Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
4.3 Gendering the Archive: A Catalyst for Change in Women’s Rights in Egypt
113 Plays12 days ago
In this episode, Diana Magdy, a gender equality specialist, feminist researcher and oral historian has a conversation with Professor Hoda Elsadda unpacking the politics of archiving, revealing archives as spaces of power and resistance rather than neutral repositories.
Diana Magdy is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a feminist researcher and gender equality specialist from Cairo, Egypt. She has 12 years of experience in gender and development. As a feminist oral historian, she has worked on documenting the Egyptian feminist movement, producing feminist knowledge in Arabic, and archive building. In this area, she published a paper titled ‘Narrating Gender in Egypt's Public Sphere: The Archive of Women’s Oral History’.
Professor Hoda Elsadda is a feminist activist, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University, and Co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum. She previously held a Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Manchester University, and was Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World in the UK. Her research interests are in the areas of gender studies, comparative literature and oral history. She is author of Gender, Nation and the Arabic Novel: Egypt: 1892-2008 (Edinburgh UP and Syracuse UP, 2012); and co-editor of Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation and the Making of Archives (Cairo Papers, 35:1, 2018).
Find out more about Diana's work: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/diana-magdy
Find out more about Hoda's work: https://wmf.org.eg/en/member/hoda-elsadda/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Season 4: Social Change in the Middle East
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Season 4 of Instant Coffee. I'm Nadine Almanasfi and this season we're very excited to be collaborating with our colleagues at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, based at the LSE International Inequalities Institute.
00:00:17
Speaker
This season's focus is a question. What does it take to affect meaningful social change in the Middle East? We thought what better way of exploring this question than by speaking with Atlantic Fellows past and present who are from the Middle East.
00:00:30
Speaker
These activists and practitioners from the region have come to the LSE to dedicate a year to academic research, thinking through how they can find sustainable strategies for social change.
Exploring Transnational Solidarity & Activism
00:00:40
Speaker
The episodes that follow explore questions such as how to build transnational networks of solidarity across the Middle East, what it takes to keep education going during the recent war on Gaza, and much more.
00:00:50
Speaker
All episodes have been co-curated with Atlantic Fellows Past and Present based on their spheres of activism and thinking. They have invited friends, colleagues and guests to highlight the challenges facing their communities, the work being done and
Gender Histories of Egypt with Professor Huda al-Sadda
00:01:03
Speaker
future thinking. Based at the LSE International Inequalities Institute, the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity is a fellowship programme for mid-career social change leaders who are working to tackle inequality.
00:01:15
Speaker
In this episode, Diana Magdi, gender equality specialist, feminist researcher, and oral historian, speaks to Professor Huda Asadda about remembering the gendered histories of Egypt and the importance of feminist archiving.
00:01:27
Speaker
Professor Asadda is a feminist activist, professor of English and comparative literature at Cairo University, and co-founder of the Women in Memory Forum. The Women in Memory Forum's work focuses on documenting women's experiences through oral histories, literature, and reinterpretations of cultural heritage.
Centering Women's Voices through Oral History
00:01:44
Speaker
This conversation unpacks the politics of archiving, revealing archives as spaces of power and resistance rather than neutral repositories. So before we begin, Diana, why did you decide to focus your episode on this topic?
00:01:58
Speaker
Yes, sure. First of all, thank you for having us and actually I'm very excited for today's episode. So actually in my research, women's lived experiences always at the center of how I engage with theory. I've been committed to bringing women's voices to the forefront of research and for me oral history has been the most powerful tool to do that. It's actually a method that I've been fascinated with for a long time.
00:02:27
Speaker
Also, oral history allows you to co-create knowledge with the very people whose lives are the source of the knowledge, to center their memories, reflections, and experiences in ways that women are rarely given space to do.
00:02:42
Speaker
So the process itself is also enriching, creating a space for women to narrate, to be listened to, and to feel that their voices matter. It's often very emotional, at times overwhelming because it carries both the connection and the responsibility.
Impact of Feminist Archiving in Egypt
00:02:58
Speaker
You realize you are not just collecting stories, you are helping preserve lived histories that shape how we understand gender and society.
