The Middle East and Central Asia are undergoing profound transformations that are reshaping the ways their futures are imagined, debated, and pursued. Across the region, governments, societies, businesses, artists, and communities are drawing upon historical legacies, cultural traditions, and collective memories to articulate competing visions of the future. From governance, diplomacy, and economic development to technological innovation to cultural production, the future has become a powerful arena in which ideas, identities, and aspirations are negotiated. Rather than viewing the past and the future as opposing forces, this conference explores how historical experiences continue to inform contemporary transformations and future trajectories across the region.
The upcoming conference will be organised under the “Middle East and Central Asia Futurescapes Network,” an initiative by the ANU’s Centre for the Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS) to bring together scholars to examine the tangible and intangible ways by which the region is being re-shaped and re-imagined through the prism of future-facing technology.
For more information about the network, click here.
Image credit: Abdulmeilk Aldawsari (Pexels)
The conference invites scholars and early career researchers from across the humanities and social sciences to explore questions such as:
· How are competing visions of the future imagined and contested across the Middle East and Central Asia?
· How are war, technological innovation, climate change, demographic shifts, and economic transformation redefining the region's futures?
· What roles do states, cities, businesses, religious institutions, artists, and civil society play in imagining and constructing tomorrow?
· How are emerging regional and global orders reshaping identities, governance, security, and everyday life?
By bringing together diverse disciplinary perspectives, the conference seeks to foster new conversations on the multiple futures of one of the world’s most dynamic and rapidly evolving regions.
Six panel themes:
1. Power, Geopolitics and Future Regional Orders
2. Technology, Innovation and Digital Futures
3. Economy, Sustainability and Development Futures
4. Society, Identity and Social Transformation
5. Religion, Heritage and Future Imaginaries
6. Media, Arts and Cultural Futures
Abstract deadline: 30 September 2026 (extended)
Please email abstracts to: Niloufar.baghernia@anu.edu.au
We especially encourage submissions from early-career researchers.
Some limited funding support will also be available for participants travelling from within Australia.
There are no registration fees.
Registration is now available via Humanitix.
Limited funding support will be available for selected participants within Australia.
We especially encourage attendance from early-career researchers.
A full program will be available by late November 2026
Dr Nida Alahmad:
Dr. Nida Alahmad is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Edinburgh. Her most recent publications are State Matters: Theorizing State Fragmentation and Consolidation from Iraq (Cambridge University Press, 2026) and ‘Deexceptionalizing not Reinventing: Genocide, Palestine, and Zionism,’ Journal of Genocide Research (2026).
Keynote Address: The State Between the Past and the Future
Abstract: The state, as a modern phenomenon, has basic elements of consolidation that create unique possibilities for both social justice and for tyranny. Political subjects in the Middle East understand this reality and have been acting upon it for as long as the modern state has been around in the region. Protests and revolutionary moments in the region were often ‘statists’—they demand changes to principles upon which states organise public life. The underlying assumption of such demands is that possibilities of social justice can only be affected through and by the state. The state, in other words, is the most effective arbitrator of the present, and the grantor of the future possibilities of social justice. Yet, how and for whom this social justice is extended is not a self-evident answer and one that requires elements of both domination and democratically organised political life.
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Associate Professor Zaynab El Barnoussi:
Zaynab El Bernoussi is an Associate Professor of political science at the Africa Institute, Global Studies University. She teaches international politics and her research focuses on dignity politics and the global South. She won the 2015 Arab Prize for her article on the Postcolonial Politics in Dignity and the 2025 International Political Science Association Global South Award.
Keynote Title: Youthcide, When the Youth Bulge in the MENA leads to Political Suicide
Abstract: The youth are the future of society in terms of many forms of sustainability, i.e., biological, social, political, and economical. In the MENA, they represent a significant proportion of the population. And the issue has been that many policies in the region have favored a youthcide, from poor state infrastructure to instrumentalization of the young as a political tit-for-tat. In this talk, I will focus on three components of a youthcide in the MENA: 1) youth migration, 2) youth education, and 3) youth health. I will argue that, together, these elements reinforce a political fragility of the MENA systems.
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A/Professor Alexandr Akimov:
Trained financial economist, Alexandr Akimov is passionate about research in development and sustainability. The major areas of expertise are emerging market finance, post-communist Central Asia, sustainable and energy finance, Australia public policy.
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Dr. Ali Mozaffari:
Dr. Ali Mozaffari is a distinguished architect, scholar, and writer, specializing in the cultural heritage of West Asia and 20th-century Persian architecture. He holds an M.Arch. from Tehran University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and a PhD from the University of Western Australia. Mozaffari's research spans anthropology, heritage, and architecture, and he is the founding co-editor of Berghahn’s series Explorations in Heritage Studies. He has been a member of various academic organizations and has contributed to international academic conferences. His academic work includes monographs, journal articles, and editorial leadership in the field of heritage studies.
Discover destination dining, cultural icons, family adventures and local secrets shared by Canberrans.
If you are planning on staying longer in Canberra either before or after the conference, we encourage you to access the Canberra Visitor Guide 2026.
The event will be hosted by the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University and will be held at ANU's Acton campus in Canberra.
An exact location will be published ahead of the event.
The Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies is located at the Australian National University in Canberra on the lands of the Ngunnawal people. The Centre acknowledges and respects the continuing culture of the Ngunnawal people as the region’s first inhabitants. The Centre’s staff are committed to supporting meaningful reconciliation with Australia’s traditional owners.
Queries? Questions?
Please reach out to the event organisers
Niloufar Baghernia (PhD)
Khalid Al Bostanji (PhD)
Khalid.AlBostanji@anu.edu.au
Gulshat Rozyyeva (PhD Student)