Gender, Nationalism and Revolution in Western Sahara: Women’s Participation in the Polisario State-Movement
Palavras-chave:
Western Sahara, Polisario Front, Participation, Women, Nationalism, RevolutionCopyright (c) 2023 Ewa Strzelecka
Este trabalho está licenciado sob uma licença Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Resumo
This paper explores the intersections of gender, nationalism and revolution by analysing the Polisario Front’s ideology, gender dynamics, women’s legal and constitutional rights, political engagement, sexual division of labour and the women’s rights movement. The analysis presented in this article is grounded in ethnographic and archival research conducted in the Saharawi refugee camps of Tindouf between 2017 and 2018. It argues that the emerging Saharawi feminism is an unintended consequence of the social revolution and conflict-induced migration.
Downloads
Referências
ALMENARA-NIEBLA, Silvia (2023): “’You have raised me between two worlds’: Mothers, daughters, and emotions in the Sahrawi digital diaspora in Spain,” Feminismo/s, nº 41, pp. 215-239. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/fem.2023.41.09
ALLAN, Joanna (2019): Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorship, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea, Madison-Wisconsin, University Wisconsin Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvfjcxm4
ALLAN, Joanna (2010): “Imagining Saharawi Women: the Question of Gender in Polisario Discourse,” Journal of North African Studies, vol. 15, nº 2, pp. 189-202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13629380902861103
ANDERSON, Benedict (1991): Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, Verso.
BADRAN, Margot (1995): Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt, Princeton: Princeton University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400821433
BALAGUER, Soledad, and Rafael Wirth (1976): Frente Polisario: la Última Guerrilla, Barcelona, Laia.
BARON, Beth (2004): Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics, Berkeley, University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940819
BARREÑADA, Isaías and OJEDA, Raquel (eds.) (2016): Sahara Occidental: 40 años después, Madrid, Catarata.
BECKER, Mary (1999): “Patriarchy and Inequality: Towards a Substantive Feminism,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1999 (1), http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1999/iss1/3 [Consulted: October 13, 2023].
BENGOCHEA TIRADO, Enrique (2016): Políticas Imperiales y Género: La Sección Femenina en la Provincia de Sahara (1961-1975), PhD diss., Valencia, Universitat de Valéncia.
BERNAL, Victoria (2001): “From Warriors to Wives: Contradictions of Liberation and Development in Eritrea,” Northeast African Studies, vol. 8, nº 3, pp. 129–54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/nas.2006.0001
CARATINI, Sophie (2006): “La Prisión del Tiempo: los cambios sociales en los campamentos de refugiados saharauis,” Cuadernos Bakeaz, nº 77, pp. 2-15.
CORREALE, Francesco and GIMENO, Juan Carlos (2015): “Sahara Occidental: memorias coloniales, miradas postcoloniales,” Les Cahiers d’EMAM, Sahara Occidental: mémoires, culture, histoires, nº 24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/emam.760
CROMPTON, Rosemary (2007): “Gender inequality and the gendered division of labour,” in J. Browne (ed.), The Future of Gender, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://10.1017/CBO9780511619205.011
FIDDIAN-QASMIYEH, Elena (2010): “Ideal Refugee Women and Gender Equality Mainstreaming in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps: good practice for whom?”, Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 29, nº 2, pp. 64–84. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdq023
FIDDIAN-QASMIYEH, Elena (2013): The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam, and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival, New York, Syracuse University Press.
FORAN, John, ed. (1997): Theorizing revolutions, London, Routledge. DOI:
https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.4324/9780203206638
GOLDMAN, Wendy (1993): Women, the State, and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511665158
GOLDSTONE, Jack (2009): “Revolution”, in Todd Landman and Neil Robinson (ed.): The Sage Handbook of Comparative Politics, London, SAGE Publications, pp. 319-347. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857021083.n18
GIMENO, Juan Carlos (2007): Transformaciones Socioculturales de un Proyecto Revolucionario: la lucha del pueblo saharaui por la liberación, Caracas, Universidad Central de Venezuela.
HAMDI, Khadija (1993): “Saharawi women looking to the future”, in Today's Refugees, Tomorrow's Leaders: Report of the Saharawi Women Refugees Conference on 28th October 1993, London, One World Action.
