Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arab World, Arts, Content Creation, Cultural Resistance, Culture, Dubai, Lebanon, Peace Arts, Peace Education, Peacebuilding, Southwestern Asia, War, War Memory

Artist Pamela Chrabieh’s “Peace Collection” in Indelible Dubai

I was born and raised in the 1970s-1980s war in Lebanon. My experience as a war survivor has marked my writing and art, as has fueld my quest for peace. As I see it, peace is not only about ceasefires, the end of bloodshed, the absence of hostilities, and a state of mutual concord between governments, as war is both “physical” and “psychological”. Peace is about accountability for violence, openness, generosity, clemency, and catharsis. Peace is and should be a transformation process within mindsets, a celebration of interconnected life and unity in the diversity of complex identities. As long as the legacy of violence is not addressed within ourselves and our societies, we will remain lost, cut off from connection, living in a never-ending apocalypse of carnages and tortured souls and bodies.

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh is a scholar, writer, visual artist, and activist. Author of several books and papers with a 20+ year experience in higher education, communication, content creation, and the arts, she has exhibited her artworks in Canada, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Italy. Previously Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Dubai, she currently owns and manages a Beirut-based company offering expertise in Learning and Communication. 
http://pamelachrabiehblog.com and http://spnc.co

Source: Indelible

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arts, Content Creation, Culture, Dubai, Lebanon, Peace Arts, Peacebuilding, UAE

‘Les portes’ Artwork and Poem published by Indelible at the American University in Dubai

Indelible is a new literary journal edited by my friends at the American University in Dubai. A special thank you to Dr. Roula Maria Dib for publishing a photo of one of my paintings and a short prose poem.


“Les portes”, by Dr. Pamela Chrabieh
Oil and acrylic on canvas, Beirut – Lebanon, 2012


“Doors are the keepers of secrets, memories of the past and dreams about bright futures. Doors’ closures give the feeling of fences that speak. Behind doors, there are people who live, love each other, argue, are sad or happy; there are furniture and objects, sounds of voices, smells of soup … Doors are boundaries, presence, absence, call, communication, access, defense, rupture, transition, intimate, and universal. Doors are protective shelters, guardians of passages between the profane and the sacred. Doors are chances to do something different, they are places of departure and entrances into new worlds.

Doors are ecumenical images of life’s immanence.”

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh is a scholar, writer, visual artist, and activist. Author of several books and papers with a 20+ year experience in higher education, communication, content creation, and the arts, she has exhibited her artworks in Canada, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. Previously Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Dubai, she currently owns and manages a Beirut-based company offering expertise in Learning and Communication. http://pamelachrabiehblog.com and http://spnc.co

Source: INDELIBLEAUD.COM (March 2019)

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arab World, Arts, Cultural Studies, Dubai, Expertise, Gulf region, Middle Eastern Studies, Migration, UAE

Minutes from the Miracle City by Omar Sabbagh

Congratulations dear Omar Sabbagh! I had the pleasure to read your Dubai Novella and write a back book cover blurb.

Hakim, a Pakistani taxi driver whizzing through the streets. Patrick, a Ugandan security guard with aspirations of becoming a writer. Farida, a Moroccan beautician hoping for a fresh start. Saeed, a respected Emirati journalist just back from London.

Taking place across the last few days of Ramadan, Minutes from the Miracle City is a unique retelling of the virtuoso project that is Dubai.

Note: Here is the detailed version of my blurb: Omar Sabbagh’s Miracle City is a delightful kaleidoscopic tale of contemporary Dubai through the struggles and identity crises of migrants and locals’ characters living at the crossroads of tradition, postmodernity, and glocalization. A feast for the reader’s eye and soul!

https://www.fairlightbooks.co.uk/minutes-from-the-miracle-…/

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arab World, Communication, Dubai, Expertise, Feminism, Gender Equality, Gulf region, Migration, Saudi Arabia, Southwestern Asia, UAE, University, Women's Rights, Youth

Women’s Rights in the Gulf Region – Alaraby Interview

مداخلتي منذ قليل في برنامج شبابيك (التلفزيون العربي، لندن) عن حقوق المرأة في الخليج وأسباب هروب فتيات و نساء إلى الخارج. خلاصة القول: لقد عملت هذه الدول في السنوات الأخيرة على سد الفجوة بين الجنسين (التمكين السياسي والتعليم والصحة) ولكن يجب اصلاح عدة قوانين (الأحوال الشخصية، الوصاية…) وتفكيك الذهنية الأبوية 

