Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by (1) Pardis Mahdavi, Passionate Uprisings. Iran's Sexual Revolution (Stanford: Stanford U Press, 2009) and (2) Janet Afary, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2009).

A field study in Saudi Arabia has revealed how modes of appropriating the religious domain among Saudi women have contributed to modifying the relationship between state and familial power relations. In doing so, they have increased autonomy for women at various levels vis-a-vis their families without necessarily calling upon or challenging dominant interpretations. In the 1990s, sex segregation allowed relatively autonomous religious spaces for women to develop within which women preachers expounded a discourse specifically addressed to women. Since 2003, the rhetoric of "women's rights in Islam" as opposed to "traditions and customs" has frequently been employed by the government in the framework of its "reform" strategy as well as by several types of female actors. "Liberal" and Islamist intellectuals disagree as to the content that is to be given to these "rights". Yet, despite these disagreements, their discourses have helped promote an approach that consists in demanding rights for women in the name of Islam. Young Saudi women thus draw upon this rhetoric in negotiating access to professional activity with family members. They also appropriate the Islamic discourse of personal development promoted in religious spaces to legitimate the pursuit of individual objectives and activities outside of the sphere of the family. These various modes of appropriation contribute to pushing the boundaries of the possible for women. Adapted from the source document.

Most macroeconomic studies on Saudi Arabia have qualified the distribution system of this country as the welfare state. Yet the study of the concrete modalities of distribution & discourses connected to them shows to what extent members of the Saudi royal family cultivate confusion & ambiguity between public assistance & private giving, or charity. A study conducted in certain charity institutions, the development of which is currently encouraged by the state, helps clarify the particular role of royal family members & the private sector in this area. In Riyad, charity organizations & foundations are required to secure support from royal family members, who contribute along with the private sector to their funding. Caught in a vise between mandatory royal family patronage & bureaucratic control by the Ministry of Social Affairs, charity organizations, although legally private, are very limited in their autonomy. Adapted from the source document.