Judging Women's Rights, Gender & Citizenship in Ben Ali's Tunisia

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-71273-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 22, 294 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 553 g

Reihe: Women and Gender: The Middle East and the Islamic World

Tunisia has often been commended for its progressive stance on women’s rights and viewed as a role model for family law reform in the Muslim world. Judging Women’s Rights, Gender & Citizenship in Ben Ali's Tunisia weaves together intimate stories and theory to demystify claims that the progressive laws supported gender equality in practice. Through the eyes of citizens and legal professionals, it reveals how women and men experienced their rights under Ben Ali’s repressive regime, tracing connections between gender, ethics and the law. This accessibly written book provides a vital backdrop for understanding contemporary debates in Tunisia where women’s rights remain a hotly contested topic.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grosso, Sarah

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Rechtswissenschaften Bürgerliches Recht Familienrecht
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Part 1: Dark and Light

1 Prologue: Engendering Change

1 La vie en mauve: Documenting Women’s Rights in the Time of Ben Ali

2 Encounters: Judging Citizenship

Interlude: the Bourguiba Institute of Modern Languages, April 2007

3 Law Lessons: Judging the Law

Interlude: Ministry of Statistics, May 2007

Interlude: Before and After: Marriage and Divorce

4 Before and After

1 Tradition or Innovation?

Interlude: Judging Divorce

5 Gendered Judgement

1 Ambiguous Spaces

2 Extraordinary Ethics

Interlude: Seeing beyond the Veil

6 Dislocation: Where Judging Begins

1 Dislocated Selves

2 Dislocated Places: Fields

3 Dislocated Judgement

4 Dislocated Morals

7 Listening to Silences

1 Encounters

2 Connections

3 Listening to Silences

4 Anthropologist or Spy?

5 Encounters in the Fields

6 Vulnerable Lives

Part 2: Family

Interlude: Knowing Whom to Trust

8 Becoming

1 The Safety Pin

2 Seeing the Invisible

3 Performing Identity

9 Creating Homes

10 Creating Friends

1 No Return

11 Marriage Is like a Watermelon

1 Consent

12 Creating Marriage

1 Mother and Daughter: Marriage across Two Generations

13 Good Wife; Ideal Husband

1 Good Wives

2 Ideal Husbands

Interlude: Finding the Ideal Husband?

14 Sex and the City

15 Making a Living

1 Shrinking Families

2 Increasing Living Costs

Interlude: the Hunter and Rim (Part 1)

16 Woman’s Work

1 Real v Ideal

2 Dislocated Marriages

Interlude: Reciprocity

Interlude: the Unthinkable

17 Breaking Marriage: Those Who Can(not) Divorce

1 Those Who Did Not Divorce

2 The Stigma of Divorce

Part 3: Law

Interlude: in Between

18 Court House

1 Setting the Scene

2 Outside In

19 Inside Out: the Court Office

1 The Court Staff

2 From Morouj to the Court: the Story of Karima

3 On Marriage and Motherhood

4 ‘Family Atmosphere’ and Neighbourhood Spirit

5 Attitudes to Divorce

Interlude: Judge and Justice

20 From Both Sides: Encountering the State

1 Navigating Legal Territories

2 Judging Ideal Husbands and Wives

21 Under the Spotlight: Public Hearings

Interlude: the Hunter and Rim (Part 2)

22 Seeing Like a Court

23 Behind the Scenes

1 Reconciliation?

2 Reconciliation Sessions: the Legal Framework

3 Defining ‘Harm’

24 Reconciliation as Theatre

1 The Reconciliation Judge: ‘I Must Make Them Feel I Am Not Judging Them’

2 Suspicion and Sympathy

3 Deconstructing the Ideal Husband

4 Deconstructing the Good Wife

Interlude: Maktoub (1)

25 Stepping Out of the Page

26 A File Is Born

1 Making Files

2 Making Evidence

3 Proof of ‘Harm’

27 Maktoub: Documenting Divorce for Harm

1 Litigant Strategies

2 Documenting Bad Husbands: Not Maintaining the Family

3 Documenting Bad Wives: Leaving the Marital Home

4 A Tale of Two Contrasting Cases

5 Listening to Evidence

28 Maktoub: Poetic Justice in Divorce without Grounds

1 Customized Arguments

2 Writing Good Husbands and Wives

29 The Cost of Divorce

1 Battles for Compensation

2 Writing Morality and Legitimacy

30 Dislocated Families

1 The Real Cost of Divorce

2 Gendering Parental Duties: the Legal Framework

31 Making ‘Bad’ Mothers

1 Absent Mothers

2 Unfit Mothers

3 (The Loss of) Custody as a Cost of Divorce

4 Interest of the Child

32 Politics and Patriline

1 Breaking Families

Part 4: Judging Women’s Rights

33 Towards a Relational Reading of Women’s Rights

1 Women’s Rights; Men’s Wrongs

2 Recreating Gender and Citizenship

3 Relational Rights: Family Law Begins at Home

4 Performing Citizenship

5 Smoke and Mirrors: Judging Women’s Rights

Afterword: Available Light

34 Reflections on Women’s Rights in Post-revolutionary Tunisia and Beyond

1 Safeguarding the PSC

2 ‘Same, Same, but Different’: Defining Gender Equality

3 Reforming Gender since the 2011 Revolution

Interlude: The Two Hajj

4 Seeking Authenticity: the ‘Real’ Tunisia?

5 Inspiration: Transposing Women’s Rights

6 Listening to Men

7 Finding Light in Dark Places: Reading Women’s Rights

8 Glimmers: the Joys of Fatherhood

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Sarah Grosso, PhD (LSE, 2014), teaches at Webster University. A counsellor and consultant, she has worked for international organisations including UNICEF, UNESCO and the ICRC. Sarah has published articles and book chapters on Tunisia, women’s rights, gender and anthropology.