Alaraby TV (London – UK), Chababik program, 19-02-2019
Full Interview HERE

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arab World, Cultural Studies, Dubai, Education, Lebanon, Middle Eastern Studies, Peace Education, Peacebuilding, Southwestern Asia, UAE, University, Youth

Can we still build Inclusive Societies in the Middle East without Deep Learning? No…

I am sharing here the conclusion of my paper on deep learning in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates:

”One of the challenges that higher education will be facing is the spread of more surface learning versus deep learning, as deep learning can particularly take place in Humanities courses when appropriate education approaches are thought and practiced. I believe that the decision to reduce education (and learning) to a corporate consumer-driven model – providing services to the student-client -, transforms universities into factories or collegelands.

The ability to think critically and independently, to tolerate ambiguity, to see multiple sides of an issue, to deconstruct stereotypes, to appreciate diversity, to look beneath the surface, to dialogue with others on sensitive issues, and therefore the ability that equips us to live in and sustain democracies, to develop peaceful societies united in their diversity, will eventually disappear.

As I am completing the fall semester at the Lebanese American University as a part-time professor of Cultural Studies, I am being told that these courses and other Humanities’ courses will no longer be offered, due to budget cuts. Although my students have stated in their end-of-semester course evaluations their need for such courses and for a pedagogical approach that nurtures deep learning and in particular peacebuilding teaching/learning methods and activities in a country and a region on the verge of further explosion, their voices have not been heard.

I honestly fear that despite the efforts of few professors and educators, and of some youth and local NGOs initiatives, the future that awaits us is either further polarized or monochrome. Alternative narratives, perceptions, and practices that can challenge the ‘norm’ will cease to exist, and students will no longer be engaged to go beyond their disciplines and explore new avenues and skills. Furthermore, the automation of higher education will be contributing to the exacerbation of this reality. I am still struggling from my end and with other activists and pedagogues to build more just and inclusive societies in Southwestern Asia, but I honestly believe that this struggle has already become more arduous”.

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh, ‘Deep Learning in the University Context: Case Studies in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates’, International Journal of Arts and Sciences Refereed Conference Proceedings, 11 (03), 2018, p. 39-48.
www.universitypublications.net/proceedings/1103/pdf/DE8C56.pdf

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arab World, Culinary Art, Cultural Studies, Culture, Dubai, Education, Food Studies, Gastrodiplomacy, Intercultural Dialogue, Interfaith Dialogue, Interreligious Dialogue, Middle Eastern Studies, Migration, Peace Education, Peacebuilding, Southwestern Asia, UAE, University, Youth

Learning through Food – Deep Learning in the University Context in the Middle East

For those interested in food and education: this article introduces its readers to an interdisciplinary approach in teaching and learning about cultures of Southwestern Asia and North Africa at the American University in Dubai. Selected as one of the United Arab Emirates Innovation Week’s officially registered activities in 2015, this activity combines anthropology of food, sciences of religions, and irenology and is a major application of the peace education pedagogy I have been developing since 2004. The article also presents the preliminary results of qualitative research on the local food cultures’ experiences of more than 500 students from different backgrounds who are enrolled in diverse Middle Eastern studies courses. In my classrooms, students were exposed to—and they told—stories of families, migrations, assimilation, resistance, hybridity, war, and peace and dealt with issues ranging from cultural appropriation to food security and food as an identity marker and the religious significance and representation of food. Class activities such as live food production (e.g., “Hummus Laboratory”), food storytelling sessions, and food diplomacy activities contributed to their learning of local cultures and building peace. Students reported having acquired visceral experiences of foreignness and familiarization, global identity formation, and intercultural dialogue.

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Arab World, Arts, Communication, Culture, Dubai, Education, Intercultural Dialogue, Interfaith Dialogue, Interreligious Dialogue, Islam, Middle Eastern Studies, Peace Arts, Peace Education, Peacebuilding, Religions, Southwestern Asia, Tolerance, UAE, Youth

Peace, Islam and the Arts in Dubai

My “Peace, Islam and the Arts in Dubai” was recently published in Hawliyat, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Journal at the University of Balamand, Lebanon. Issue 18, 2017-2018, p. 111-134.