I had encountered citizenship as a word long before I encountered it as a question. In lecture halls, it arrives defined: a legal status, a set of rights and duties, a relationship between individuals and the state. Looking back on the Asfari Institute’s “Re-Imagining Citizenship in the Arab region” conference at the American University of Beirut on September 5-6, I realize how much I had yet to explore within those definitions.

I had understood citizenship through the rights people are promised and the responsibilities they hold. The conference pushed me to consider what enables people to exercise those rights and how their everyday experiences shape their sense of belonging and participation.

It was my first conference bringing together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners at this level, and I attended with fellow Political Studies and Public Administration Student Society cabinet members. Over two days, four plenaries, and eight parallel panels, citizenship emerged through governance, education, gender, and displacement. Between sessions, we interviewed speakers and guests. The interviews let me pursue these ideas beyond the panels, with people whose daily work is material I study. Their answers made familiar concepts feel less settled and more consequential.

The distance between promise and practice became clear through discussions of constitutional reform. Judge Dr. Rana Akoum’s research examined the limits of reforms that recognize equality without securing it in everyday life. In our interview, she pointed to discrimination in nationality and personal status law and barriers to women’s access to authority. Dr. Marwan Muasher approached the same distance through the relationship between governments and citizens: obligations are demanded while participation in decision-making remains restricted. Together, these conversations sharpened something I had treated too abstractly: what does possessing a right mean when the conditions for exercising it are absent?

The education discussions brought this closer to my experience. Research in the program examined the gap between teaching civic concepts and creating opportunities for participation.

Our interviews mainly explored universities’ role. Dr. Tania Haddad described students working with communities to identify problems and implement responses. Dr. Mohamad Alkadry connected universities to public decision-making and community life. AUB President, Dr. Fadlo Khuri, emphasized bringing people from different backgrounds together to discuss their political and social differences openly. Watching my fellow cabinet members interview Dr. Khuri about dialogue across differences, I recognized the practice these discussions were calling for.

That responsibility extended into ordinary student life. Dr. Michel Douaihy spoke about young people’s capacity to revisit political ideas and the reciprocal obligations between people and the state. Dr. Khaldoun Abou Assi described citizenship as continuous engagement, beginning in the classrooms and student elections and reaching beyond campus. Having served on the FAS Student Representative Committee, I could connect these ideas to my own experience of student representation. His emphasis on openness to other perspectives also prompted me to reflect on what meaningful participation requires: defending a position while remaining willing to reconsider it.

Interviewing the speakers gave me another opportunity to participate in that openness, to ask, listen, and pursue what I did not yet understand.

The second plenary explored how learning, dialogue, and community engagement can help
rebuild civic life in a divided society.

Our interviews extended these themes into questions of memory and belonging. Dr. Lyna Comaty linked an inclusive present and future to confronting Lebanon’s past. Jumanah Zabaneh discussed Hkeeli Ya Jnoub, the exhibition at Beit Beirut, and the importance of making women’s experience and civic contributions visible. Their perspectives made me consider whose stories become part of public history.

The discussions of displacement added another dimension. Pablo Pastor Vidal emphasized that refugee inclusion requires shared responsibility from national and international actors. Taking these encounters together, these encounters pushed me to think about belonging through both recognition and access to support. How can people feel part of society if their experiences are unheard or they are left to meet their needs alone?

Lina Abou-Habib’s account of Asfari Institute’s role in creating an open, safe space for difficult conversations helped me reflect on the setting that had made these encounters possible. What I valued was the opportunity to ask further questions and hear how people working in different fields approached them. The interviews made me an active participant, but they also reminded me of how much participation depends on listening. I could bring what I had learned in class into a conversation while allowing someone else’s experience to enrich it.

What stayed with me was the connection between these ideas and the people working to put them into practice. I want to continue following their research, maintain the conversations we began, and find opportunities to contribute. Within the Student Society, this means considering how our activities can encourage constructive dialogue, connect students with community work, and bring overlooked experiences into discussion. The value of the connections I made will depend partly on what I do to sustain them.

I came to the conference with a definition. I left with a fuller understanding of what putting citizenship into practice demands. Rights need institutions that uphold them; belonging needs spaces where different experiences can be heard; participation needs opportunities to influence life beyond us. The conference gave these ideas faces, voices, and urgency. What I do with that will shape how I participate from here.