Rachid Ouaissa

Rachid Ouaissa (May 23, 1971, in Tazmalt, Algeria) is a German-Algerian academic and, since 2009, a professor at the University of Marburg. He heads the department “Politics of the Near and Middle East” at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies.

Personal life

Ouaissa was born in 1971 in Tazmalt, Kabylia, Algeria. After completing high school in 1989, he began studying medicine at the University of Tizi Ouzou, which he had to abandon after two years due to the outbreak of the Algerian Civil War. At that time, he was actively involved as a member of the “Mouvement Culturel Berbère” a Kabyle organization advocating for the official recognition of Amazigh identity in North Africa. In 1993, he emigrated to Halle (Saale), where, after completing a preparatory college, he began studying political science and philosophy in 1994. In 1997, he was awarded the DAAD Prize by the University of Halle-Wittenberg for his excellent academic performance and intercultural engagement.

Career

In 1999, he completed his studies in political science and began his doctoral studies at Leipzig University. In 2004, he earned his doctorate under Hartmut Elsenhans with his dissertation titled “State Class as a Decision-Making Actor in Third World Countries: Structure, Development, and Formation of the State Class Using Algeria as an Example,” graduating summa cum laude.

From 2002 to 2008, Ouaissa worked as a research associate in the Department of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science at Leipzig University. In 2008, he spent four months as a visiting scholar at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

In March 2009, Ouaissa was appointed as professor of political science and head of the Department of “Politics of the Near and Middle East” at the newly established Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at the University of Marburg. His research and teaching focus on topics such as rentier systems and the role of middle classes and rents in political and socio-economic transformation processes, new culturally and identity-driven political movements in various cultural contexts, as well as Islamist actors in the societies and political systems of the Near and Middle East and North Africa. Since 2020, Ouaissa has also served as the director of the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) in Tunis, Tunisia.

Bibliography

• Ouaissa, Rachid; Pannewick, Friederike; Strohmaier, Alena (Hrsg.) (2021): Re-Configurations. Contextualizing Transformation Processes and Lasting Crises in the Middle East and North Africa. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Ouaissa, Rachid; Elsenhans, Hartmut; Schwecke, Sebastian; Tétreault Mary-Ann (Hrsg.) (2015): The Transformation of Politicised Religion: Zealots Turned into Leaders. London: Routledge.
• Ouaissa, Rachid (2015): On the Trail of Frantz Fanon. In: Pannewick, Friederike/Khalil, Georges (Hrsg.): Commitment and Beyond: Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s. Wiesbaden: Reichert, S. 105–122.
• Ouaissa, Rachid (2014): Die Rolle der Mittelschichten im Arabischen Frühling – Ein Überblick. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Ouaissa, Rachid; Gertel, Jörg (Hrsg.) (2014): Jugendbewegungen. Städtischer Widerstand und Umbrüche in der arabischen Welt. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
• Ouaissa, Rachid (2012): Arabische Revolution und Rente. In: Ruf, Werner (Hrsg.): Wandel in der Arabischen Welt. Berlin: LIT Verlag, S. 57–77.
• Ouaissa, Rachid (Hrsg.) (2005): Staatsklasse als Entscheidungsakteur in den Ländern der Dritten Welt: Struktur, Entwicklung und Aufbau der Staatsklasse am Beispiel Algerien. Mit einem Vorwort von Hartmut Elsenhans. Berlin: LIT Verlag.