Mounira M. Charrad

Last updated
Mounira M. Charrad
Born (1942-08-10) August 10, 1942 (age 80)
NationalityTunisian
Other namesMounira Maya Charrad
Academic background
Alma mater
Doctoral advisor Ann Swidler
Institutions University of Texas at Austin
Doctoral students Chauntelle Tibbals

Mounira Maya Charrad [1] (born 1942) is a Franco-Tunisian sociologist [2] who serves as associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Contents

She is an author whose work focuses on political sociology, comparative history, gender politics, and the Middle East. Her research has centered on state formation, colonialism, law, citizenship, kinship, and women's rights. [3]

Early life and education

Charrad was born in Tunisia [4] on August 10, 1942.[ citation needed ] She received an undergraduate degree from the Sorbonne in Paris, France, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University. [5]

Career

Her book States and Women's Rights (2001) considers strategies of state building in kin-based societies and how struggles over state power shaped the expansion or curtailment of women's rights. [6]

Charrad studies conceptions of modernity in legal discourses in the Middle East. Challenging explanations of politics based on a textual approach to religion, she offers instead a focus on social solidarities and where they are grounded (kinship, ethnicity, or other), as for example in her articles "Gender in the Middle East: Islam, State, Agency" and "Central and Local Patrimonialism: State Building in Kin-Based Societies". [7]

Her work has been translated into French and Arabic, and featured on websites including the International Museum of Women [8] and in the media.

Charrad's research has been funded by several grants, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the American Institute of Maghribi Studies.

At the University of Texas at Austin, she is affiliated with the Center for European Studies, the Center for Middle East Studies, the Center for Women's and Gender Studies, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Middle East Studies.[ citation needed ]

Recognition

Charrad's book States and Women's Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco (University of California Press, 2001) won the following awards[ citation needed ]:

The book is being translated into French, Arabic, and Chinese.

Selected other publications

Expanded as: Charrad, Mounira M.; Goeken, Allyson (2006), "Continuity or change: family law and family structure in Tunisia", in Oheneba-Sakyi, Yaw; Takyi, Baffour K. (eds.), African families at the turn of the twenty-first century, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, ISBN   9780275972745.
Revised and reprinted as: Charrad, Mounira M. (2008), "From nationalism to feminism: family law in Tunisia", in Yount, Kathryn M.; Rashad, Hoda (eds.), Family in the Middle East: Ideational change in Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia, Oxford New York: Routledge, pp. 111–136, ISBN   9780415613415.
Revised and reprinted in Sadiqi, Fatima; Ennaji, Moha (2010). Women in the Middle East and North Africa: agents of change. Oxford New York: Routledge. pp. 105–113. ISBN   9780415573214.
Including: Charrad, Mounira M. (November–December 2010). "Women's agency across cultures: Conceptualizing strengths and boundaries". Women's Studies International Forum. 33 (6): 517–522. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2010.09.004.
Including: Charrad, Mounira M.; Adams, Julia (July 2011). "Introduction: patrimonialism, past and present". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 636 (1): 6–15. doi:10.1177/0002716211402286. S2CID   220852840.
Including: Charrad, Mounira M. (July 2011). "Central and local patrimonialism: State-building in kin-based societies". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 636 (1): 49–68. doi:10.1177/0002716211401825. S2CID   145693904.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatema Mernissi</span> Moroccan feminist writer and sociologist (1940–2015)

Fatema Mernissi was a Moroccan feminist writer and sociologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in the Arab world</span> Overview of the role and impact of women in the Arab world

The roles of women in the Arab world have changed throughout history, as the culture and society in which they live has undergone significant transformations. Historically, as well as presently, the situation of women differs greatly between Arabic speaking regions, their urban or rural population and age groups. Among other factors, these differences can be attributed to local traditions, culture and religion, women's social or legal status, their level of education, health or self-awareness. Since the 19th century, and notably through the influence of the colonization in North Africa, the Arab Renaissance in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, and the end of the Ottoman Empire, the social and economic changes in the Arab world have become greatly accelerated and diversified.

Valentine Moghadam is a feminist scholar, sociologist, activist, and author whose work focuses on women in development, globalization, feminist networks, and female employment in the Middle East.

The Professor Robert W. Hamilton Book Author Award is presented annually to the best book-length publication by a staff or faculty member of the University of Texas at Austin. It is chosen by a committee of various disciplines, who in turn were chosen by the Vice President for Research at the University of Texas at Austin.

Modern-day Afghanistan adheres to the underlying principles of gender that were made during pre-colonial times. And because of rigid cultural norms, there are standards placed upon women for what is accepted female behavior, as well as differences in male attitudes toward the correct treatment of women. Contradictions arise between traditional customary practices, many of which impinge on the rights of women and are alien to the spirit of Islam, the other functioning canon which emphasizes equality, justice, education, and community service for both men and women. Further, the dictates of Islam are themselves subject to diverse interpretations among reformists and Islamists.[1]

Sondra Hale is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); former Co-editor of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies and former Co-Chair, Islamic Studies. Her regional interests are in Africa and the Middle East, focusing mainly on Sudan and Eritrea.

Nayereh Esfahlani Tohidi is an Iranian-born American professor, researcher, and academic administrator. Tohidi is a professor emerita and former chair of gender and women’s studies, and the founding director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at California State University, Northridge.

