Paper short abstract:

Ethnographic data from different Middle East countries in addition to a systematic fieldwork self-experience from Oman are analysed in order to understand experiences of womanhood as subaltern subjects and/or as alternative citizens à l'orientale in the 21st century

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I am trying to examine the conditions under which Moslem women in the Middle East countries, are constructing postmodern female citizenship and womanhood by dealing with everyday reality. Considering the transformation of male power from the traditional to modern and postmodern era, women seem to move between controversial 'truths' and practices, constructed by powerful others as well as by subjected selves. However, a lot of differences exist in homosocial environments and class structured societies. In this paper, categories such as 'truth', 'domination' and 'oriental' are deconstructed, showing how the power relationships in a social and gendered milieu raise the different female experiences of womanhood in particular contexts. In order to 'understand' and 'describe' we will try to explore the limits of old and new analytical tools coming from anthropology, feminist and post colonial studies (see public/private, tradition/modernity, submission/resistance, subaltern/subversive). In this context we are looking for local constructions of 'alternative' categories of womanhood and feelings as practices of self-construction and citizenship declared through multiple hegemonies (local, male and Western). Such approaches give a chance to ordinary social subjects considered subaltern, not only to express their experiences, but also to create alternative discourses, à l'Oriental, over their civil and political rights. In this way women's practices can not only be conceived and understood as 'resistance to subjection', but also as 'serenity and self-esteem' achievements, or as 'alternative' subversion and protest strategies. Ethnographic data from different Middle East countries in addition to a systematic fieldwork self-experience from Oman are analyzed in order to understand experiences of womanhood as subaltern subjects and/or as alternative citizens à l'orientale in the 21st century.