Workshop: Feminism and Authoritarianism in the Middle East

A Workshop in Strategies, Alliances, and Challenges

 

IRAQ

Nadje Al-Ali:                          “Divisions and challenges for Iraqi feminists in post-invasion Iraq”

Zahra Ali:                                “Iraqi women’s rights activism -dealing with political chaos and sectarian violence in post-Ba’athist Iraq”

TURKEY

Ayse Gul Altinay and Ezgi Kocak

“Love is Organizing:” Feminist and LGBT Readings of Gezi Protests and their Political Background”

EGYPT

Hania Sholkamy:         “The Hegemonic Discourses of Patriarchy in Egypt”

Dina Wahba:               "Between two revolutions: Changing Feminist Discourses, a personal reflection"

TUNUSIA

Mounira Charrad:        "Challenges for Feminists:  Politics and Islam from Authoritarianism to the Arab Spring in Tunisia"

Dalenda Largueche:     “Women's associations, the battles of Equality and Parity in post-revolutionary Tunisia” 

 

Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University and the Center for Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London, have organized a workshop to discuss the current challenges and dilemmas for feminists in the Middle East.  The workshop will be held at Indiana University, Bloomington from April 3 - 4, 2014.

 

The aim of the workshop is to explore and discuss shifting relationships and tensions between authoritarian and feminist politics in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia and Turkey.  We will interrogate how feminists maneuver the rapidly changing local and regional contexts. More specifically, we are interested in feminist complicity and interventions to sectarianism, militarism and Islamism. Furthermore, we aim to discuss different understandings of and strategies for gender-based and wider forms of violence. Finally, we would also like to address the role of transnational feminism in tackling the local and international complexities of women’s rights struggles: Which forms of intersectionality are articulated and practiced, and which are left out? What solidarities and alliances are challenged locally, regionally and transnationally and which new ones are being forged?

 

Sponsored by:  Center for the Study of the Middle East, SOAS (University of London), Institute for European Studies, Department of Gender Studies, Center for the Study of Global Change, British Council.