Strategies of Negotiation by Muslim and Jewish Women in the Field of Family Law and Sexuality

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Mediamed > Chaînes > Ramses² > Strategies of Negotiation by Muslim and Jewish Women in the Field of Family Law and Sexuality

Workshop, March 2nd and 3rd 2009, at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy)
Co-organized by Lisa ANTEBY-YEMINI and Emanuela TREVISAN SEMI
Partners: IDEMEC (UMR 6591 CNRS-Université de Provence) and University of Venice
Réseau d’Excellence des centres de recherche en sciences humaines sur la Méditerranée (Ramses²) coordoné par la Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l'homme.

Gender offers an interesting angle for a crossed analysis of Islam and Judaism. In this sense, this workpackage wishes to put forth this comparatism concerning contemporary religious practices of Jewish and Muslim women, and in addition, think beyond the association between gender and religion which too often is reduced to the issue of Islam/veil. Having observed the lack of comparative studies between the two religions in this domain, parallels between Islam and Judaism could highlight the convergences (and also divergences) less known; this is why the Mediterranean fields are considered here as fields that can reveal how the identities of Jewish and Muslim women are constructed in everyday life in our contemporary societies.

In a First Workshop in Paris (19-20 nov. 2008) we examined issues pertaining to the access of Jewish and Muslim women to religious texts, their study, their interpretation and the access of women to the ritual space of mosques and synagogues as well as the emergence of new religious functions for women (Muslim women “imama” or women-rabbis and other ritual functions). In this upcoming Second Workshop in Venice, we want to look at issues concerning family law (marriage, adultery, divorce) and its practices in Islam and Judaism as well as questions pertaining to purity, sexuality, reproduction and feminine homosexuality in religious texts and in the practices of Muslim and Jewish women today.

The aim of this research project is to be able to work on a specific issue with scholars specialized in each religion and come up with a common paper or article that would look at a chosen theme in a comparative way, blending the perspectives both from Judaism and Islam. A final international conference will be organized in 2010 (in Aix-en-Provence) where we hope such common, inter-religious papers can be presented by two scholars each specialist of one religion. A publication will also follow this planned conference.