Negotiating meanings: violence and women's rights in the practice of NGOs in Morocco

Author(s)

Rebecca de Faria Slenes

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2014-11-26

Examining board members

Guita Grin Debert; Heloisa Buarque de Almeida; Francirosy Campos Barbosa Ferreira

• Advisor: Guita Grin Debert

Abstract

The aim of this master¿s thesis is to analyze the practice of Moroccan activists working in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to support women victims of violence. Based on an ethnographic study in an NGO that works with survivors of violence and on interviews with activists in different regions of the country, I analyze the experiences and strategies of women working inside NGOs to fight violence against women in Morocco. This research intends to observe how notions of violence and rights are conceived and instrumentalized by these women, and how they translate and negotiate concepts of rights to the populations that they work with. Reflecting on the role of activists as mediators of a rights-based language between local populations, governmental bodies and international human rights agencies, I attempt to show that their work is influenced by a diversity of factors, including religious and human rights discourses. Attentive to the differences between so called liberal feminist NGOs and Islamic NGOs, the thesis also highlights the points in common in the practices developed by these associations and argues that both a judicial approach in favor of rights, as well as an approach that protects the family, do not account for the dilemmas faced by the activists. This research hopes to contribute to anthropological reflections on how global rights-based networks are articulated in specific contexts (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/18722-0 - Negotiation of meanings: violence and women's rights in the practice of NGOs in Morocco
• Grantee: Rebecca de Faria Slenes
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master