Tunisia

Citation:

Moghadam, Valentine M. 2018. "Explaining Divergent Outcomes of the Arab Spring: The Significance of Gender and Women's Mobilizations." Politics, Groups, and Identities 6 (4): 666-81.

Author: Valentine Moghadam

Abstract:

The Arab Spring has been extensively analyzed but the presence or absence of violent protests and the divergent outcomes of the uprising that encompassed the Arab region have not been explained in terms of the salience of gender and women’s mobilizations. I argue that women’s legal status, social positions, and collective action prior to the Arab Spring helped shape the nature of the 2011 mass protests as well as the political and social outcomes of individual countries. I compare and contrast two sets of cases: Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, which saw non-violent protests and relatively less repression on the part of the state; and Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, where states responded to the protests, whether violent or non-violent, with force and repression, and where women and their rights have been among the principal victims. I also show why women fared worse in Egypt than in Morocco and Tunisia.

Keywords: Arab Spring, women's rights, women's mobilizations, outcomes, violence, democratization

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Conflict, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Nonviolence, Rights, Women's Rights, Violence Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen

Year: 2018

Citation:

Antonakis, Anna. 2019. Renegotiating Gender and the State in Tunisia between 2011 and 2014: Power, Positionality, and the Public Sphere. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Author: Anna Antonakis

Annotation:

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Media, Post-Conflict, Sexuality Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Tunisia

Year: 2019

Citation:

Ketelaars, Elise. 2018. "Gendering Tunisia's Transition: Transformative Gender Justice Outcomes in Times of Transitional Justice Turmoil?" The International Journal of Transitional Justice 12 (3): 407-26.

Author: Elise Ketelaars

Abstract:

In the summer of 2017 Tunisia achieved some notable victories in the field of women’s rights, while at the same time it witnessed the further backtracking of its already fragile transitional justice process. Though various analyses in local and international media have touched upon the current regime’s use of gender-friendly policies to cover up its otherwise illiberal agenda, few have considered what the consequences of these developments are for the advancement of gender justice in Tunisia. This article looks into this question, focusing specifically on the transformative potential of the activities of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission. It uses these insights to feed into the feminist academic debate on ‘transformative justice.’ The Tunisian case study shows that reliance on technical innovations within traditional transitional justice mechanisms does not necessarily guarantee the pursuance of transformative justice outcomes which cross political divides.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Governance, Justice, Transitional Justice, TRCs, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Tunisia

Year: 2018

Citation:

Teti, Andrea, Pamela Abbott, and Francesco Cavatorta. 2017. “Employment Creation, Corruption and Gender Equality 2011-2014.” In The Arab Uprisings in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, 103-22. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Authors: Andrea Teti, Pamela Abbott, Francesco Cavatorta

Abstract:

This chapter shows that, as with the economy, by 2014 people’s hopes that their lives would improve and that governments would address their grievances had been dashed. Early optimism was replaced by concern that things were not getting better. Trust in government was low—albeit higher in the judiciary and the police and very high in the army—and corruption in both government and society generally was seen as pervasive. People did not think their government was effective on corruption, job creation or service delivery. Gender inequality is crucial—not least to achieve inclusive development—but conservative values continue to be widespread, especially in Egypt and Jordan, and while attitudes are more liberal in Tunisia they have become more conservative following the Uprisings.

Keywords: Arab Uprisings, corruption, trust, women's rights, unemployment, public services

Topics: Corruption, Economies, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia

Year: 2017

Citation:

Kawar, Amal. 1996. Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National Movement. New York: SUNY Press.

Author: Amal Kawar

Annotation:

SUMMARY

"Based on interviews of the PLO's top women leaders in the Palestinian diaspora and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Daughters of Palestine provides the first examination of the full history of women's involvement in the Palestinian National Movement from the revolution in the mid-1960s to the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in the early 1990s. Going beyond media imagery, Amal Kawar reviews the women's social and political backgrounds to explain how they overcame the traditional gender roles pervasive in Arab societies and became involved in politics. She then focuses on particular periods in the history of the Palestinian movement, as it moved from Jordan to Lebanon, Tunisia, and the Occupied Territories. Issues covered include women's nationalist activities, their relationship to the male leadership, the impact of crises, and the upsurge of the Islamist movement. A consistent theme of this investigation is how conflicts and crises, inside and outside the Palestinian arena, challenge and frame the success of women's nationalist work. Daughters of Palestine highlights the dilemma of national liberation struggles that both promote and co-opt women's liberation aspirations" (WorldCat). 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

Prologue

Acknowledgments

1. Three Generations of Women Leaders

2. AMMAN Early Years of Revolutionary Struggle

3. BEIRUT National Mobilization and Civil War

4. TUNIS Decline of Mobilization in the Palestinian Diaspora

5. JERUSALEM Women's Committees in the Occupied Territories

Epilogue

Appendix: Interview List

Notes

References

Index

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Occupation, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Nationalism, Peace Processes Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tunisia

Year: 1996

Citation:

Gray, Doris H., and Terry Coonan. 2013. “Notes from the Field: Silence Kills! Women and the Transitional Justice Process in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 7 (2): 348–57. doi:10.1093/ijtj/ijt002.

Authors: Doris H. Gray, Terry Coonan

Abstract:

This article is based on the first collection of testimonies of female former political prisoners in Tunisia. Relying on purposive rather than random sampling, the interviews were aimed at contributing to an authentic Tunisian process of transitional justice that takes cultural, religious and gender-based norms into consideration. To date, the voices of conservative Islamist women detained under the Tunisian dictatorship have been significantly absent from the national discourse on transitional justice. Select voices of women are presented here that can begin to address this gap. The newly elected provisional government, in which the Islamist Ennahda Party enjoys a majority, has established a Ministry of Human Rights and Transitional Justice, the first of its kind in the world. While this augurs well for Tunisia’s future, there is fear that the transitional justice process may nonetheless be captured by political agendas.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gendered Discourses, Justice, Transitional Justice Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Tunisia

Year: 2013

Citation:

Muhanna, Aitemad. 2015. “Islamic and Secular Women’s Activism and Discourses in Post-Uprising Tunisia.” In Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance : Lessons from the Arab World, edited by Maha El Said, Lena Meari and Nicola Pratt. London: Zed Books Ltd.

Author: Aitemad Muhanna

Topics: Gender, Women, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Tunisia

Year: 2015

Citation:

Moghadam, Valentine M. 2014. "Modernising Women and Democratisation After the Arab Spring." The Journal of North African Studies 19 (2): 137-42

Author: Valentine M. Moghadam

Abstract:

What has the Arab Spring meant to women, and women's rights, in the region? Three years after the mass social protests of January and February 2011, when and where can we expect the promises of democracy and equality, and the revolutionary spirit of unity and purpose, to be realised? This Foreword offers a stock-taking of events and possible future directions, with a focus on prospects for a women-friendly democratisation.

Keywords: Arab Spring, democratisation, women, women's rights, women's movements

Topics: Armed Conflict, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Post-Conflict, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen

Year: 2014

Citation:

Gilman, Sarah E. 2007. “Feminist Organizing in Tunisia: Negotiating Transnational Linkages and the State.” In From Patriarchy to Empowerment: Women’s Participation, Movements, and Rights in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, edited by Valentine M. Moghadam, 97–119. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Author: Sarah E. Gilman

Topics: Feminisms, Political Participation Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Tunisia

Year: 2007