Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East

Abstract

The fourteen case studies that compose this volume address the variousinstitutional, economic, social, cultural, and political dimensions of thedebate on gender and citizenship in the Middle East. Using a crossculturalcomparative approach, the theoretical introduction as well as theindividual case studies seek to challenge dominant (especially western)feminist models of analysis of the question of gender and citizenship in theMiddle East. The validity of dominant feminist paradigms is questioned byintroducing new social and cultural variables, and putting at stake anumber of traditionally unquestioned or unrecognized modes of identityformation, such as kinship, family, tribe, and sects, which critically affect awoman's citizenship status. The volume purports to contest essentializingmyths about the Middle East that artificially give it a character of regionalcoherence, and homogenize the image of Middle Eastern women as acategory. The volume thus theorizes the gendering of citizenship from thelargely unexplored perspectives that open up from introducing the abovevariables, toward a better understanding of the complex nature of the laws(religious, political, patriarchal and patrilineal) governing the constructionof a gendered citizenship in the Middle East.The theoretical introduction to the volume outlines the dynamics of anumber of points of departure that presumably underlie the writing of the"legal subject in the Middle East," namely nations, states, religion, family.The contributors seem to all concede that "most Middle Eastern states havecemented the linkage between religious identity, political identity,patrilineality, and patriarchy-that is, between religion, nation, state, andkinship." The Middle Eastern countries studied in the volume are dividedregionally into four areas: North Africa (including Egypt, Algeria, Tunisiaand Morocco); Eastern Arab States (including Lebanon, Palestine, Jordanand Iraq); the Arab Gulf (including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen); theNon-Arab Middle East (including Turkey, Iran, and Jewish and PalestinianArab women in Israel). The authors of the various case studies conductedan exhaustive investigation of the related topics, albeit with a notabledifference of outlook varying between liberal individualistic and communitarianconservative positions.The methodological approach adopted by various contributors draws ...