Unsettling Knowledges and Silences Within

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Abstract

The relational and embodied experiences of voices and silences are extended in connection to discourses and theorising. Feminist concerns and strategies are inherently linked with unsettling these knowledge production processes with the decolonization of knowledges raising questions surrounding the translation of knowledges and their authorisation. Whilst this poses a central question of ‘whose voices’ are being heard, implicit to this are the complex interconnections established between theory, context and partial perspectives. This research, therefore, adopts an Islamic feminist framework, which acknowledges the material and historical heterogeneities of women and men’s lives and the complex ways in which these intersect with cultural religious interpretations. It is in this context of variability and spatial organising that the concept of gender equality and empowerment are explored, using the example of a tourism-funded educational project in the High Atlas of Morocco. Analytical tensions remain with regard to the researcher’s positionality as a white Western female academic and the adoption of an Islamic feminist framework. However, translation begins with establishing spaces for voices and silences to enter into processes and epistemological contest of knowledges. Whilst this study acknowledges the potential absences that remain, it finds that empowerment is re-negotiated as learning to be responsible for the self, challenging local interpretations of equality based on gendered notions of respect.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2018
Publication statusPublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes
EventRGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2017: Decolonizing Geographical Knowledges: Opening Geography out to the World - Royal Geographical Society in London, London, United Kingdom
Duration: 30 Aug 20171 Sept 2017

Conference

ConferenceRGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2017
LocationRoyal Geographical Society in London
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period30/08/201701/09/2017

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