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2009
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6 pages
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In Ben Yeffou, life is organized around the shrine of the eponymous saint (wali) who founded this village in midwestern Morroco. He is one of many wonder-working saints renown for overcoming genies and healing the sickness caused by them. This charismatic healing power is passed down through the agnatic line only. Although the descendants of Ben Yeffou, the chorfa, are mainly healers and exorcists, they have also inherited a symbolic capital owing to their noble genealogy (charaf). In this sociocultural universe ruled and dominated by men and defined by a genealogy, how can women experience social mobility ? The case of a young woman, a healer who undergoes possession, is examined. While manipulating the same sacred symbols (wilâya, baraka, charaf) that underlie the authority of men in the chorfa, this woman has established her legitimacy and counterauthority.
1992
In this article the author seeks an explanation for the remarkable rise of women healers in the Middle Atlas mountains in Morocco. Two groups of women healers are being treated: the women herbalists in the marketplace and midwives in the rural region of a Berber tribe called Ait Abdi. An attempt is made to understand the role of women in healing among the semi-nomadic Berber tribes in the past. Apparently, indigenous Berber women as well as men played a minor part as reputed healers. This situation hardly changed over the years. It is Arab men, who settled as Qoran savants or visited the local markets and the local holy tribes (Chorfa) more or less monopolised the prestigious healing activities. It is argued that this was possible, because they had better accepted forms of legal and traditional legitimacy at their disposal. The development that is taking place among the more professional traditional healers nowadays consists of a replacement of male Arab and Chorfu healers by Arab and Chorfa women. In fact, men suffer a loss of prestige as traditional healers, whereas many women gain in this respect. This loss of male prestige in traditional healing is explained by the decreasing significance of a traditional means of legitimation and prestige of which healing is a part: God's transmissible blessing called baraka. The last paragraph attempts to clarify why this collapse of traditional prestige afflicted dominant status groups (such as male Chorfu) more than subdominant groups such as Arab, Chorfa women.
Patriarchy dominates systems of knowledge across religion, popular culture and medicine, constructing gender and sexuality. It subordinates women through categories related to health and illness, goodness and evil. "Possessed women" condense the idea of order subversion through the disorder of the soul and the body. Men assume the position as the keepers of social order, reversing chaos to restore normalization in society which are related with female bodies and sexualization. The female body is a territory of male intervention in realms as diverse as religion, popular culture, arts and medicine. Changes in women's bodies during the course of their lives maintain the same objectification, molding their characteristics to the male gaze. Women remain constructed "in reference to" men in a patriarchal order. We propose here the concept of "women in motion", subverting female subordination and refuting the simplification of female experiences through dualist explanations of body and mind.
Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory , 1990
W omen are usually the central speaking subject of the zdr, a spirit possession and exorcism ceremony common in the Middle East and Africa. The word for this spirit possession cult-zdr-has been glossed, according to folk etymology, as the Arabic word meaning "to visit" or "a visitation." The main feature of the zdr cult is the possession of the body and mind of an individual woman-for this is predominantly a woman's activity-by a specific and appropriate spirit.
2020
Contemporary fiction often visits mythological narratives for the comprehension of the masses and attempts to discuss how cultural identities, social roles, economic roles are pre-ascribed. The tale of the female characters is however written within the patriarchal boundaries, the roots of which can be witnessed in the event of the liberation of the Shero. The idea is to examine the power dynamics in social, political and cultural spheres surrounding the shero are constructed in modern fiction, also, while analyzing from this perspective, the ‘Shero’ of the selected texts regenerates and rises from the ascribed inferiority based upon her ‘Karmic Past’ which acted as the medium of oppression. However, it is noted that despite Tripathi’s marvelous attempt at her liberation from the dreadlock, he has sustained the patriarchal ideology that is preconditioned in most of the Indian households. The study aimed to decrypt the notion of how writers and critics of the new literary tradition a...
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2021
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2016
This paper explains how the two protagonists, Firdaus and Sara, successfully paved their own ways in search of selfliberation despite the authoritarian patriarchy and institutionalized religions that plagued them. El Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero and Yezierska's Bread Givers represent the fruitful struggle these protagonists experienced as they come to forge an identity and be themselves. The paper argues that the protagonists manage to free themselves, establish their own spiritual homes at their own homes and assert the potentials of their femininity despite their endings. Empowered by the powers of reading, strong will and meticulous work, the protagonists were able to realize their own material independence and achieve their lifelong ambitions. However, through Firdaus' and Sara's journeys of breaking their silence, they were subject to different patterns of self-annihilation. While Firdaus was sentenced to death for killing a pimp, Sara embraced living under the hegemony of an authoritarian husband.
Journal for the Study of Religions of Africa and Its Diaspora, 2018
As the tradition of Ifa divination has gained increasing popularity and membership around the world, the previously male-dominated composition of its priesthood has become challenged. This article traces the origens of women who have sought the highest levels of Ifa initiation-primarily in Cuba and the US-engages the various arguments, concerns, and appeals to authority of the numerous players. Much of the debate hinges around ritual practice associated with the mysterious oriṣa Odu, and consequently the article addresses the relevant mythology and rituals associated with her in an Ifa context. It also places the male-oriented nature of Ifa within the larger context of Yoruba gender norms, contrasting Yoruba notions of gender with modern values of gender equality. Thus, it seeks to explain why male Ifa priests from West Africa have been eager and willing to initiate women. In addition, the article demonstrates that-contrary to many popular claims-several women have become Ifa diviners in West Africa, but that the important ways that gender is understood in a variety of different contexts, its ramifications for initiation rituals, and the rapidly growing number of female initiates in diaspora, will likely change the dynamics of the tradition going forward.
2019
Research on sufism and female spirituality has centered on framing narratives of sufi women within individualized practices, constructing thereby sufi women as mere individual and assisting players in historical accounts of more famous male scholars. In recent years, academic interest has geared towards the investigation of sufi women's collective and ritualistic performance within structured sufi circles. Henceforth, this paper explores ways in which the gathering of sufi women of Boutchichiyya, a Morocco-based sufi order, in a zawiya mediates not only ritual performances but also promotes the rehearsal of sociability and social relations. The point is made that within a horizon that is viewed as a nexus where the ritualistic performance is what matters in a zawiya, sufi women's gathering is characterized by a sense of community, and interconnections between spiritual, social capital and socialization. In this 'pri-blic' (private and public) space, namely the zawiya, sufi women of Boutchichiyya enjoy privacy and communal life. Knowing that the zawiya is a segregated space, since men and women disciples perform rituals separately, one might surmise that the spatial division sparks gender inequality. However, this spatial segregation is an ideal of emancipation, which subsumes a spatial segregation of rituals, and constructs a realm of privacy, intimacy, and fervent ambiance women aspire to.This paper builds on findings of a qualitative ethnographic research, in which the researcher assumed a participant-observer role to generate a more focused discussion on whether the gender division of space highlights women's spirituality or undermines it. More precisely, this paper approaches the interactive relationship, which engages women's sufi experience with prevalent spatial politics in Moroccan society. In such a space where women come to learn and imbibe spiritual knowledge, social relationships are important assets for women's spiritual, social, and personal growth.
Philosophical Explorations, 2010
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A. Lanzafame, "Ci sarà un giudice comune a Berlino?" Le vicende del d.lgs. Severino come occasione per ripensare il sistema di protezione dei diritti, in Forum di Quaderni Costituzionali, 17 marzo, 2016
Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures, 2019
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AKSIOMA Journal of Mathematics Education, 2014
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Journal of Emergency Practice and Trauma, 2017
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