00:03:09
Speaker
And why did you choose Professor Huda al-Sadda as your guest? So actually, my first exposure to the world of oral history and archive building was through Huda al-Sadda. When I volunteered at the Women in Memory Forum post-2011, I've been and as an intern for a while there. Then I had the privilege of working with her as a researcher and a project manager for the Oral History Archive from 2012 until I joined the forum at a major moment of change in Egypt and the wider region, at times when documenting women's voices and experiences felt especially urgent.
00:03:51
Speaker
This year marks their 30th anniversary, ah which feels like the perfect moment to reconnect with Huda and Women and Memory Forum in general and reflect together on what it has meant building feminist archives in the MENA region after three decades of their pioneering work.
00:04:10
Speaker
I'm very excited to share this conversation with the audience about the transformative power of feminist archives in reshaping societal perceptions and advancing women's rights in Egypt.
00:04:24
Speaker
Great, well with that, let's listen back to the conversation you both had.
00:04:29
Speaker
Welcome Hoda, it's such a pleasure to have you with us today. How are you doing? Thank you very much, Diana, and I'm doing well, thank you. I hope you're well too. I would like to first start by asking you to introduce the Women in Memory Forum, and how would you describe it and the work it does?
00:04:48
Speaker
So we started in 1995, but we were a research group, a small research group of feminists and activists. And our aim at the time was to produce alternative knowledges to counter stereotypical representations of women and men in Arab culture and history, and to make available this information to a new generation of young men and women. And we also wanted to challenge discriminatory concepts, ideas and practices and the grand sort of, you know, project that we embarked on. We have this grand title for it to reread and rewrite our cultural history from a gender lens. And it's always with the goal of supporting women's rights activism and the struggle for gender justice. We've always had this very clear in our heads. Our research is specialized research, but in support of an activist agenda.
00:05:41
Speaker
Now, I also describe Women in Memory as a feminist intellectual project. and with a research agenda, of course. And just to give you a sense, our first projects focus, as I just mentioned, on rereading Arab cultural history from a gender sensitive perspective. So we highlight the roles of women pioneers by republishing their work. We hold conferences.
00:06:04
Speaker
ah We had a really a fun project, I call it rewriting folk tales from a feminist perspective, ah revisiting the roles of women in the pre-modern history of Muslim societies and the Islamic tradition.
00:06:17
Speaker
And along the way, we decided to establish a specialized library in women and gender studies in Arabic to become a resource center for research researchers and students.
00:06:29
Speaker
And we also established actually one of the first oral history archives of women in the Arab region, again, all with the view of foregrounding women's voices and understanding their experiences.
Challenging Dominant Narratives through Feminist Archives
00:06:41
Speaker
Just briefly amongst our other projects was to do a lot of translation. So we we have the project called Translating Gender and this was a project that produced readers which consists of important texts on gender in different disciplines translated into Arabic and we also held over the many years, many, many, in fact, gender training workshops, offering students intensive, specialized theoretical training in gender studies across the disciplines of the social sciences and the humanities. And also, we did a lot of workshops on how to do oral history from a gender perspective.
00:07:21
Speaker
We will talk more about the specific projects you are working on, but now, as you mentioned, reshaping perceptions. In your opinion, how can alternative cultural information help gender awareness? And how does your work, especially with archives, contribute to this?
00:07:39
Speaker
Yes, thank you. um is The feminist archive, I mean, it is women in memory, is a feminist archive and we believe that we produce alternative knowledge. So what does that mean? um it's I try to explain it by talking about how I'm using the archive. So I use it literally and metaphorically.
00:07:59
Speaker
So literally it is a place, it can be virtual or physical, which curates documents, historical sources, people and materials in diverse forms and genres.
00:08:10
Speaker
Metaphorically, ah the archive is used by cultural theorists as a metaphor for the production of knowledge in the context of the machinations of power. So I'll just cite two things. you know i mean For example, Derrida drew attention to the role of archives as an instrument of power and control.
00:08:28
Speaker
And Michel Foucault equated the archive with the law of what can be set. So this approach by cultural theorists located the archive at the center of power and authority, rendering the ah the control of the archive a condition of rule and political power.
00:08:46
Speaker
And therefore, you know, highlighting the workings of power in archives. I mean, archives are not these, you know, neutral, innocuous spaces, but they're actually centers of power, right?
00:08:59
Speaker
And understanding that makes it possible for us to to imagine that we can actually contest the archive, contest the objectivity and neutrality of this archive.
