Representations of the Institutional Critic and Its Critical Lenses

A Meta-Critical Approach to IPAF Winner Announcement Corpus (2019–2025)

Abstract

  This study argues that the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) winner announcements are not protocolary news but performative texts that construct literary value and redistribute symbolic capital. They embody the “institutional critic” as a collective subject that legitimizes judgment on behalf of the institution. Positioned within meta-criticism, the research employs an ethno-discursive protocol that combines an ethnographic perspective—treating discourse as a cultural-institutional practice reflecting actors’ roles—with a discursive approach that deconstructs linguistic structures.

  The longitudinal analysis (2019–2025) reveals shifting centers of legitimacy and evolving representations of the institutional critic, from formalist gatekeeper to moral advocate and myth-maker. It also demonstrates that institutional translation operates as a secondary critical practice that globalizes local texts, while the “economy of silence” in concealing deliberations functions as a strategy of prestige.

  Ultimately, the study provides a reusable protocol for examining cultural legitimation discourses and the role of institutional critics in Arab literary prize culture