Barefoot nisswiyya in practice and theory: the case of grassroots feminists in Jordan
Awni Alkhadra, Wafa
Awni Alkhadra, Wafa
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2023-05-23
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18
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<p>This paper attempts to connect my personal experiences as an academic activist, along with my first-hand experience in rural areas in Jordan, to ‘barefoot <i>nisswiyya</i>’ [barefoot feminism], a concept I coined in 2002 and have been developing through praxis since then. These experiences have helped me connect with nature in the countryside as a ‘Fourth Space’, as articulated by Nigel Thrift, disrupting some hierarchical and power-related practices in an attempt to bring about more balance in overdue social change and transformative paradigms within my own self and community. By using the two methodic tools that I crafted of <i>Bawh</i> بوح [spontaneous intimate articulation and disclosure] and <i>Ishrah</i> عشرة [engaging connectedness], I explore how this practised form of <i>nisswiyya</i> has helped me, first and foremost, to build <i>Ishrah</i> with grassroots women (shepherdesses, farmers, factory workers, janitors) while they are articulating their Voices and vernacularising their Stories that manifest their <i>nisswiyya.</i> These stories illuminate how barefoot <i>nisswiyy(at)</i> [feminists] navigate through patriarchal and hierarchical spaces to mobilise the ‘barefooted’ Fourth Space (Nigel Thrift constructed four different spaces: (1) the empirical; (2) the unblocking, fluid space; (3) the image, virtual space; and (4) the Fourth Space that he calls the Place Space). The paper discusses all these experiences as rooted in barefoot <i>nisswiyya</i>, a form of feminism/<i>nisswiyya(ism)</i> which aims to narrow the divide between theory and praxis, connect the personal to the political, step away from ‘femocracy’ and power-over empowerment, and widen the scope of feminism to encompass expressions of indigenous knowledge that is driven by homegrown grassroots women’s agency.</p>
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Language
English
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Gender & Development
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Women human rights defenders
Volume
31
Issue
1
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1355-2074
EISSN
1364-9221