Composition Forum 40, Fall 2018 - Dreams of تويزة/Twiza as Transnational Practice - Managing Risk, Building Bridges, and Community Partnership Work

Oct 15, 2026

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تويزة/Twiza is analyzed as a community-based organizing term whose meaning shifts when translated and used across local contexts in different geographies. Parks and Hachelaf describe transnational collaboration between the United States and Algeria, including student dialogues and international scholar/activist networks for civil society workshops. Rather than creating seamless shared meanings, they find that locally enacted border-crossing practices can alter possibilities and generate new risks, prompting rethinking of related terms and prior publications.

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Composition Forum 40, Fall 2018

Dreams of تويزة/Twiza as Transnational Practice: Managing Risk, Building Bridges, and Community Partnership Work

Abstract

Biographies

Current Issue From the Editors Weblog Editorial Board Editorial Policy Submissions Archives Accessibility Search Composition Forum 40, Fall 2018 Dreams of تويزة/Twiza as Transnational Practice: Managing Risk, Building Bridges, and Community Partnership Work Ahmed Abdelhakim Hachelafand Steve Parks Abstract تويزة/Twiza is a tricky word to translate from its original Berber. In its simplest meaning, تويزة/Twiza speaks to the collective effort of a community to support each other. To speak of تويزة/Twiza is to call forth, then, the collective material practices which enact the values of a civil society. As Edward Said highlighted decades ago however, when terms (or theories) travel, they take on different meanings, losing some conceptual frameworks while adding others. The act of translation, of traveling, then, is also the act of reconstellation of community practices within a different local moment. And here is where the term gets difficult to translate. For the past year, Parks and Hachelaf have been engaged in a transnational discussion about what it means for تويزة/Twiza to be an organizing term of their collective community partnership work in the United States and Algeria. To date, their collaborative enactments have included developing dialogues among their undergraduate students as well as creating a network of international scholar/activists to create civil society workshops for students on the African, European, and North American continents. (For a sample of this work, see [https://www.jossournextgen.com](https://www.jossournextgen.com)) Rather than seamless borders and common meanings emerging from the work, however, they have discovered that when this traveling term is enacted within local contexts situated across international borders this very geographical specificity alters the possibilities (and complications) of community partnership occurs. Now placed under erasure,~~تويزة/Tawayiza~~, the term stands as in as a placemarker for the dream of a common “community” and the specific embodied alliance work required by that very dream. Indeed, the insights drawn from تويزة/Twiza have also placed under erasure previous articles and community publications, published by Parks, which worked within a nostalgic sense of border crossings. For when Parks and Hacleaf first met, Parks was engaged in a project focused on an anti-gentrification campaign as well as a project documenting the experiences of activists in the Arab Spring. (It is in the latter project where they authors met. ) The result of this period were two publications, an article titled,“Sinners’ Welcome,” and a book titled, Revolution by Love. The former argued for the need to train students how to be community organizers, framing it as a central goal of partnership work. The latter documented the harsh political conditions in which activists in the Middle East/North Africa operated. While the publications represent a “act locally, think globally” type stance, these works were not seen as in dialogue with each other-the call for student to become activists not located across a geographical context in which this very call posed risks for students and teachers. Or to frame it slightly differently, taken together, the works highlight how many of the key terms within our field, such as “community engagement,”“civic learning,” operate within a specific context that does not “travel” seamlessly. It is a lesson to consider as our field imagines it work as operating on a global stage. In the following dialogue, Parks and Hachelaf discuss their work together, how global contexts shift the meaning as well as the risks of partnership work, and what, ultimately, they hope students might learn though global dialogues on the concept of civic society. In doing so they try to articulate a world where sinners are both welcome and revolution emerges out of a love for one’s community. Biographies Ahmed Abdelhakim Hachelaf, Ecole Normale Supéri

FAQs

What does تويزة/Twiza mean in its simplest sense?

It refers to the collective effort of a community to support one another through shared, material practices that enact civil-society values.

How do translations and traveling terms affect meaning?

As highlighted by Edward Said, terms traveling across contexts can lose some conceptual frameworks while gaining others, requiring reassembly of community practices in a new local moment.

What complication arises when تويزة/Twiza is enacted across international borders?

Geographical specificity embedded in local enactments alters the possibilities and can complicate how community partnership work occurs, placing the term under erasure and reframing its role as a placemarker for the dream of a common community.

Oct 15, 2026

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