Styles de vie citadins, réinvention des féminités. Une sociologie politique de l'accès aux espaces publics des jeunes Saoudiennes à Riyad

Abstract

This article is the outline of a PhD dissertation that dealt with young Saudi women's access to public spaces in Riyadh. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this research shows how young Saudi women, whose mobility and activities are limited by multiple constraints, invent mobile lifestyles through their access to four types of spaces : a women-only university campus, workplaces, shopping malls and religious spaces. The combination of gender and public spaces is the thread of the demonstration. The first part describes the emergence of public spaces accessible to women in the capital, from gender segregation to "reform". The second part shows who, among Saudi women, has access to these spaces and how this access is negotiated. The third part analyses transforming social hierarchies and gender norms in these new spaces. This work finally explores the political and social implications of the increasing visibility, in the city, of professional and consumerist lifestyles that are adopted by Saudi women.