Film Screening and Discussion:  5:30-7pm, Communications (Studio C)

Reception:  7-8:30pm, Communications 150

Gabes Labess (All is well in Gabes) questions current development models by focusing on the Oasis of Gabes, the only coastal oasis in the world. What was once considered “The Paradise of the World” has been transformed into an economic, social, and ecological catastrophe by the construction, in the 1970s, of an industrial chemical complex that has deprived local farmers of their water, arable land, economic well-being, and personal dignity.

Join us for a screening of this film by Habib Ayeb, followed by a discussion with Jennifer Derr (UCSC) and Hossein Ayazi (UCB) on how models of development influence the lived environment, public health, and political contestation from California to North Africa. As climate change and rising temperatures dramatically alter landscapes around the world, professors Derr and Ayazi will discuss how local populations adapt to these challenges and organize to demand accountability from the state. Reception to follow.

Hossein Ayazi, PhD, is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. His research, teaching, and policy work examine the U.S. and global political economy of agri-food systems and environmental change and their relationship to antiracist, anticolonial, and revolutionary-socialist movements from the twentieth century to the present. He has authored reports and peer-reviewed articles on U.S. and global agri-food and environmental policy, state and corporate power, trade and development, labor and migration, climate impacts and resilience strategies, and food sovereignty and climate reparations. He is currently coordinating lead author on the California Fifth Climate Assessment topical report on Climate-Induced Human Displacement & Migration and has recently advised the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on “Global Recommendations to Prevent Loss of Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change.” He holds a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley, and has held resident fellowships and visiting professorships at Tufts University, Williams College, and Santa Clara University.

Jennifer L. Derr is Associate Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, where she also served as the founding director of the Center for the Middle East and North Africa. Her research explores the intersections among medicine, science, the environment, and capitalism, particularly in the modern Middle East and North Africa. Prof. Derr’s book, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2019), was awarded the 2020 Middle East Political Economy Book Prize.

Presented by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa and co-sponsored by the Film and Digital Media Department.