Introduction

Abstract

This book is both scholarly and personal. It is scholarly because it addresses and assesses the current Moroccan feminist discourses, a topic I have been involved with for almost three decades, and it is personal because it brings along my Berber identity and repositions it within these feminist discourses with the view of adapting them to old/new realities. The task had its challenges but it was worthwhile at both the scholarly and personal levels. Revisiting the Moroccan feminist discourses in the aftermath of the uprisings in the region that, among other things, brought about the spectacular change in the political status of Berber from an indigenous centuries-long marginalized language to an “official language” had a great impact on me as a scholar and a person. On the one hand, this dramatic change came with serious challenges to the feminist discourses as it unveils the stark absence of Berber, a women-related language, in these discourses. On the other hand this change pushed me to reflect on my own shifts and twists with Berber, my mother tongue. During the entire period I was engaged with feminist issues in Morocco I always felt that something was missing in the historical scope, as well as the nature of knowledge-production that these issues privilege.KeywordsPublic SphereMother TongueOfficial LanguageFeminist MovementFeminist IssueThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.