The Arab Spring: new campus dynamics at Gaza’s universities?

Abstract

This study is a pioneer in reporting about the impact of the Arab Spring at Gaza’s universities. It is grounded in 36 in-depth semi-structured interviews which I conducted with lecturers and students at two of the universities in Gaza, as part of a PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge (2012–17). Although the study has benefited from Freire’s and Bourdieu’s conceptual insights, it remains mainly data driven, giving primacy to the Southern experience of higher education (HE) in Gaza. The article shows that although the socio-political changes in the Arab world had a negative impact on the Gaza HE experience, influenced by the spirit of the revolutions, students felt encouraged to voice their discontent to their universities. Nonetheless, due to educational and political barriers, Gaza students’ voices remain a cacophony; they are split between compliance and resistance.