Marnia Lazreg

The Eloquence of Silence: Algerian Women in Question.

Introduction 1. Decolonizing Feminism 2. Women in Pre-Colonial Algeria 3. the Colonial War in Fact and Fancy 4. Exposing and Reconstrucing Algerian Identity 5. Reform and Resistance 6. Womens Lived Reality in and Under Colonial Society 7. Nationalism, Decolonization, and Gender 8. State, Socialism, Development and Women 9. Consciousness, Culture, and Change 10. Womens Rise to the Word 11. Between God and Man Conclusion Bibliography

Making the Transition Work for Women in Europe and Central Asia

Women in the Europe and Central Asia region complain about loss of employment, sexual harassment, violence, poor enforcement of the law, poor political representation, and poor health care. Many greet these complaints with skepticism or dismissal. Is it economic expedience due to the sheer magnitude of the changes taking place under the transition? Did the Soviet legacy delude observers into believing that there is gender equality in the region? While budgets shrink, how can gender be integrated into country department work programs? To answer these and other pressing questions regarding the gender issue, the World Bank held a conference in June 1999. Women from the ECA region, Western Europe and the United States gathered to address the lack of Bank knowledge of gender issues in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region. The papers from the conference included in this volume describe the present conditions for women, emphasize the need to debunk the myth of gender equality in the Soviet era, and propose urgent legislative measures to address gender disparity. This publication gives women the opportunity to voice their concerns regarding this issue. It will be of interest to regional gender experts, ministries, and think tanks.

Women, Work and Social Change in Algeria

This paper explores the conditions under which women participate in the labour force in Algeria. The significance of the analysis presented in the following pages lies in its avoidance of the religious paradigm which has typically privileged Islam as an explanation of gender inequality in societies such as Algeria where this religion is predominant.1

Poststructuralist theory and women in the Middle East: going in circles?

This article examines the effects of the uncritical use of the poststructuralist Foucauldian theoretical approach on studies of Middle Eastern women and gender. Focusing on the twin concepts of ‘empowerment’ and ‘resistance’ as they have been applied to account for the re-veiling trend among Muslim countries and communities, it explores the epistemic transformation of the explanation of this trend into its justification. It further provides an example of a historicized application of Michel Foucaults conception of power.

Handbook of Sociology and Human Rights

moral issues but about political strategy: the legitimacy of the peace process and how it has been conducted. Loyalists, on the other hand, show greater variation in their narratives of the past, including the meaning of faith and religion. In the concluding chapter, the authors finally address religion and transitional justice. They claim that the literature on transitional justice ‘‘completely overlooks religion in its consideration of ex-combatants’’ (p. 162). Thus, religion is the ‘‘missing variable.’’ Their evidence is thin. Yes, priests often played key roles in the peace process, but I would propose that this had a subtly different meaning from what the authors give it. Priests were trusted by Republicans not as priests, but as individuals. Arguably, most Republicans had little respect for most priests but a few men who happened to be priests were truly ‘‘saint-like,’’ in a secular sense, and won the trust of key Republicans (remember: priests were the only outsiders who could regularly visit prisoners). Their usefulness as priests was that British state representatives were willing to talk to them because of their religious status but, more importantly as in the cases of Archbishop Tomás Ó Fiaich and his aide Alec Reid, because they were considered to have moral standing in the Catholic community. Republicans pragmatically (often cynically) used this for publicity reasons while British officials and spies found in certain priests a deniable way of gaining silent entry to a community of combatants with whom they could not publicly admit to be negotiating. This study’s subject is clearly important, although a better research question might be, ‘‘why did religion play so little a role in the actions and identities of ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ combatants in Ireland?’’ Yet it suffers from its reliance on a small number of qualitative interviews by ‘‘distant’’ academics who, admittedly, never even met their respondents, nor did they know anything about them except their movement affiliations and gender. The authors justify such distance as a correct method for sensitive research, and they tell us twice that they burned all the tapes. Is this kind of timid, disengaged research, in the age of IRBs and police/NSA snooping, what we have come to? As someone who lived among Republican combatants and ex-combatants for decades—working, laughing, and drinking with them—I believe ethnography would have given greater insight into the presence and absence of religion in and from social-movement life. In this respect, Boston College or no Boston College, some of the best work may be yet to come.

Forced Marriage: Introducing a Social Justice and Human Rights Perspective

violence and victimization have been consistent features in the United Kingdom (and other parts of the world), Duggan argues that fears of paramilitary reprisal and police surveillance led to a culture of silence where the potential ramifications of reporting homophobic abuse might mean attacks on one’s family or information about one’s sexuality leaking to regulatory organizations. Duggan also illustrates how a religiouslyinformed morality has shaped politics in Northern Ireland to define the lives of lesbians and gay men. In 1977, Reverend Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Free Presbyterian Church, launched the ‘‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’’ campaign to prevent the decriminalization of homosexual acts in Northern Ireland. The dominance of the evangelical Protestant perspective in the political sphere, which views homosexuality as a lifestyle ‘‘choice’’ that sinners can overcome, has placed cultural constraints on the choices lesbians and gay men make about their personal lives and whether to be ‘‘out.’’ Such choices include whether to live with a partner, whether to remain in a family home or in the area where one was raised, and whether to come out in the workplace. A criticism of studies that theorize homophobia has been to focus on heterosexual attitudes toward gay men or to study prejudice against homosexuality, which is often understood as male homosexuals. To avoid this pitfall, Duggan designates an entire chapter to lesbian women’s experiences of prejudice in Northern Ireland. She argues that lesbians have not been legally persecuted in the same way as gay men, but that there are other ways in which legal regulation has shaped their experiences. Women in general struggle for social and political recognition in Northern Ireland, and this is especially true for lesbians who are underrepresented in all areas of Northern Irish political and social life. For lesbian mothers and grandmothers, Duggan documents how a lack of representation translates into fear over the possible impact that coming out would have on their children. She notes that this kind of legal and political homophobia can destroy families and cause long-term psychological distress. While a focus on women is a welcomed addition to the book, Duggan’s decision to offer a specific chapter on lesbian experience rather than to integrate a gender analysis throughout has the unfortunate consequence of reinstating the androcentric bias that homophobia is largely concerned with gay men. Despite this minor criticism, Queering Conflict makes a significant contribution by mapping out parameters of homophobia in the state building process. It will be of interest to scholars of sexualities and LGBT studies, and points to rich directions for future research. For example, while the book convincingly demonstrates important differences in regulating sexuality in Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom and Western Europe, the moral and religious conservatism evidenced in this particular history offers a potentially interesting point of comparison to the case of the United States where the Religious Right has shaped lesbian and gay activism and identities (Fetner 2008).

The Persistence of Patriarchy: Class, Gender, and Ideology in Twentieth Century Algeria

Preface Introduction Part I: Traditional Influences Tribal Patriarchy, Egalitarianism and Islam in Precolonial Algeria The Civilizing Mission and the Family Part II: Modern and Neo-Traditionlist Influences The New Petty Bourgeoisie and the Muslim Doctors The Middle Class and Feminism The New Working Class and Socialism Part III: Revolutionary Influences Women and the Algerian Revolution The New Revolutionary Brotherhood Part IV: Post-Revolutionary Influence The Womens Movement, Revolutionary Puritanism, and Muslim Socialism Algeria Under Boumedienne Muslim Fundamentalism Under Chadli Benjedid Patriarchy Challenged: The Family Code and Algerian Feminists Epilogue Appendix Notes Bibliography Index