Why (and how) is it important to query into the particular lived experiences and ‘embodied agency’ of women if we want to study urban spaces through the lens of gender? The paper discusses this overarching question in relation to recent dynamic and generative theories of gender, embodiment and agency. This theoretical approach is relevant since it is possible to analyse the singularity of lived experience, not only as a form of social interaction, but as linked to social structures and discourses, which implies negotiations of tensions, conflicts, and uncertainties. Such an approach is particularly fruitful because it makes it possible to analyse agents within a context of social, cultural and political change. It also means the possibility to grasp women’s narratives and body language as they engage in acts of resistance, as well as the marking of body and space. The actions of ‘the secret self’ among younger generations, for example, give increased space and have manipulative potential as long as these ‘morally forbidden’ and dishonourable acts are not brought out into the public sphere. The need to understand agency as the capacity to act according to the exigencies of the specific socio-cultural context forms the main premise of this paper; where each context comprises the complex interaction between the local and a variety of wider global forces.
Why (and how) is it important to query into the particular lived experiences and ‘embodied agency’ of women if we want to study urban spaces through the lens of gender? This paper discusses this overarching question in relation to recent dynamic and generative theories of gender, embodiment and agency. This theoretical framework connects subjects’ identities to dominant discourses and social structures with the help of lived experiences. This is particularly fruitful because it makes it possible to analyse agents within a context of social, cultural and political change. It also means the possibility to grasp women’s narratives and body language as they engage in acts of resistance, as well as the marking of body and space. The actions of ‘the secret self’ among younger generations, for example, give increased space and have manipulative potential as long as these ‘morally forbidden’ and dishonourable acts are not brought out into the public sphere. This approach is relevant since it is possible to analyse the singularity of experience, not only as a form of social interaction, but as linked to social structures and discourses, which implies negotiations of tensions, conflicts and uncertainties. The need to understand agency as the capacity to act according to the exigencies of the specific socio-cultural forms the main premise of this paper; where each context comprises the complex interaction between the local and a variety of wider global forces. My approach is to combine experience with representation through phenomenology and ethnography. I use experience near ethnography that begins with women’s own practices and attends to how they understand themselves, how their bodies are involved in this process and how they live out norms and ideologies in their everyday lives. Thereby we are able to understand how women’s realities and identities are interpreted, negotiated and constructed, and how the body actively is involved in these processes.
This dissertation explores how female gender identity is continually created and re-created in Egypt through a number of daily practices, of which female circumcision is central. In order to do so, the study inquires into the lived experiences and social meanings of female circumcision and femininity as narrated by women from lower class neighbourhoods in Cairo. The study seeks to understand how the experiences of femininity and female circumcision are shaped and challenged by the social and political changes that impinge on these women’s lives.
Female circumcision has become a global political minefield with ‘Western’ interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. The global human rights discourse brings about change by portraying female circumcision as mutilation. These discourses and other political and social changes both in Egypt and elsewhere, such as modernization, the aftermath of 9/11 and regional instability have together begun to dis-embed female circumcision from its socio-cultural context. This thesis focuses upon the way in which these women understand and respond to these complex changes and it looks particularly at how different actors, in their construction of female identity, contest, resist, subvert or embrace female circumcision.
The study explores how the subject is made through the interplay of global hegemonic structures of power and the most intimate sphere, which has been exposed in the international arena. The need to understand agency as the capacity to act according to the exigencies of the specific sociocultural forms the main premise of this dissertation; the Egyptian context comprises the complex interaction between the local and a variety of wider global forces.
Constructions of gender, embodiment and agency among male Hamas youths in the West Bank are discussed in this article through the prism of violence. It focuses on the constructions of uncertain masculinities in a complex interplay of violence, political Islam, suffering and loss, and the importance of analyzing the body in such processes – both as agential and as victimized – is highlighted. To be able to move away from the sensationalist Western media that often portray Middle Eastern Muslim men as “violent,” and as terrorists, we need to understand the motivations and the meanings of violence. The method of analysis is to use a discourse-centered approach and to use experience-near ethnography that begins with men’s own practices and attends to how they understand themselves, how their bodies are involved, and how they live out norms and ideologies in their everyday lives. Thereby we are able to understand how men’s realities and identities are interpreted, negotiated and constructed and how the body is actively involved in these processes. This approach is relevant since it is possible to analyze the singularity of experience, not only as a form of social interaction, but as linked to social structures and discourses, which implies negotiations of tensions, conflicts, and uncertainties.
The percentage of women aged 15-49 in Egypt who have undergone the procedure of female circumcision, or genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) stands at 91%, according to the latest research carried out by UNICEF. Female circumcision has become a global political minefield with 'Western' interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. Maria Frederika Malmstrom employs an ethnographic approach to this controversial issue, with the aim of understanding how female gender identity is continually created and re-created in Egypt through a number of daily practices, and the central role which female circumcision plays in this process. Viewing the concept of 'agency' as critical to the examination of social and cultural trends in the region, Malmstrom explores the lived experiences and social meanings of circumcision and femininity as narrated by women from Cairo. It is through the examination of the voices of these women that she offers an analysis of gender identity in Egypt and its impact on women's sexuality.
Female circumcision has become a global political minefield, with ‘Western’ interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. As younger generation of women in Egypt informed by international human rights discourse begins to question norms still upheld by the previous generation, new dilemmas and tensions emerge. In this article, I discuss the risk that international interventions designed to modify local practices may fail when the local moral worlds in which such practices are embedded are inadequately understood. Rather than increasing women's agency, such interventions may reduce it and instead produce a sense of sexual mutilation among women.