American overseas research centers continue their mission-driven programs while responding with speed and focus to rapid political changes in the regions where they are located. Directors and scholars at our centers throughout the world chronicle and interpret events as they happen and disseminate information to other scholars and the general public in the US and the host countries.

Documenting the Arab Spring

The Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT), CAORC’s member center in Tunisia, collected images of graffiti and taped interviews from the Tunisian revolution. CEMAT scholars and interns continue to collect information, pamphlets, and posters from NGOs, media organizations, and the more than 100 new Tunisian political parties so that this precious record is not lost to historians, journalists, and policy makers. Through a US Embassy Grant, in 2011-2012 CEMAT will host five senior US scholars in Tunis and other cities across Tunisia as an ongoing seminar focusing on the Arab World’s Transition to Democracy. Although located in central Cairo not far from Tahrir Square, the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) was able to continue to assist US scholars and researchers in Egypt in early 2011. Since then, ARCE fellows and affiliated scholars have actively contributed vital information and research to the American academic community, public, and policy makers.

Reinterpreting Scholarship

The American Institute for Maghrib Studies, which oversees centers in three North African countries, and the West African Research Association, headquartered in Senegal and with scholarly networks throughout West Africa, are opening a significant part of the world to reinterpretation and study through their collaboration. By working together to examine interchange in all domains between North and West Africa, they are creating the new field of Sahel-Saharan Studies, with a focused library collection at the center in Algeria. To encourage primary research by US scholars in throughout the region, a new grant program for Saharan Studies began in 2012.

Expanding Access

CAORC is working with Library of Congress to transform acquisition of foreign materials for scholarly and public use: the West African Research Center in Senegal and its partners in ten other West African countries are collecting materials for the Library and initiating a pilot project to collect publications for US research university libraries. The American Institute of Pakistan Studies is collecting materials for the Library through their offices in three major cities.

Analyzing Political Change

In Istanbul in June 2011, the American Institute for Yemeni Studies brought together 21 leading scholars and policy makers from Yemen and the West to discuss current developments in Yemen, including the nature of democracy, tribes and state, political pluralism, the economy and natural resources, societal transformations, and the international dimensions of the Yemen crisis. This conference was the first opportunity for Yemen experts to meet as a group since Yemen’s political uprising began in spring 2011. This fall, American Institute for Maghrib Studies Board members John Entelis and Yahia Zoubir and AIMS members William Quandt, Robert Mortimer, and Stephen Zunes will participate in a major conference on the Arab Spring sponsored by the Algerian Ministry of Culture.

Preserving Cultural Heritage

With a grant to CAORC from the Getty Foundation, the American Academy in Rome organized and sponsored a fall 2011 seminar entitled Protecting Cultural Property in Crisis Areas, with participants from the US, the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan. Funding from the Getty Foundation has allowed cultural heritage scholars and practitioners from the Near and Middle East/Mediterranean Basin to carry out research in other countries by affiliating with American overseas research centers located throughout the region. With support from the US Embassy, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies has organized conferences on cultural heritage issues in Islamabad and carried out a month-long workshop for Pakistani scholars in the US in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The American Research Center in Egypt’s creation of a registrar’s office at the Egyptian Museum and their training of museum staff enabled the museum to inventory and track its collection during and after the January 25 Revolution.

Empowering Local Communities

With support from the US State Department, the West African Research Association and West African Research Center are implementing the West African Peace Initiative to promote research and dialogue on peace building and conflict resolution in the region. The project supports a fellowship program, regional conferences, and a journalism institute. With support from CAORC and the US Department of Education, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies held a Women’s Studies Conference in August 2011 in Islamabad, in collaboration with the Pakistan National Commission on the Status of Women, the Center for Excellence in Gender Studies/Quaid-i-Azam University, and the Center for Excellence in Women’s Studies/University of Karachi, and brought together a wide range of scholars and practitioners to explore women’s changing roles, status and rights in Pakistan today.

Training the Next Generation

Through focused workshops, center-affiliated scholars help graduate students carry out research and synthesize and interpret the results to inform students, other scholars, policy makers, and the general public. CAORC centers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka jointly offer a “dissertation into book” workshop at the annual South Asian meetings, to encourage and facilitate recent Ph.D.s to publish their findings.

Supporting Local Economic Development

The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman supports Jordan’s tourism sector, a major source of revenue for the country, with cultural heritage management and presentation expertise and experience. ACOR works with the Jordanian antiquities organization to excavate, interpret, and restore important archaeological sites including Petra, Madaba, and Amman, and trains local residents for jobs in the tourist economy. Since 1993, the American Research Center in Egypt has worked with the Egyptian government to conserve monuments, art, and architecture from all periods throughout Egypt, contributing significantly to Egypt ’s tourism sector.

Serving American Undergraduate Education

Several centers - especially those in Senegal, Jordan, and India – supply invaluable assistance to study abroad programs from colleges and universities throughout the U.S. With support from the US Department of State/Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and private sources, CAORC and our centers in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Jordan, Iran, Mongolia, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Turkey provide intensive language training to hundreds of American undergraduate and graduate students each year. These programs are vital for support of language learning at American colleges and universities.

Informing Foreign Policy

The director of the Centre d'Etudes Maghrébines en Algérie, Dr. Robert Parks, was invited to Washington by the State Department with other experts on the region to brief the incoming American Ambassador to Algeria, Mr. Henry Ensher. Dr. Parks’ briefing included lectures on youth and change in Algeria. In June 2011, the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies released its Rule of Law in Afghanistan conference report. The conference examined the failure to account for historical and cultural implications in the development of rule of law and the lack of consideration of alternate systems of dispute resolution for maintaining social order in the absence of formal government institutions. In October 2011 American Institute of Indian Studies President Philip Lutgendorf will participate in the US-India Higher Education Summit in Washington, DC, announced by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Summit, which will be convened by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Indian Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal, will include US and Indian higher education leaders, government officials, and private sector representatives, and will focus on strengthening higher education collaboration and exchange between the two countries.

Reaching Out to New Audiences

In winter/spring 2012 the American Research Institute in Turkey sponsored a five-part series entitled Islam: Tradition and Diversity at Camden County College (CCC), Blackwood campus (New Jersey), in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania and CCC’s Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility. The series will serve K-12 educators, college students and faculty, adult learners, and community members. This is part of an outreach grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.