Nicole Khoury

As Royster and Kirsch explain, because so much of our field is grounded in Western tradition, even though the recovery work of feminist scholars locates women’s rhetorical voices outside these frameworks, they continue to unwittingly serve as the measure. Globalizing the point of view is an approach that Royster and Kirsch describe as a tectonic shift asking us to rethink the assumptions embedded in our field: “how do we create linkages between local and global points of view, knowledge, experience, achievement?” My contribution further explores these questions with a focus on current research on transnational feminist rhetorics and complicates their approach by questioning what exactly do we mean when we define “local” and “global”? I posit that the challenge of researching women rhetors outside of our “local” context is not only measuring and valuing knowledge, but it is being open to questioning our beliefs about “others” as we struggle to find a place to value these voices in our field. As a scholar of Middle Eastern rhetoric, I am constantly reminded of the “lack of agency” of these women and that the work I do is “on the fringe” of our field, but I believe it is central to challenging the persistence of our borders. One suggestion in Royster and Kirsch’s approach is to use our classrooms as innovative experimental sites: “We look toward the world, but simultaneously we have the opportunity to look at the world in us—within our nation, in our communities, in our classrooms” (127). My pedagogical approach to teaching Middle Eastern feminisms is one that calls into question our own beliefs and values, one that is a necessary step towards practicing an ethics of care and towards a more comprehensive understanding of the limits and potentials of our field.

This article provides a rhetorical analysis of a gender violence media
campaign launched by KAFA, an NGO based in Lebanon, modeling the kind of empowerment possible when activists not only adopt but also adapt transnational resources to suit local contexts and local rhetorical situations. KAFA’s gender violence campaigns have opened a cultural space for the public discussion of gender and women’s rights in Lebanon, raising questions about the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens from violence and redefining domestic violence as violence. KAFA’s leadership includes adopting and adapting transnational examples for local use and also managing the media; they use print, visual, and social media simultaneously to keep the issue of gender violence at the forefront of public discourse.

This article further provides guidelines relevant to feminist scholars doing transnational work at the intersection of multiple national constituencies and discourses, including public, legal, religious, and private ones. Transnational concepts, such as women’s rights, are constantly negotiated within local contexts and used in grassroots activism within marginalized communities as powerful language that can challenge oppressive discourses.

This article is a feminist history of Al-Raida, a Lebanese feminist journal launched in 1976 by the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University. The article outlines the journal’s role in the foundation of modern Lebanese feminist discourse, and in particular traces the dominant strand of discourse on development during the journal’s first decade. By situating this strand within both dominant and local historical contexts, the article analyzes the ways in which the journal positioned arguments for development, presented research studies, and employed methodologies in order to forge solutions to Arab women’s issues while maintaining international visibility through the use of normative and transnational language.

To challenge the persistent silencing of Middle Eastern women and address their exclusion from histories of rhetoric, this presentation reads contributions of Lebanese and Arab feminists to Al-Raida (1976-present) as integral to understanding contemporary transnational rhetorics. This research study is a feminist historiography of Al-Raida, a Lebanese feminist journal introduced in 1976 by the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University. The study recovers the voices of modern Lebanese feminist discourses as they are articulated in the first decade of the journal. This study further explores Middle Eastern women’s rhetorical strategies, which are grounded in the local context.

The project presents Middle Eastern women’s voices throughout history, as they are articulated in the Al-Raida journal. The purpose of this poster presentation is to show that the journal began with critical attention to the need to document women’s voices throughout Middle Eastern history by translating works by Arab women in French and Arabic into English for a wider readership. The purpose of this documentation is also to illustrate that emerging modern feminist voices were part of a larger history that has silenced women’s voices. By bringing translating the works of these women into English and publishing them in a modern feminist journal, the editors of Al-Raida were contextualizing the emerging conversation on women’s rights within a larger tradition of Arab feminism and global feminist discourse.

Thanks to the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World for providing me with copies of the journal issues.

Link to Pioneering Feminisms Interactive Timeline:
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1_RVLYbTGBLB2vSdI11DmlB4eQZEpE_r5j4LVZQzs-cI&font=Default&lang=en&height=650

Link to detailed History of Middle East Feminism Timeline PDF:
http://cwshrc.org/newwork2015/files/khoury.pdf