Suchergebnisse

Abstract Using the example of the women who belong to "Islam-Action" - a very dynamic form of Islam - the article illustrates how the use of original religious material allows an novel approach of modernity. These women introduce new attitudes that are at a distance from traditional cultural values and sketch a redefinition of their gender identity.

Numerous studies highlight the fact that men and women coming from similar social backgrounds tend to have similar religious attitudes and behavior. This fact puts into question the claim that women have a priviledged relationship - usually described with negative overtones - with religion. However, a thorough study of available data raises questions about the linear nature of the homogeneization of religious attitudes according to gender. Indeed, among existing religious measures there are small but recurrent discrepencies, in particular in the fields of the transmission of a religious tradition and of the individual recomposition of religion. Men and women have varying attitudes that illustrate the persistence of a difference linked to gender. It is therefore necessary to study closely the process of socialization according to gender and its effects on the construction of a feminine identity. In these fields, comparative studies higlight a contrasted evolution according to gender, which influences the very concept of equality. They allow us to illustrate two processes of adaptation to modernity which are part of social and cultural changes. Religion thus seems ambivalent. On the one hand by reinforcing the traditional woman/mother model, it proves to be resilient to modernity; on the other hand, as an available ressource it may favor the search for original solutions to confront/manage modernity, in particular for women.

The author defines legal socialization as a process whereby the subject appropriates the Law which regulates his(her) society by integrating its fundamental elements into his own System of représentations and knowledge. By so doing he(she) makes his own his legal identity, his identity as a subject of Law and a subject of rights. This appropriation takes place in two manners : in the legal acculturation OF the subject, the latter internalizes the representations of Law predominating in the culture of his society ; in the acculturation BY the subject of legal concepts, the subject re-creates these concepts according to his own values in order to give them a meaning in his own culture. Data collected in a survey carried out in France and Poland in 1987 on two similar samples of 11- 12, 13-14 and 16-18 year-olds show the development of legal acculturation with age. French data show the acculturation by the subjects of concepts according to the value system which characterizes their gender and/or their social milieu.

The Earth, My Flesh (Australia)

For Australian Aborigines, the claim to traditional attachments has become the symbol of a sense of individual, community and national identity. Ancestral territorial rights were governed by complex systems, wherein the social organization was linked to itineraries and sacred sites associated with the travels of mythical beings. Today, heated debate is taking place about the legitimacy of lines of descent (matri-, patri- or bilateral). It is hypothesized that this conflict is part of the construction of an identity wherein heterogeneous memberships in local groups, with their linguistic differences, constitute the very condition of Aboriginality. A single place still serves as the pretext for parallel discourses, which differ depending on the context and on the speaker' s place of reference and gender. Changes imposed by colonists or administrators, like variations in population and climate during the past, may be expressed through innovations in ceremonies or myths that have territorial applications. These innovations lie at the very center of the traditional process for updating local identities, wherein body and spirit are intricately related through a sort of image, trace or mark. These signs of the past are a virtual memory of the cosmos, wherein the earth is, like the flesh, a form of inscription.

International audience ; The most visible models of masculinity and feminity spontaneously lead us to think that the genders-their roles and attributes-are combining or have become interchangeable. Quite present in advertisement, these « innovative » models are, nonetheless, a minority phenomenon in society as a whole. Moreover, indications of (re)differentiation can still be found or are reappearing. Lifestyles thus let us glimpse paradoxical practices and behaviors among men and women. They provide evidence that the bounds between masculinity and feminity are shifting. ; Les modèles masculins et féminins les plus en évidence invitent spontanément à croire que les rôles et attributs de la masculinité et de la féminité tendent à se fondre ou sont devenus interchangeables. Très présents dans les représentations et les publicités, ces modèles « innovants » n'en demeurent pas moins minoritaires dans l'ensemble social. De plus, des indices de (re)différenciation réapparaissent ou perdurent. Nos modes de vie donnent ainsi à voir des pratiques et des comportements pour le moins paradoxaux chez les hommes et les femmes ; ils attestent que les frontières du masculin et du féminin sont aujourd'hui mouvantes.

Women's Citizenship and the Welfare State Cultures in Italy.
The essay tries to analyse the different phases of women's citizenship in Italy between the post-Second World War period to the forthcoming unification of Europe. It intends to show that over the past fifty years there has been an important change in the ethics of the "gift relationship". From being a model for female identity and a paradigm for solidarity within the family, it has become an important value in the public sphere -thanks to policies of social justice and the development of the right of citizenship. The present phase can be read in two different -but not mutually exclusive -ways. The transformations of the family and the women's presence in political institutions seems to guarantee some important prerogatives for womens. At the same time, the prospect of economic and political crisis brings out the deep contradiction between the promotion of gender equality, the unemployment trends and the New-Right approach to the Welfare state.

Societies without men and the integration of women abroad: migration and female roles. The case of Italy.
Paola CORTI
The role of women during the « grande emigrazione »from Italy at the end of the century needs to be studied from two different angles. First it is necessary to identity what was preserved and what evolved in the societies that were left behind after the departure of the menfolk. The temporary and seasonal exodus of the latter meant that the families and the local communities were often almost entirely made up of women. Second, it is necessary to describe the role played by the women who emigrated abroad, and therefore to look at the conditions they met with in the foreign countries where they arrived alone, or as wives, daughters and mothers. These two aspects of the relationship between gender and migration are dealt with in this article, which reflects the current debate in Italy on the subject.