Important International Forum: Women's Voices

Women’s Voices in the Mediterranean and Africa: Movements, Feminisms, and Resistance to Extremism

Under His Majesty the king Royal Patronage, ISIS Centre for Women and Development and Konrad Adenauer Foundation organise the 8th edition of the Mediterranean Women Forum on the theme “Women’s Voices in the Mediterranean and Africa: Movements, Feminisms, and Resistance to Extremisms” on May 5, 6, and 7-10, 2017 at les Mérinides Hotel, Fez, Morocco. This event is organised in partnership with Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University and Penn State University (USA). The main aim of the conference is to fight radicalisation and extremism, build-up peace initiatives, protect women’s rights, and enhance women’s empowerment.

An increasing number of women’s voices in the Mediterranean and Africa is rising against mounting gender-based violence in the name of radical Islam and the instrumentalisation of religion to exacerbate Islamophobia and attain power. These voices range from academics, to activists, and policy-makers, and suggest new ways of looking at the concepts of Mediterranean and African “women’s rights”, “Islamic feminisms”, Muslim African feminisms, and “resistance, as well as exploring theoretical and methodological tools. Trough feminist discourses, activisms, and movements, the voices are denouncing biases, asking for justice, reclaiming rights in public spaces, and reconciling older and newer generations of feminists in the Mediterranean and Africa.

In retrospective, women in the Mediterranean and Africa have always been sensitive to radicalised discourses as they are often used as scapegoats in such discourses. Although the two regions are seen as distinct spaces, women in them are increasingly facing the same ordeal. The Forum is multi-disciplinary and seeks to develop innovative and insightful ways of unpacking and accounting for these resistances.

Main Topics:

*The contextualisation of extremisms and women’s resistances
*Radicalised ideologies in the Maghrib
*Radicalised ideologies in Africa
*Islam and feminism/Islamic feminisms – Strategies of resistance

The keynote address on Friday May 5 (9.30am), will be Women’s Fight Against Extremisms: From Resistance to Bold Action delivered by Assia BENSALAH ALAOUI, Ambassador at large for His Majesty Mohamed VI, King of Morocco.

DETAILS
Venue: Hôtel Les Mérinides, Fès
Dates: 5,6,7 May, 2017
Contacts:
Dr Fatima Sadiqi, Director of the Forum
sadiqi_fatima@yahoo.fr
Ms Abir Ibourk (KAS), Director of Logistics
Abir.Ibourl@kas.de

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