The center: A theoretical framework for understanding women’s rights in pre-and post-arab spring north Africa

Abstract

This chapter presents ‘The Center’ as a theoretical framework within which the post-Arab Spring emerging (feminist) voices may be understood. Polyvocal, leaderless and using new styles of communication, the post-Arab Spring voices do not seek power but seek to defy the State and push it to address the hitherto ‘taboo’ topics such as sexual harassment, language (Amazigh) rights and individual freedom. These voices do not identify as feminist but tend to believe in equality. Contextualizing these voices within a historical framing of women’s rights discourses in North Africa, the chapter highlights gender as an omnipresent factor in the crafting of the pre- and postcolonial North African (political) national discourses. Indeed women’s rights were heavily instrumentalized and hyper-politicized in the colonial and postcolonial periods, often operating across ideological lines, and continue to do so within the Center framework.