Arab revolutions, construction of online exiled communities
Positions held at the OII
- Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellow, January 2009 – December 2011
Research
Videos
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Facebook Resistance? Understanding the role of the Internet in the Arab Revolutions
Recorded: 28 March 2011
Duration: 01:03:05
Revolutions are currently sweeping the Arab world, from Tunisia to Egypt and Libya to Bahrain. The Internet has been reported as a key factor, but we in fact know little of its role in these revolutions.
Events
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Constructing Identity: Palestine Online (Society and the Internet Lecture Series, Part 16)
6 March 2012
This talk explores how, for Palestine's diaspora and exiled communities, the Internet has become an important medium for the formation of Palestinian national and transnational identity.
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Book Launch: Palestine Online, Transnationalism, the Internet and the Construction of Identity
29 September 2011
Miriyam Aouragh will discuss her new book, the research behind it, the implications for those affected by the Israeli-Palestine conflict and how it furthers understanding about the connection between electronic media, politics and national identity.
Press
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Twitter and other social media now another front in Gaza attack
16 November 2012 Los Angeles Times
Miriyam Aouragh questions the effectiveness of increasing use of social media in the battle front although she acknowledges the enormous number of protests organised via Facebook and Twitter.
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Gilbert Achcar’s book on Arabs and the Holocaust
26 August 2010 Mondoweiss
Miriyam Aouragh reviews the book "The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives" (G.Achcar, Metropolitan Books).
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Peaceful Resistance: Building a Palestinian University under Occupation
13 May 2010 Times Higher Education
Miriyam Aouragh reviews the book "Peaceful Resistance: Building a Palestinian University under Occupation" (G. Baramki, Pluto Press).