Suchergebnisse

This article examines the politics, economics, and ethics shaping the recent focus on the adolescent girl from developing countries. It examines discourses and ideals about girlhood that have been produced and mobilized, by whom and for what purposes, how different girls are positioned within these discourses and within the related policies and interventions, and the racial dimensions of these interventions. It responds to these questions through what I call the girl factor: an unprecedented interest of the international development community, policy circles, and corporate sectors in the power and potential of young women from developing countries. Drawing on postcolonial feminist theories, the girl factor is examined within the larger contexts of neoliberal rationality, corporatization of development, and historical continuities in instrumentalizing women for larger political interests. Particular attention is paid to the case of Middle Eastern girls.

This article examines the politics, economics, and ethics shaping the recent focus on the adolescent girl from developing countries. It examines discourses and ideals about girlhood that have been produced and mobilized, by whom and for what purposes, how different girls are positioned within these discourses and within the related policies and interventions, and the racial dimensions of these interventions. It responds to these questions through what I call the girl factor: an unprecedented interest of the international development community, policy circles, and corporate sectors in the power and potential of young women from developing countries. Drawing on postcolonial feminist theories, the girl factor is examined within the larger contexts of neoliberal rationality, corporatization of development, and historical continuities in instrumentalizing women for larger political interests. Particular attention is paid to the case of Middle Eastern girls. Adapted from the source document.

How the Arab media construct Middle Eastern women as political actors, frame their leadership roles, and narrate their activities to the public are important questions largely ignored in the growing scholarship on women's political participation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Drawing on Nancy Fraser's reflections on the politics of recognition and distribution (2007), I examine the construction of women's leadership in Morocco during the four-month period leading to the local elections of June 2009. Analysis of 1,738 news items from five print media sources reveals that the "symbolic annihilation" of political women, a thesis traditionally applied to Western contexts, is disturbingly robust in Morocco. The Moroccan case alerts us that institutional mechanisms supporting women's leadership might begin to address gender biases in the distribution of political power, but they do not guarantee the recognition of gender equality in the cultural sphere of knowledge production and opinion formation. Struggles over gender equity in Morocco and elsewhere in MENA should engage more fully with the politics of recognition given the disjuncture between women's leadership competences and achievements and the dominant ideological frames constructing women's leadership.

Quel pays un juif français qui émigre en Israël espère-t-il rencontrer ? Son « retour », au moment de son installation, lui permet de découvrir de nouveaux compatriotes parmi lesquels, à l'inverse, le rêve du départ est prédominant. Ce chassé-croisé ne témoigne-t-il pas d'une double tension qui caractérise de manière inattendue une forme d'intégration à la société israélienne ?

This paper discusses the public sphere in the Middle East and North Africa from the perspective of women's uses of information and communication technologies. I argue that the sociopolitical transformations unfolding in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa are not taking place in the absence of women's contribution and participation. Drawing on examples from different countries, I demonstrate how women are shaping, impacting, and redefining the public sphere by producing alternative discourses and images about womanhood, citizenship, and political participation in their societies. Crusading female journalists, feminist film producers/directors, publishers, and feminist cyber "bloggers" are strategically using old and new media to participate in the production and dissemination of alternative knowledge and the creation of transgressive spaces.