Papers by An Van Raemdonck
DiGeSt Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, 2022
Social Anthropology , 2021
This paper discusses practices of early marriage in protracted displacement, among Syrian refugee... more This paper discusses practices of early marriage in protracted displacement, among Syrian refugees in Jordan, while drawing from ethnographic research with one extended family in Amman. The dominant form of early marriage is often glossed over as a common, traditional practice. The increase of early marriage among Syrians in Jordan is often explained as the result of a search for economic relief by the family. This article adds to this analysis by offering a new in‐depth reading of early marriage practices. It first shows how an emic differentiation is made between ordinary and ethically challenging forms of early marriage. Second, it aims to render visible additional dimensions of early marriage by showing how refugees actively shape their lives in the liminal state between waiting and home‐making. I argue that marriage can act as a normaliser and signify a desire for an ordinary family life that fulfils social and affective needs of home‐making in contexts of forced displacement.
Progress in Development Studies , 2020
This article discusses rationales for development and humanitarian intervention through the lense... more This article discusses rationales for development and humanitarian intervention through the lenses of poststructuralist policy analysis and a postcolonial politics of the womb. It aims to show a variety of perspectives on early marriage and the limitations of dominant policy responses. The article argues that humanitarian logics easily blend with developmentalist models, especially in conditions of protracted displacement. The response to the rise of early marriage among Syrians in Jordan mainly consists of educational activities such as awareness raising that are based on imparting knowledge. The article suggests that responses based on an ethics of dialogue may be more adequate to meet refugees' needs and, second, may help to shift the balance from developmental-ist reproductive governance towards realizing the humanitarian goal of identifying and addressing women refugees' needs.
The Network for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality (NAGS) of the European Association of So... more The Network for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality (NAGS) of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) will hold its Interannual Meeting and two-day workshop on 19-20 September 2019 at VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Over the last years, we have witnessed a growing importance of gender and sexuality issues in public and political debate, particularly in relation to migration and refugee issues. During this NAGS interannual meeting, we aim to interrogate the roles of anthropologists and students of gender and sexuality in current changing social landscapes marked by heightened nationalism and the rise of populist and right-wing thought. Anthropologists have an important role to play in sketching and analysing current contestations of gender, and gender-related discursive practices in specific contexts and communities, and the variety of political threats against it. At the same time, we remain interested in the ‘anthropology of the good’ (Ortner 2016) by examining how involvement with gender studies across Europe keeps playing important positive and transformative roles, even in structurally precarious positions.
We welcome all contributions that engage with current social, political and cultural entanglements of uses, abuses and resistances against gender as a concept and analytical tool. We particularly invite contributions that engage broadly with the themes below (see full cfp).
Please send your abstracts (250 words) to easanags@gmail.com
Deadline for abstracts: 15 June 2019. Notifications will be sent on 30 June 2019.
Culture, Health & Sexuality
This paper deals with questions of the politics of location in knowledge and norm production with... more This paper deals with questions of the politics of location in knowledge and norm production within the context of Egyptian feminist activism for abandoning female genital cutting practices. It seeks to determine underlying schemes of international campaigning discourse and analyzes how these predicate and complicate Egyptian postcolonial activism. It draws on a broad literature study in addition to fieldwork in Cairo consisting of in-depth interviews with activists and policy makers. My focus is on the national Task Force against FGM from 1994 until 1999 and its subsequent cooptation by the National Council of Childhood and Motherhood. I argue through the concept of catachresis that location matters in setting the terms of anti-FGC discourse and its relation to religion.
Social Inclusion, 2018
In this article, 1 we look at colonialities of gender and sexuality as concepts employed in inter... more In this article, 1 we look at colonialities of gender and sexuality as concepts employed in international aid and development. These international arenas reveal not only strong reiterations of modernist linear thinking and colonial continuities but also provide insights into the complexities of the implementation and vernacularisation of gender and sexuality in practices of development. Using a critical anthropological perspective, we discuss case studies based on our own research in Egypt and Bangladesh to illustrate the importance of unpacking exclusionary mechanisms of gender and sexuality scripts in the promotion of women's rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights in postcolonial development contexts. We provide a conceptual analysis of decolonial feminist attempts at moving beyond the mere critique of development to enable a more inclusive conversation in the field of development. To work towards this goal, we argue, a critical anthropological approach proves promising in allowing a politically-sensitive, ethical, and critical engagement with the Other.
My PhD dissertation examined discourses on Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in contemporary Egypt, pa... more My PhD dissertation examined discourses on Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in contemporary Egypt, particularly concerning the relation between FGC and religion. FGC is practiced by both Muslims and Christians and Egypt is among the countries with the highest prevalence rates. Through ethnographic research, the study analysed the vernacularization of transnational activism as an important intervention into local cultural and social debates on gender, sexuality and family norms, in addition to understandings of Islam, Muslim-Christian relations and concepts of race, nation and progress. I argue that FGC is best characterized as an Islamicate practice. A narrow, reifying conceptualization of religion precludes lived understandings of the relation of FGC to Islam and subsequently, precludes more profound social and cultural debate on gendered practices.