HAMOUDI, Embarka (2016): La Participación de las Mujeres Saharauis en la Construcción de un Estado saharaui en el Exilio, PhD diss., Castellón de la Plana, Jaume I University.
HIGGS, Johanna and RYAN Christine (2015): “Leaders in the Desert: the Sahrawi Women of Western Sahara,” International Journal for Intersectional Feminist Studies, nº 1, pp. 29-39.
HODGES, Tony (1983): “The Origins of Saharawi Nationalism,” Third World Quarterly, vol. 5, nº 1, pp. 28–57. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436598308419678
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (2014): Off the Radar. Human Rights in the Tindouf Refugee Camps,https://www.policinglaw.info/assets/downloads/Human_Rights_Watch_Report_on_Human_Rights_in_the_Tindouf_Refugee_Camps_(2014).pdf [Consulted: 13 October 2023].
ISIDOROS, Konstantina (2018): Nomads and Nation-building in Western Sahara, Gender, Politics, and the Sahrawi, London, I.D. Tauris.
ISIDOROS, Konstantina (2017a): “Unveiling the Colonial Gaze: Sahr?w? Women in Nascent Nation-state Formation in the Western Sahara,” Interventions, vol. 19, nº 4, pp. 487-506. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2016.1277152
ISIDOROS, Konstantina (2017b): “The View from Tindouf: Western Saharan Women and the Calculation of Autochthony”, in OJEDA, Raquel, FERNÁNDEZ-MOLINA Irene and VEGUILLA, Victoria (eds.): Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95035-5_14
JAYAWARDENA, Kumari (1986): Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, London, Zed Books.
JULIANO, Dolores (1998): La Causa Saharaui y las Mujeres: siempre fuimos tan libres, Barcelona, Icaria.
KANDIYOTI, Deniz (1991): “Identity and its Discontents: Women and the Nation,” Millennium, vol. 20, nº 3, pp. 429–43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298910200031501
LIPPERT, Anne (1992): “Sahrawi Women in the Liberation: Struggle of the Sahrawi People,” Signs, vol. 17, nº 3, pp. 636–51. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/494752
McCLINTOCK, Anne (1991): “‘No Longer in a Future Heaven:’ Women and Nationalism in South Africa,” Transition, nº 51, pp. 104–23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2935081
MEDINA MARTÍN, Rocío (2016): Mujeres Saharauis: experiencias de resistencias y agencias en un devenir feminista descolonial, PhD diss., Seville, Pablo Olavide University.
MOGHADAM, Valentine (1997): “Gender and Revolutions,” in John Foran (ed.): Theorizing Revolutions, London, Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203206638-16
MOGHADAM, Valentine, ed. (1994): Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies, London, Zed Books.
MOLYNEUX, Maxine (1985): “Mobilization without Emancipation? Women's Interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua,” Feminist Studies, vol. 11, nº 2, pp. 227-54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3177922
MOLYNEUX, Maxine (1979): “Women and Revolution in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen,” Feminist Review, vol. 1, nº 1, pp. 4-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.1979.2
MUNDY, Jacob (2007): “Performing the Nation, Prefiguring the State: the Western Saharan Refugees, Thirty Years Later,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 45, nº 2, pp. 275-297.
NASSER, Randa, BARGHOUTI, Fidaa and Mousa, Janan (2010): “Feminist Attitudes and Praxis Among Palestinian Women Activists,” Feminist Formations, vol. 22, nº 3, pp. 146-75. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2010.0021
UN, General Assembly (1966): Question of Ifni and Spanish Sahara, A/RES/2229, 20 December, https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/2229(XXI) [Consulted: 7 June 2023].
OJEDA GARCÍA, Raquel, FERNÁNDEZ-MOLINA, Irene and VEGUILLA DEL MORAL, Victoria (eds.) (2017): Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95035-5_17
O’KEEFE, Theresa (2013): Feminist Identity Development and Activism in Revolutionary Movements, London, Palgrave Macmillan.
OMAR, Sidi M. (2008): “The Right to Self-determination and the Indigenous People of Western Sahara”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 21, nº 1, pp. 41-57. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09557570701828584.
