RESOMFEM - Reconstructing social memory through Moroccan women's writing: female prison literature between the 1970's and the 2010's

ID Call: HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships

Sapienza's role in the project: Host Institution

Supervisor: Ada Barbaro

Fellow: Ana Gonzalez Navarro

Department: Istituto Italiano di Studi Orientali- ISO

Project start date​​​​​​​: October 1, 2024

Project end date: September 30, 2026

Abstract:

The project proposes an innovative analysis of writings by women in Morocco published between the 1970s and the 2010s that deal with prison experiences during the period known as the Years of Lead (c. 1965-1999). The project’s general objective is to analyse how these writings contribute to incorporating women’s participation in social and political issues in accounts about Moroccan history. The texts studied will include the different genres (testimonies, poetry, letters and fiction) and languages (Arabic and French) in which they are written. Taking a feminist perspective, this project considers that prison writings by women can constitute examples of alternative history and contribute to the reconfiguration of social memory by bringing women’s experience to the centre and claiming their role in in the movement of political prisoners as structural rather than as exceptional or secondary. In addition, the project also intends to shift Moroccan women’s position from objects of (artistic, literary or academic) discourse to producers of discourse, challenging
orientalist constructions that prevail in hegemonic cultural perspectives and to break stereotyped images about the “Moroccan woman” that portray them as passive rather than as active individuals.