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Archive, Repertoire, and Decolonization: Performing "Feminisms" in a Muslim University (Sudan)
Abstract by Prof. Sondra Hale On Session 112  (Sexuality and Human Rights)

On Monday, November 23 at 8:30 am

2009 Annual Meeting

Abstract
By observing transnational gender studies and its institutional manifestations, I am asking if it becomes possible to trace the fluid phenomenon of “feminism” as it is performed through diverse imperial domains. I am especially interested in how Muslim feminists manage their processes of decolonization at the same time they may be embracing a concept generally associated with the Global North, i.e., various feminisms. I am limiting the research universe to Muslim-dominant institutions and proposing that “feminism” is performed differently when decolonization is a companion performance. Furthermore, as a third proposition, I argue that the ways in which various Global South and Global North scholars view war, genocide, and generalized violence may be so different as to alter modes of performance of the feminisms. On a theoretical level I use sources that combine archive, repertoire, and decolonization: e.g., Marta Savigliano in Tango and the Political Economy of Passion offers some unusual versions of the performance of decolonization when she pronounces that tango is a practice already ready for struggle; Chandra Mohanty in Feminism without Borders. She sees decolonization as decolonizing knowledge and practicing anti-capitalist critiques; in Diana Taylor’s, The Archive and the Repertoire, she argues that even though archive and the repertoire exist in a constant state of interaction, the tendency has been to banish the repertoire to the past because the repertoire is the ephemeral: performances, gestures, orality, movement, dance, singing; the repertoire requires presence: people participate in the production and reproduction of knowledge by ‘being there,’ being a part of the transmission. On a concrete level and as an example of a “case study,” I analyze how “feminism” is performed and the repertoire validated at Ahfad University for Women (Sudan) where women have struggled against at least three colonialisms or forms of hegemony. I contrast these performances and use of archive/repertoire with an example of a Global North gender studies program.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Sudan
Sub Area
Gender/Women's Studies