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Feminisms face to face with Islam

May 10, 20216:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 6:00 p.m. Prior registration required. Capacity is limited due to the health situation.
Register by following this link
In Spanish.

On May 10, Casa Árabe and the Libros de la Catarata publishing firm have organized the presentation of a book titled  Los feminismos ante el islam. El velo y los cuerpos de las mujeres (Feminisms Face to Face with Islam: The veil and women’s bodies), with Laura Mijares, Ángeles Ramírez and Ana Planet.

Veil, hijab, niqab, burqa... What are the differences between them? Why has the veil been banned in certain Western countries? These questions are essential to the history of women in the Muslim world and in Europe, especially from the vantage point of feminisms. How do feminisms act with regard to the headscarf and Muslim women? Are they a faithful reflection of the most mainstream viewpoint that the hijab can only be equated with submissiveness?Or do they acknowledge that the veil forms part of the diversity among women and feminists themselves? Can one wear a headscarf and be a feminist at the same time? This book shows the wide range of positions within different currents of feminism, as also occurs with practices involving the hijab. A knowledge of context is essential to understanding what a headscarf means: the veil can contribute to oppression or may be used to stand up to it.

The presentation will feature both of the book’s authors, Laura Mijares and Ángeles Ramírez, with moderation by Ana Planet, a professor of Sociology of Islam at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM).

Laura Mijares is an Arabist and professor with the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where she runs the GRAIS Research Group (Analysis Group on Islam in Europe). She is the director of the research project “Family and educational socialization of Muslim youth:  the transit of social and political capital.” She has authored many publications in the field of Muslim community sociology involving gender, youth and Islamophobia. Her works include the monograph Aprendiendo a ser marroquíes. Inmigración y diversidad lingüística en España (Learning to Be Moroccan: Immigration and linguistic diversity in Spain, published by Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo, 2006), as well as having coordinated a special issue in 2018 titled “Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism: A multidisciplinary analysis of practices,” in the journal Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos (REIM).

Ángeles Ramírez is an anthropologist and professor at the Department of Social Anthropology and Spanish Philosophical Thought at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, which she has directed since 2018. She co-directs the research and development project “Crisis and local and transnational dynamics in the Western Mediterranean: sociopolitical change, mobilizations and diaspora.”  A specialist in feminism, migrations and Islam, she has conducted ethnographic research in Morocco and Spain, as well as being a member of the International Mediterranean Studies Workshop (TEIM-UAM). She authored La trampa del velo (The Veil Trap, published by Los Libros de la Catarata, 2011) and was an editor of La alteridad imaginada (Otherness Imagined, Bellaterra, 2014). Most of her work focuses on immigration by Moroccan women to Spain, Islamophobia and gender studies in Morocco. In recent years, she has focused on analyzing land struggle movements in Morocco and cross-border domestic service. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the journal Viento Sur.
Feminisms face to face with Islam