CSSR Movement Engaged Research Hub
Weekly Meetings
Friday, November 14, 2025 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST
Fuse at Mason Square, #6302
Fall 2025 Schedule
08/29/2025: General Meeting
Discussion and planning for the academic year
09/05/2025: General Meeting
Continuation of discussion and planning for the academic year
09/12/2025: Reading Group Meet-Up
Dale, John G. “Corporate Accountability and the Ecological Turn: Mining Lessons from the Rights of Nature Movement,” in Raluca Grosesçu and John G. Dale, eds., Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations: Civil Society and Transnational Action across the World (Springer, Series on Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Rights, 2025).
09/19/2025: Reading Group Meet-Up
09/26/2025: A Conversation with Suzie Choi
Suzie Choi began her journey in international development believing that large Western institutions like the UN offered the most effective path to impact, shaped by South Korea’s own development trajectory. Through her studies at Duke, including an honors thesis on anti–Belt and Road Indigenous movements in Ecuador, she grew critical of how power and progress are defined in global development. Her professional experiences with Saath, Co.Act, Counterpart International, and Namati have deepened her conviction that true transformation comes from empowered, connected communities. Suzie’s research and practice focus on reconceptualizing movements as dynamic, circulatory processes rather than linear campaigns. She seeks to bridge scholarship and practice to strengthen locally led movements and redefine what success means in international development.
10/03/2025 - Dissertation Presentation – Democratic Experiments with Technology by Dhruv Deepak
The Movement Engaged Research Hub at the Center for Social Science Research is hosting a dissertation discussion with Dr. John Dale and PhD candidate Dhruv Deepak on “Democratic Experiments with Technology.” Dhruv’s research explores how communities steward digital resources—data, platforms, and infrastructures—through cooperatives, data sovereignty initiatives, and peer production systems. He examines how these models can transform extractive “data relations” into sources of collective strength. Alongside his dissertation, Dhruv leads George Mason’s Digital Commonwealth Project, which designs accountable digital infrastructure to empower communities. His work challenges dominant paradigms of data extraction and surveillance, proposing that democratic experimentation can reshape our relationship with technology.
10/10/2025 - GMU Sociology Alumni Mohamed Elgohari' s Talk on "From Legalism to Algorithmic Control: Digital Authoritarianism, Legal Instruments, and the AI-Enhanced Surveillance State in the MENA Region"
Mohamed Elgohari is a scholar–practitioner of authoritarianism, law, and technology whose work bridges rigorous research and movement-centered practice. He earned a PhD in Sociology from George Mason University, where his dissertation examined how political regimes instrumentalize law and militarized governance to consolidate authoritarian rule. Building on this foundation, his current research investigates algorithmic governance in the Middle East, tracing how cybercrime and counterterrorism legal frameworks intersect with platform policies, data pipelines, and automated enforcement to produce everyday digital repression, leading to a regional regime complex where regimes learn how to upgrade digital authoritarianism and algorithmic control.
Elgohari led the Propaganda team at the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats, directing analyses of militant groups’ and other non-state actors’ propaganda and influence operations across the MENA region. In the policy arena, he has held roles at leading institutes—including Assistant Director at the Atlantic Council, MENA Program Officer at Freedom House, and researcher and team lead at Democracy for the Arab World Now—where he produced practitioner-facing briefs, data-driven assessments, and training modules.
10/17/2025- We Were Almost Emancipated, Is It Slipping Away?The Paradox of Law, Rights, and Reform in Bangladesh’s (Democratic) Transition
Presenter: Jeba Humayra
Jeba is a second-year PhD student in Sociology at George Mason University and Graduate Research Assistant with the Movement Engaged Research Hub at the Center for Social Science Research. Her current research explores the intersection of technology, law, politics, and human rights in Bangladesh, situating these dynamics within broader global and regional trends of digital authoritarianism.
In this workshop, Jeba will present her ongoing project to members of the Movement Engaged Hub. The session will be structured as a work-in-progress workshop, where she will share preliminary ideas and findings, invite feedback, and engage in collaborative discussion to help refine her research trajectory.
10/24/ 2025 - General Meeting
Discussion with the Hub Director and members on Rights of Nature project.
11/07/ 2025- General Meeting & Fall Potluck
11/14/2025 - General Meeting
Discussion with the Hub Director and members on ongoing and upcoming Hub projects. This will be the final meeting of the semester. Weekly meetings will resume in Spring 2026.
