GulfFeminisms aims to provide an in-depth comparative analysis of the genealogy of feminisms and women’s mobilisation of law in the three Gulf States of Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It will offer an empirically based analysis of how feminists in the three Gulf States strategically mobilise women’s legal rights (divorce, custody, domestic violence, sexual harassment, economic/political rights, e-g) to transform women’s practices and agencies, and to negotiate women’s legal rights within their conservative patriarchies. In this way, GulfFeminisms will make a breakthrough in the way we conceptualise feminisms, their forms, and roles in the practical mobilisations for legal and political change, proposing a multidisciplinary method of analysis. GulfFeminisms produces an innovative theoretical addition to feminist studies offering the first full-length study on the history of the genealogies of the varied feminist movements in Saudi Arabia, Oman and UAE since the 1970s to the present.
In addition to this, GulfFeminisms project involves interviews and courtrooms observations carried out in the three Gulf States of Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The project focuses on how feminists in the three countries work to mobilise women’s legal rights, and laws. Interviews with feminists of different age groups and experiences, since 1970s to the present, will enable GulfFeminisms to get real picture on varied and changing patterns of feminist activities, services, challenges and support to women in courtrooms and in public spaces throughout different historic epochs. Interviews with female public officials will also help GulfFeminisms to understand what causes and why changes in the official attitudes towards women’s legal rights. Comparing interviews within and across Saudi Arabia, Oman and UAE gives GulfFeminisms insights on both the correlated and the different challenges, achievements and changes women, feminists and policymakers have experienced in the three countries. Observations of concrete practices in courtrooms will be 20-30 in each case and encompass legal and procedural practices and experiences women undergo and reveal concealed parts of participants' everyday lives including familial support/opposition, and the role of biographical data in women’s agency (age, ethnicity, education, health, employment etc.).