Book chapters by An Van Raemdonck
The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Gender and Society, 2022
Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Migration, 2021
Transforming Bodies and Religions. Powers and Agencies in Europe, 2021
This chapter examines discursive engagements with Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR... more This chapter examines discursive engagements with Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) while focusing on the role of the body and bodily transformation and with the aim to destabilize the belief in a religious/secular binary structuring opposition and support of SRHR. In a first section, I selectively review literature on sexuality and SRHR in a postcolonial context. Second, I discuss the enfolding of discourses on SRHR among Christian, particularly Roman-Catholic, institutionalized and non-institutionalized voices. I focus on the role of the Vatican and its political interventions on the international level and a civil society group, Catholics for Choice (CFC), that defends sexual and reproductive rights. I juxtapose different underlying theoretical understandings of the body and contrast the Vatican’s naturalistic body with activists’ liberated, transformed body and finally, with CFC’s “primacy of the conscience”. The third and final section of the chapter critically engages with the notion of “strategic secularism” that has been invoked by sociologist Juan Marco Vaggione (Vaggione 2005) to capture the ambiguous nature of religious groups’ responses to SRHR. I propose to use its mirror-concept, “strategic religiosity”, to illuminate the processes through which progressive gender and sexuality politics become naturalized as secular.
Savoirs féministes au Sud. Expertes en genre et tournant décolonial. Cahiers genre et développement n°11.(Dir.) C. Verschuur, 2019
Interrogating Harmful Cultural Practices: Gender, Culture and Coercion, 2016
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Papers by An Van Raemdonck
Over the last years, we have witnessed a growing importance of gender and sexuality issues in public and political debate, particularly in relation to migration and refugee issues. During this NAGS interannual meeting, we aim to interrogate the roles of anthropologists and students of gender and sexuality in current changing social landscapes marked by heightened nationalism and the rise of populist and right-wing thought. Anthropologists have an important role to play in sketching and analysing current contestations of gender, and gender-related discursive practices in specific contexts and communities, and the variety of political threats against it. At the same time, we remain interested in the ‘anthropology of the good’ (Ortner 2016) by examining how involvement with gender studies across Europe keeps playing important positive and transformative roles, even in structurally precarious positions.
We welcome all contributions that engage with current social, political and cultural entanglements of uses, abuses and resistances against gender as a concept and analytical tool. We particularly invite contributions that engage broadly with the themes below (see full cfp).
Please send your abstracts (250 words) to easanags@gmail.com
Deadline for abstracts: 15 June 2019. Notifications will be sent on 30 June 2019.
Book chapters by An Van Raemdonck
Over the last years, we have witnessed a growing importance of gender and sexuality issues in public and political debate, particularly in relation to migration and refugee issues. During this NAGS interannual meeting, we aim to interrogate the roles of anthropologists and students of gender and sexuality in current changing social landscapes marked by heightened nationalism and the rise of populist and right-wing thought. Anthropologists have an important role to play in sketching and analysing current contestations of gender, and gender-related discursive practices in specific contexts and communities, and the variety of political threats against it. At the same time, we remain interested in the ‘anthropology of the good’ (Ortner 2016) by examining how involvement with gender studies across Europe keeps playing important positive and transformative roles, even in structurally precarious positions.
We welcome all contributions that engage with current social, political and cultural entanglements of uses, abuses and resistances against gender as a concept and analytical tool. We particularly invite contributions that engage broadly with the themes below (see full cfp).
Please send your abstracts (250 words) to easanags@gmail.com
Deadline for abstracts: 15 June 2019. Notifications will be sent on 30 June 2019.
European makings of 'good' and 'bad' refugees: contestations of the right to have rights While the sense of crisis and emergency in Europe concerning the Syrian refugee crisis has wavered, the figure and presence of migrants and refugees keep playing a significant role in European politics and policies, public imagery and self-positioning. Scholars have pointed at the construction of hierarchies of 'deserving' people in need and differentiations between 'good' and 'bad' refugees (Mavelli and Wilson, 2017). Such rankings in the political, popular and public imaginary are often connected to gendered and religious status and particular ideas about agency and victimhood. While certain categories such as 'the persecuted Christian', 'mother and child' and refugees 'waiting in camps' are considered favourable, others are considered less favourable, for instance when refugees take matters into their own hands by crossing the Mediterranean. These perceptions may be at odds with or challenge existing (inter)national migratory legislation such as the Geneva Convention.
This panel aims to examine localized and contextualized representations of biopolitical hierarchies of the deserving and not deserving of 'the right to have rights' (De Gooyer et al., 2018). We are particularly interested in European political and social practices and articulations. The panel aims to interrogate the processes through which figures of the deserving and undeserving are constructed, politically legitimized and possibly translated into legislation. We welcome contributions from scholars working in the fields of migration and refugee studies, public, political and state anthropology, legal anthropology and on topics of media and public debate and right-wing populism.