Cyberfeminism in the Middle East and North Africa Region symposium

Dr Balsam Mustafa from the School of Modern Languages recently hosted the Cyberfeminism in the Middle East and North Africa Region Symposium, which was supported by The Leverhume Trust.

The purpose of the symposium, held in September, was to start bridging the gap between feminist scholarship and activism, focusing on cyberfeminism as a concept and practice in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region.

The event featured talks and presentations by 7 scholars, with some traveling from across the MENA Region to participate. This included Professor Amel Grami (Tunisia) and Dr Wafa Khalfan (UAE). Dr Sahar Khamis also spoke at the event remotely from the USA.

Two keynote talks were delivered by Professor Amel Grami, who presented on Arab Cyberfeminists Facing New Challenges, and Dr Sahar Khamis who discussed From the Arab Spring to Gaza: Shifting Trends in Cyberfeminism in a Shifting Middle East Region.

Other topics and speakers at the event included:

• Securitised Spaces: Cyberfeminism and the State in 2020 Egypt - Reem Awny Abuzaid (University of Warwick)
• Deprioritising the Gender Gap: Researching Cyberfeminism in the UAE Across Global Rankings and Local Disparities - Dr Wafa Khalfan (University of Sharjah)
• The I, the We, and the They: Exploring the Construction of Identity in Digital Gender Activism in the MENA Region - Bronwen Mehta (University of Warwick)
• Reshaping the Women’s Movement: Feminist Influencers and Affective Labour in Contemporary Iran - Azadeh Shamsi (Centre for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS))
• Mapping Digital Feminist Activism in Iran: A Multisited Mobile Ethnographic Approach - Dr Mitra Shamsi (Centre for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS))

The symposium ended with a special online roundtable featuring Iraqi feminist activists.

Dr Balsam Mustafa, who organised the event, reflected on the day saying: "The symposium provided a unique opportunity for a much-needed encounter between feminist researchers and activists on the way of co-producing feminist knowledge on and from the region."