00:09:11
Speaker
Because once power is recognized, we can actually talk about changing the the relations of power there. so So in that sense, archives became key sites of political and social contestation. And I would argue that feminists have used this, the archive, to really further the feminist agenda, not just in Egypt, but in different parts of the world. And and the archive is now, i mean, it can be
00:09:43
Speaker
a tool and a venue for resistance, for empowerment, for showcasing women's experiences, integrating their voices in the mainstream narrative. I mean, there are so many things that can be achieved ah through um but through the establishment of alternative archives, especially alternative feminist archives.
00:10:06
Speaker
And in your opinion, what are the characteristics of a feminist archive? Yes, thank you for the question. and So a feminist archive raises, primarily raises epistemological questions about the core issues in feminist theory.
00:10:26
Speaker
I mean, you know, the question, is there such a thing as a feminist approach? I mean, this is a question that's always posed and feminists are always trying to respond to. So is there a feminist theory of knowledge, for example?
00:10:40
Speaker
And I'm using here the work of the feminist philosopher sandra Sandra Harding, who responded to these questions by saying that feminism is an epi epistemology and that feminist theories are primarily epistemological inquiries asking basic questions about what is knowledge or what is knowledge that is worth knowing and preserving? Who decides what is knowledge worth preserving? And what are the criteria that identify knowledge and knowledge production?
00:11:10
Speaker
So a feminist epistemology is based on a basic assumption, of course, that women across history have been excluded and or marginalized in the field of knowledge production.
00:11:21
Speaker
and their voices have been undermined, their contributions deemed marginal or not important enough to warrant documentation and acknowledgement. So a feminist of epistemology redefines the meaning and contours of knowledge, of the knowledge worth knowing and preserving by highlighting women's lives and interests and by acknowledging women as active knowers and knowledge producers.
00:11:44
Speaker
A feminist archive, I believe, descends from mainstream archives and rewrites the historical narrative from gender sensitive perspective that includes women's lived experiences and points of view.
00:11:58
Speaker
So it therefore includes materials that document women's pursuits as well as men's. It documents stories about social life, about politics, the politics of food, household management,
00:12:10
Speaker
It is not limited or confined to women's lives only, nor is it confined to women's forms of expression and activities. But it does not assume or enact a hierarchy between life in the public sphere and life in the private sphere.
00:12:27
Speaker
But all the time, it subverts the binary between public and private and exposes the power dynamics at play and their impact on social, cultural, and political manifestations. So ah but a feminist archive is really an enactment of the famous feminist slogan, the personal is political.
00:12:47
Speaker
There's no binarism here. Does a feminist archive have have a special position compared to other archives? For example, say, social history?
00:12:58
Speaker
Right. So what is the difference? I mean, is there a difference um between a social history archive and a feminist archive? Yeah. um Well, yes, there is. i think there is a difference.
00:13:14
Speaker
And the reasons for the difference are political reasons. So if we think of feminist archives, they consciously highlight and prioritize gendered experiences, as well as the unequal power relations that consolidate and institutionalize marginalization and discriminatory practices.
00:13:33
Speaker
Power and the questions around power, about the operations of power, manifestations of power are key. They are central to the curation of the feminist archive. There is no feminist archive without a key without key question about power and power dynamics. So this the the centrality of of power and power and the dynamics of power, we have to be in the midst of the archive, but also in the interview questions, in the selection of narrators, in the ethics of research and interaction.
00:14:06
Speaker
That's on the one hand. Now, the power question in a feminist archive, it foregrounds women's narratives, possibly sometimes more so than men's narratives.
00:14:18
Speaker
I want to emphasize that men's stories are part of the feminist archive. They're not excluded. But due to the gender dimension of the unequal power relations,
00:14:29
Speaker
a feminist arch Many feminist archives can and may focus almost exclusively on women's narratives and marginalized gender identities. I see this as a political decision. It's not a theoretical decision. It's really a political decision grounded in a particular moment in history where women are still marginalized and discriminated against. A feminist archive similar to other subaltern archives will seek to compensate women for years of exclusion and silencing by foregrounding their experiences and agency.
00:15:02
Speaker
Again, I repeat, this is not based on an exclusionary logic or unjustified bias, but we can see it as as an act of, let's call it positive discrimination or affirmative action, to use the American ah term.