Since the December 2010 revolution in Tunisia and protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began, Tunisian women have played an unprecedented part in the protests. Habib Bourguiba began instituting secular freedoms for women in 1956, such as access to higher education, the right to file for divorce, and certain job opportunities. Women in Tunisia enjoy certain freedoms and rights that are denied to women in neighboring countries, although the social norms have shifted since 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suad Joseph</span> American anthropologist

Suad Joseph received her doctorate in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1975. Dr. Joseph is Professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies at the University of California, Davis and in 2009 was President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. Her research addresses issues of gender; families, children, and youth; sociology of the family; and selfhood, citizenship, and the state in the Middle East, with a focus on her native Lebanon. Her earlier work focused on the politicization of religion in Lebanon. Joseph is the founder of the Middle East Research Group in Anthropology, the founder and coordinator of the Arab Families Working Group, the founder of the Association for Middle East Women's Studies, the general editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, and the founding director of the Middle East/South Asian Studies Program at the University of California at Davis. She is also the founder and facilitator of a six-university consortium of the American University of Beirut, American University in Cairo, Lebanese American University, University of California at Davis, and Birzeit University Consortium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatima Sadiqi</span> Linguist

Fatima Sadiqi is a senior professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, in Fez, Morocco.

Minoo Moallem is an Iranian-born American educator, author, and scholar. She is a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Her academic specialties are transnational and postcolonial feminist studies, religious nationalism and transnationalism, consumer culture, immigration and diaspora studies, Middle Eastern Studies and Iranian films, cultural politics. She is best known for her work on Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism as byproducts of colonial modernity and modernization of patriarchies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Morocco</span> Overview of the status of women in Morocco

The history of women in Morocco includes their lives from before, during, and after the arrival of Islam in the northwestern African country of Morocco. It is a misconception that harems are formed here or that there is a universal rule to women's treatment and rights in this country. Some households subscribe to more ancient, Amazigh customs. Others adhere to an Arabized and Islamic. Independence from France in 1956.

The Distinguished Scholarly Book Award is presented annually by the American Sociological Association (ASA) in recognition of an ASA member's outstanding book published within two years prior to the award year.

Julia Potter Adams is an American sociologist who works in the area of comparative and historical sociology. Julia Adams is a professor of Sociology. She conducts research in the areas of state building, gender and family, social theory and knowledge, early modern European politics, and Colonialism and empire. Her current research focuses on the historical sociology of agency relations and modernity, gender, race, and the representation of academic knowledge on Wikipedia and on other digital platforms. Adams is Professor of Sociology and International & Area Studies and Head of Grace Hopper College, Yale. She also co-directs YaleCHESS and is on the Board of Reed College.

<i>"Believing Women" in Islam</i> 2002 book

"Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an is a 2002 book by Asma Barlas, published by the University of Texas Press. According to Barlas, the Qur'an does not support patriarchy and modern day Muslims were not properly interpreting the text. She argues that the Qur'an supports equal spousal and marital rights and does not differentiate among sex and gender. Barlas attributes incorrect interpretations of the Qur'an to the hadith, shariah, and sunnah. Barlas stated that men were mostly the ones who had developed shariah.

Rayna Rapp is a professor and associate chair of anthropology at New York University, specializing in gender and health; the politics of reproduction; science, technology, and genetics; and disability in the United States and Europe. She has contributed over 80 published works to the field of anthropology, independently, as a co-author, editor, and foreword-writing, including Robbie Davis-Floyd and Carolyn Sargent's Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge. Her 1999 book, Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: the Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America, received multiple awards upon release and has been praised for providing "invaluable insights into the first generation of women who had to decide whether or not to terminate their pregnancies on the basis of amniocentesis result". She co-authored many articles with Faye Ginsburg, including Enabling Disability: Rewriting Kinship, Reimagining Citizenship, a topic the pair has continued to research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rula Quawas</span> Jordanian academic

Dr. Rula Butros Audeh Quawas was a Jordanian academic known for her advocacy for women's advancement in Jordan and as the first academic to introduce courses on feminism at the University of Jordan.

Nükhet Sirman is a Turkish social anthropologist. She earned a doctorate degree from Britain's University College London in 1988, and since 1989, she is a professor of anthropology at the Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. She has done academic analysis of the feminist movement in Turkey and introduced the concept of "familial citizenship" in the academic realm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorit Geva</span> Sociologist

Dorit Geva is a political sociologist specialising in political sociology, social and political theory, politics of gender and sexuality, and comparative and historical sociology. Currently, she is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology and was Founding Dean of undergraduate studies at Central European University between 2019-2022. Before her appointment as Dean, she was part of a team that created the BA in Culture, Politics and Society at CEU. She is known for her research on right-wing politics in Europe, and for her research on establishment of the US draft system and its history of racial and gender discrimination. Geva is currently the Chair of Publications Committee of Social Science History Association (SSHA) from 2021.

May Arslan (1928–2013) was a Lebanese Druze woman who was a member of the Arslan family, and her father was Shakib Arslan. She was the mother of Walid Jumblatt and the spouse of Kamal Jumblatt, founder and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party.

References

  1. "Mounira M. Charrad". Austin, Texas: University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
  2. Davidson, Naomi (2012). Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 138. ISBN   978-0-8014-6525-3.
  3. "Mounira M. Charrad". www.bakerinstitute.org. 2014-02-18. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  4. Kimani, Mary (August 9, 2008). "North Africa: A Decade of Progress for Women's Rights". Mail & Guardian. Johannesburg: M&G Media. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
  5. "UT College of Liberal Arts". liberalarts.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  6. Charrad, Mounira M. States and Women's Rights. University of California Press, 2001.
  7. Charrad, Mounira M. Central and Local Patrimonialism: State Building in Kin-Based Societies. Annual Review of Sociology , 2011, Vol. 37: 417–437.
  8. Charrad, Mounira Maya (undated). "Family Law in Morocco  A Brief History" Archived 2012-08-28 at the Wayback Machine . International Museum of Women. Retrieved November 15, 2012.