Gender, religion, and change in the Middle East 1800-2000

Department of History and
Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic studies

The conference focuses on women in Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities in the Middle East during the last two centuries. It will address the issue of women's defined roles within these religious communities, as well as explore how women themselves develop and apply their own strategies within religious societies. The objective is to develop a differentiated insight into the relationship between religion and gender in the Middle East, based on new empirical studies and theoretical reflections.

A weak point in the analysis of women's condition in the Middle East has been the lumping together of different factors, such as ideology, practice and patriarchy. A monolithic and unrefined understanding of a particular religion, and patriarchy understood as a uniform system has often fostered this amalgamation. In order to develop a more nuanced understanding of patriarchy, several researchers have suggested analysing women's strategies in the encounter with male dominance. This approach acknowledges women as subjects, not objects and allows the researcher to study variations within female-gendered spheres of a community.

Papers develop and explore this approach, taking women's own engagement and activities as a basis for its analysis, and relating to concepts of power and influence. Gender studies have demonstrated that the social constituency of gender is fluctuating, and changes over time. This knowledge can be transferred and utilized in historical studies, including that of religion and gender in the Middle East.

The conference is organised around 16 research papers to be delivered by a mixture of internationally renown scholars and younger researchers. Papers address issues of gender and religion in a range of countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Afghanistan. The opening lecture by the 2001 Rafto Peace Price winner Shirin Ebadi, who is actively involved in improving women's legal status under Islamic Law in Iran, certainly voices the current significance of this conference's papers.

The conference will (most likely) be held at the University of Bergen at Lauritz Meltzers Hus.

For more information regarding the programme of the conference, contact one of the following:
Inger-Marie Okkenhaug
Ingvild Flaskerud