00:15:17
Speaker
So to achieve a balance or fill in the existing gap in knowledge production that is still there as a consequence of long histories of exclusion and marginalization.
Collections of Women's Narratives: Agency & Stereotypes
00:15:28
Speaker
Thank you for this helpful theoretical foundation to understand the work of the Women in Memory Forum and the importance of archives.
00:15:36
Speaker
What does the archive itself look like? What kind of research projects have you set up? And how does this initiative counter the mainstream narrative surrounding women in the Global South?
00:15:49
Speaker
I mean, if we're thinking of the mainstream narratives of victimhood, lack of agency of women in the global south, I mean, they are, of course, figments of imperial imaginings. So let me share with you some of the issues, the the insights from the collection of oral history narratives that at least I have dealt with. I'll begin by saying that the first collection, the first collection of oral history narratives at at Women in Memory, we started collecting it in the second half of the nineteen ninety s and And since then, we've continued, but of course we've had periods of disruptions and inactivity. This is the situation of living in uncertain times. To date, we have a number of collections.
00:16:32
Speaker
of oral narratives of women. I speak about the first one in particular, which consists of life stories of pioneering women. We call them pioneering women because these are women who started their careers in the public sphere in the early 20th century as professionals or as women actively involved in public life.
00:16:52
Speaker
So this is the first collection. We're very proud of it. We have approximately 100 interviews with the pioneers. We have another, second collection. It consists of narratives of women who were inspired by and participated in the revolutionary wave that swept Egypt in 2011.
00:17:09
Speaker
And the most recent one, I just, you know, fast forward here, consists of narratives of women filmmakers in Egypt. Again, women who are part of this very a challenging industry and a very important industry in Egypt. Egypt is, of course, I mean, I think we call it we can call it the Hollywood of of the Arab world. So yes, so the the we we we interviewed with women filmmakers who were directors, who were monteurs, worked on decor, I mean, different types of of tasks.
00:17:49
Speaker
Now, the first collection sheds light on the lives of women who entered into the public sphere, as I said, in the first half. And we can actually call these women trailblazers of women's presence in the public sphere. And the story spoke of challenges, constraints, of course, you know, due to dominant ideas about gender roles. But the stories are complex and diverse, and they're beautiful in the sense that they tell moments of success as well as defeat, but then defeat that leads to perhaps, ah you know, insights or a better understanding of our relationship to the world. And they can be read. i mean, they can be read in so many different ways, really. They can be read as stories of resistance and dissent. They can be...
00:18:33
Speaker
read as stories of success and achievement. But most importantly, they do contest and subvert dominant stereotypes about women in the Global South. Now, the second collection is just stories of women in the Revolution. I mean, how wonderful is that? So there's stories of you know courage in the face of violence, stories of fortitude, you know commitment to change, but of course, also disappointment, frustration, dilemmas in the face of radical, or so human stories, human stories. And we see these stories as key historical sources for understanding the momentous events that took place in Egypt, definitely, and across the Arab world since 2011. I mean, I'm talking about the second collection now. And we see them as important interventions in the construction of the narrative of what happened, bearing in mind, of course, that what happened remains a site of contestation and struggle, because this is recent history.
Feminist Archives in Arabic: Accessibility & Knowledge Production
00:19:30
Speaker
as opposed to you know women the first collection of women pioneers. So yes, um you know feminist archives produce create and curate new knowledges and knowledges that have been marginalized and or deliberately erased.
00:19:47
Speaker
Could you talk a bit more about how you engage with younger people, schools and those outside of formal education to make this feminist knowledge available? Because we are a research organization with an activist agenda, we've tried very hard to to have this out this larger outreach.
00:20:06
Speaker
to go beyond, ah you know, the yeah mean the the question is, how does this research translate and be more available to ordinary audiences? So, in fact, from very early on, as early as 2003, if I remember correctly, we actually published a a book that I wrote.
00:20:22
Speaker
I'm very proud of and I really like. It's called Qadai al-Mar'a fi Sutur-u-Sawar. So it's the ah the equivalent of something like, you know, introducing Marxism or introducing feminism or feminism for dummies kind of thing. And it was, and the whole point of this book was to talk about very, very important concepts in feminism. and stories and history and do that in an accessible form with pictures, with cartoons, with... It's ah it's a nice book. It's a nice book. I call it... it's It's always been our bestseller because it does address a wider audience. So I'm just saying that this has always been a concern. Also, we as part of this rewriting fairy tales from a feminist perspective, the project that I talked about, we published children's stories.
