Epistemic Structures and Public Discourse: Tracing Religious Reasoning in Arab Public Spheres

Abstract

The paper presents a case study exploring how the everyday deliberation of public matters in the Arab world is epistemically traceable. Since processes of socio-political communication are deeply rooted in wider epistemological structures, and because social actors operating in the public sphere are socially informed, it is imperative to understand the underlying epistemic structures that determine everyday communicative practices. The paper seeks to identify the role played by religious discourse/reason in Arab public spheres. It begins by introducing the theoretical approach that informs the discursive analysis, Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). It then summarises the concept of the public sphere and its historical evolution in the Arab world. Following this, it identifies three epistemic stances that dominate Arab public spheres: (1) the traditionalist stance, (2) the revisionist stance, and (3) the stance of the epistemological break. The paper concludes with a case study that illustrates each of these epistemic structures and locates their epistemological stances by schematising their arguments on a prominent problematic issue in modern Arab thought: equal shares of inheritance for men and women. The data for analysis was derived from discussion and debate on this topic in the wake of the late Tunisian president's proposal.