PAPANEK, Hanna (1994): “The Ideal Woman and the Ideal Society: Control and Autonomy in the Construction of Identity,” in Valentine M Moghadam (ed.): Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective, Boulder, Westview Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429041051-3
ROSSETTI, Sonia (2014, August 18): Empowerment of Women through Education. Gender Symposium, University of Queensland, Brisbane, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284295873 [Consulted: 7 June 2023].
SADR Constitution of 1976, http://www.usc.es/export9/sites/webinstitucional/gl/institutos/ceso/descargas/Constitucion-RASD_1976b_es.pdf [Consulted: 7 June 2023].
SADR Constitution of 2015, http://www.usc.es/export9/sites/webinstitucional/gl/institutos/ceso/descargas/RASD_Constitution-of-SADR-2015_en.pdf [Consulted: 7 June 2023].
SAN MARTIN, Pablo (2010): Western Sahara: the Refugee Nation, Cardiff, University of Wales Press.
SARGENT, Lydia (ed.) (1981): Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism, Montreal, Black Rose Books.
SHAYNE, Julia Denise (1999): “Gendered Revolutionary Bridges: Women in the Salvadoran Resistance Movement (1979-1992),” Latin American Perspectives, 26 (3), pp. 85–102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582x9902600305
SOLANA, Vivian (2017): “Cementing Nationalism: The Role of the Sahrawi Female Revolutionary in her Struggle for Decolonization,” in Francisco Freire and Sebastian Boulay (ed.): Culture et politique dans l'Ouest Saharien: Arts, Activisme et Etat dans un Espace de Conflits, Igé, Éditions l’Étrave, pp. 423-444.
SOLANA, Vivian (2016): “No Somos Costosas, Somos Valiosas: La Lucha de las Mujeres Saharauis Cuarenta Años Después,” in Isaías Barrañeda and Raquel Ojeda (ed.): Sahara Occidental Cuarenta Años Después, Madrid, Catarata, pp. 81-91.
SOLANA, Vivian (2021): “Halted narratives: The combative futurity of Sahrawi female
militant’s public memory,” History and Anthropology, vol. 34, nº 4, pp. 559-577. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2021.1983560
SOLANA, Vivian (2022): “Household Militancy: Beyond the Hypervisible Gendered Publics of a Sahrawi Revolutionary Nationalism”, L’Ouest Saharien, nº 16, pp. 53-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/ousa.221.0053
STRZELECKA, Ewa (2018): “A Political Culture of Feminist Resistance: Exploring Women’s Agency and Gender Dynamics in Yemen’s Uprising (2011-2015),” in Marie?Christine Heinze (ed.): Yemen and the Search for Stability: Power, Politics and Society After the Arab Spring, New York, I.B. Tauris, pp. 47-70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350989887.ch-002
STRZELECKA, Ewa (2017): Mujeres en la Primavera Árabe: Construcción de una Cultura Política de Resistencia Feminista en Yemen, Madrid, CSIC.
TAYLOR, Verta (1999): “Gender and Social Movements,” Gender & Society, vol. 13, nº 1, pp. 8-33.
THIRD POLISARIO NATIONAL CONGRESS (1976, September 20): “The 1976 National Action Plan,” Sahara Libre.
WIMMER, Andreas, and Yuval Feinstei (2010): “The Rise of the Nation-State across the World, 1816 to 2001,” American Sociological Review, vol. 75, nº 5, pp. 764–90. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122410382639
WILSON, Alice (2016): Sovereignty in Exile: a Saharan Liberation Movement Governs, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. DOI: https://doi-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.9783/9780812293159
WILSON, Alice (2015): “Refracting Custom in Western Sahara's Quest for Statehood,” Political and Legal Anthropology Review, vol. 38, nº 1, pp. 72-90. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12087
WILSON, Alice (2012): “Households and the Production of Public and Private Domains: Revolutionary Changes in Western Sahara's Liberation Movement,” Paideuma, nº 58, pp. 19-43.
YVAL-DAVIS, Nira (1997): Gender and Nation, London, Sage Publications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446222201