00:21:11
Speaker
So we actually have a series of publications for children based on these but so feminist children's stories. But we've had other publications in a similar way. So and this is something that we're always very concerned about. you know how And of the whole idea of how do you into I mean, use art and different techniques to spread, hopefully, feminist messages messages. The other thing is that, in fact, we do that the whole idea of informal education is very much part of Women in Memory. I mean, this is actually how we relate to students. So we hold workshops. We call them education workshops. Now, these can be anything from a week to a month.
00:21:50
Speaker
different structures. And during these workshops are informal education. They target students, researchers, but also, you know, women in the NGO community, men and women. When we announce these workshops, we get some very, very different participants every time. So definitely informal education is something that we have, we do and have done for a very long time.
00:22:16
Speaker
All knowledge produced in the library is in Arabic. Isn't that correct? Can you talk to us about the importance of producing these archives and stories in Arabic and why Women in Memory Forum place an emphasis on this?
00:22:33
Speaker
This was a decision that the the group made early on, even though most of us work between two languages. And by fact the fact that we're academics, we're in fact expected to publish in English in certain parts of academia in the Arab world. In fact, you can only be promoted or your work acknowledged if it is published in English and in English English.
00:22:55
Speaker
you know, in English journals, even in the Arab world. I mean, so this is something to remember. So the decision to produce knowledge in Arabic, despite these constraints, really, and despite the many challenges, in fact, of that are not just related to ah academic positions, but also related to the circulation of knowledge. I mean, there is a a huge problem in ah the circulation of knowledge in Arabic between Arab countries. So this was part of the rationale for, in fact, for establishing the the library, ah documentation library, trying to collect everything that has been written in Arabic in this library to make it available to researchers because this of this challenge to the circulation of knowledge.
00:23:36
Speaker
A book published in Tunisia, I will probably only know about it if I have a friend who tells me about it or if I go to Tunisia, to Tunis, and actually...
00:23:47
Speaker
ah go to the very specific library that will have it. So when there is a challenge on so many levels, challenges related to, again, academic advancement. And academic advancement it is really about the acknowledgement of the work that's written in Arabic. its it's It's a question of acknowledgement. It's a question of considering this kind of knowledge as important.
00:24:07
Speaker
and then of course the circulation of knowledge. So it was really a very conscious and political decision and we see it as part of the decolonial vision of WMF, of Women in Memory. Because a decolonial project does not stop at critique which We do, and it's done quite well, I think, but it takes a step further towards practice. So we critique, and then we put our money where our mouths are. Is this the correct English term metaphor for it? Anyway, so we say something, yeah but we then we do it, right? So it's really how we link theory and praxis is very important for us. So as I said, we do not stop at critiquing hegemonic epistems and knowledge centers, We actively engage, we're trying, obviously, to de-center Western knowledges and languages by foregrounding diverse experiences and knowledges and voices and languages. And this is really part of our mandate. We all talk about how, again, translations, traffic between languages is tipped in favor of Western languages, right? So more translations from English into Arabic compared from the reverse. This is a reality.
00:25:18
Speaker
But again, producing knowledges in non-Western languages contributes, hopefully in the long term, to decentering the power centers. You know, the the idea that not publishing in Western outlets will hopefully eventually chip away at the hegemony of knowledge gatekeepers and really focusing and foregrounding the importance of non-Western publications and and venues. So as I said, it was it was a challenge, but it was a political decision. and it's also, of course, about and there's also a very important and practical reason also for writing in Arabic, because really Arabic is the language spoken by more than 200 million people in the Arab world. This is how we communicate. This is how we talk to each other. So it's really about, ah you know, furthering exchanges, intellectual exchanges between Arab countries. So on so many different, I mean, and then we teach, i mean, most of our universities, you know, the main language is taught is Arabic. and And then finally, language is... I mean if we're thinking of how do we integrate you know new feminist ideas and so on and in our culture and out and our in our intellectual tradition, this has to be done in Arabic. This has to be done in Arabic so that people more people have access and more people are able to engage.
