In this session Dr. Amina Easat-Daas, Lecturer in Politics at De Montfort University along with guest speakers Dr. Kennetta Hammond Perry, Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and Dr. Irene Zempi, Lecturer in Criminology at Nottingham Trent University, will discuss her book ‘Muslim Women’s Political Participation in France and Belgium’. The book is published as part of the New Directions in Islam Series and outlines the principal motivations, opportunities and barriers to Muslim women’s political participation in France and francophone Belgium.
Dr. Amina Easat-Daas draws on in-depth comparative contextual analysis along with semi-structured interview material with women from France and Belgium who self-identify as Muslim and are active in a variety of modes of political participation, such European Parliamentarians, Senators, councilwomen, trade-union activists and those engaged in grass-roots political movements. This provides an alternative framing of Muslim women, removed from the tired and often exaggerated stereotypes that portray them as passive objects or sources of threat, instead highlighting their remarkable resilience and consistent determination. Through exploring the intersecting fault lines of racial, Islamophobic and gendered struggles of Muslim women in these two cases, this book also sheds new light on the role of ‘European Islam’, political opportunity structures, secularism and Muslim women’s dress.
Dr. Amina Easat-Daas is a member of the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity and is co-lead on the Centre’s Racialised Inequalities research theme. Her research interests include political participation by Muslims, the study of Muslimness in France, Belgium and the UK, the study of gendered Islamophobia and countering Islamophobia.
Dr Kennetta Hammond Perry serves as Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at De Montfort University where she is also a Reader in History. Her research interests include Black British history, transnational race politics, Black women’s history, archives of Black Europe, and anti-racist movements for citizenship, recognition and social justice throughout the African Diaspora.
Dr Irene Zempi is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Nottingham Trent University. Irene has published widely on issues of hate crime and researcher positionality. She has provided written and oral evidence to parliamentary committees and has been invited by the Law Commission to provide advice for the review of Hate Crime Legislation in England and Wales.
The event will be online and you will be given the opportunity to get involved with the discussions and ask questions.
Bookings will close 1 hour prior to the start of the event, and registrants will receive a link to join the online event 24hrs before the event, via their provided email address.
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This event is open to all.