Stories from the Women in Memory Forum
00:26:44
Speaker
so
00:26:45
Speaker
So many different reasons. Producing and theorizing in Arabic allow us to engage with women's experiences in their own words, cultural references, and emotions. It grounds our research in the everyday realities of the region and keeps knowledge accessible to the very communities it seeks to represent.
00:27:06
Speaker
Thank you so much for that. As we come to the end of the conversation, I think it will be great if you can share with us any stories that you have documented, that have stayed with you and that were dear to you.
00:27:21
Speaker
and There are so many stories. I'm trying to think of what to choose. um But I will choose a story that I learned from. I like the story in particular because this was in an interview with Kaukab Hefni Nasif. Kaukab Hefni Nasif, I mean, this was an interview that was that I conducted the end of the 1990s. Believe it or not, I don't remember the date off the top of my head. I should have prepared, but I haven't. She was in her She was in her ninety s she died two years later.
00:27:50
Speaker
And I was talking to the first a woman who went to study medicine on a scholarship in England in the 1920s. She came back nineteen in the at the end of the 1920s and she became a gynecologist.
00:28:03
Speaker
you know She had a practice, she practiced gynecology. And eventually she became the director of a very famous hospital, the Kitchener Hospital. And so long experience of work at a very, very, I mean, really, I mean, a pioneer in many different ways.
00:28:18
Speaker
And the reason I like the story is, I mean, this was a very, very rich story on so many different levels, level of personal, but also political and social. I mean, she talked a lot about how ah her main and goal in life was to resist the English occupation. This was, of course, at the time when England, when Egypt was occupied by the British.
00:28:41
Speaker
And the the reason I like the story is that I learned from it something that I had not, I was not aware of. So like all researchers, you go to an interview with assumptions, you go to the interview with, you know, a certain set of questions based on hypotheses. So My assumption at the time was that you know this woman must have really had huge challenges in relation to society, to social perceptions about her work, about her you know what she was doing. She was a medical doctor. She left her house in the morning. She had kids. So what did she do with those kids? you know I mean, so who took care of her children? i was then a very young researcher with young children. And you know this these were issues that occupied my life. I mean, you know who takes care of the children? having to defend myself against things like, you know, you've left your children, you know, is your work more important, that kind of, you know, these kinds of questions. So I wanted to know how she managed all these pressures.
00:29:41
Speaker
And every time I ask her, what was the most important challenge that faced you in your career? And her response is English occupation. So I keep asking her about her family, her friends, you know,
00:29:53
Speaker
you know, trying to figure out how come no one told her, you know, why are you leaving your children? And turns out, so, I mean, I had to revise my assumptions about family life, because, you know, there was a lot of feminist ah literature about how the extended family contributed to the oppression of women, and as opposed to the nuclear family, whereas in fact,
00:30:18
Speaker
With CowCab, the extended family was a huge support to her career. Because she lived in an extended family, there was no issue about her being the only caretaker, the only person who was capable of taking care of her children. There were aunts, there were other members of the family. She had a job. Everyone was very supportive of her. They they thought very highly of her. And so she never had this dilemma of what do I do with my kids when I go to work? And and that was an interesting, I mean, it took me some time to figure this out.
00:30:51
Speaker
You know, yeah revising your assumptions is not always that easy or straightforward. But it it it taught me a lesson that we really need to always reflect and be very critical sometimes of some of our assumptions when we start talking to people. So, yeah, that's one of the stories i particularly like.
Archiving as Resistance & Future Episodes
00:31:10
Speaker
That was a great story and a great learning point about the assumptions we, as researchers, often carry with us into the field. Thank you so much for speaking with us, Hoda, and sharing your wisdom.
00:31:22
Speaker
This conversation offered a powerful reminder that archiving is an act of resistance and imagination. We hope inspires listeners to think about the power of documenting and reclaiming our own stories. Congratulations to WMF for its 30th anniversary. We look forward to the following work over the coming years.
00:31:45
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Instant Coffee, a podcast brought to you by the LSE Middle East Centre. To learn more about Diana and Huda's work, follow the links in the podcast description. Join us next week to hear AFSI fellow Yara Shelke Shaheen in conversation with her colleague Yasmeen D'Alessandro about women's economic empowerment in the Middle East and the potential problems in international knowledge production on the topic.