How Moroccan Muslim Women Negotiate Their Identity in Today’s America

The aim of this study is to conduct an intersectional analysis of Muslim women identity in the days of anti-globalization in the US. Drawing from longitudinal qualitative interviews, this study explores how women of Islamic Moroccan origins negotiate their identities. One of the goals of this study is to expand intersectionality framework to include more studies on religion. But more importantly is to show that the current “talk” about race in post-elections is opening a hopeful new discursive space that is more “tolerant” to Muslim women.

Purification of Body and Soul for the Next Journey. Practices Surrounding Death and Dying Among Muslim Women

This study aims, first, to compare normative Islamic practices toward death and dying and actual practices of Moroccan Muslim women. Second, it seeks to compare the views and practices of middle-aged and elderly women. Qualitative empirical research was conducted with 30 middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women living in Antwerp (Belgium) and with 15 experts in the field. Our study shows that religious beliefs and worldview have a great impact on Muslims’ practices surrounding death and dying. More specifically, practices are strongly shaped by their eschatological beliefs. The rituals are perceived as preparations for the hereafter, entailing purification of both soul and body, and demonstrate the belief in a continued existence of the soul. We found striking similarities between our participants’ views and normative Islamic views. We did not find a more secular understanding of death and dying among the middle-aged women.

Moroccan Muslim Women Fulbrighters and Social Change

This paper sets out to investigate the relationship between Moroccan Muslim women's educational travel to America and social change in their homeland. Obviously, over the past few decades, many Moroccan Muslim women from different walks of academic and professional life were selected as Fulbright grantees within the well-known Fulbright program with a view to improving their professional profiles and broadening their research horizons in America. Back to Morocco, after completing the period assigned to them, many Muslim women Fulbrighters, impacted by the cross-cultural education and training they were exposed to, have launched and participated in a plethora of projects and initiatives in an attempt to effect change in their own society in light of what they learnt in America. In the course of my paper, the focus will be put on some of these projects and initiatives and the ways these women have gone through to induce a feasible social change in the Moroccan society, including their new acquired conceptions of gender and feminist orientations. Equally important, the paper will simultaneously examine the impact of Fulbright program on Moroccan Muslim women grantees themselves.

Does religiosity impact Moroccan Muslim women’s clothing choice?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether religiosity impacts the clothing style Moroccan Muslim women choose to wear in the public setting. Design/methodology/approach – The framework chosen for this study was the theory of planned behaviour. Data were gathered by a questionnaire administered to 950 Muslim women located throughout in Morocco. Findings – Results indicate that a woman’s religiosity cannot be determined simply by what she wears, with age, marital status and education found to have far greater impact on a woman’s choice of clothing than religiosity. Practical implications – In countries where women have freedom to choose what they wear, Muslims should not be treated homogeneously, but rather as a heterogeneous segment with different social classes, different sects and different ways of expressing and experiencing their faith in daily life. Originality/value – Currently there is limited literature that explores the relationship between religiosity and a woman’s choice of dress, outside of the hijab. Moreover, in spite of the significance of religion in the lives of many individuals, its role in consumer choice is not clear. This research provides some clarity within the context of clothing choice for Moroccan Muslim women.

Moroccan Muslim Women and Identity Negotiation in Diasporic Spaces

The complexity of today’s heterogeneous world demands more than the dominant binary of Islam versus West established via the identity framework of critical communication and cultural studies, particularly when discussing diasporic spaces. Drawing on qualitative interviews with twenty Muslim Moroccan women, conducted in the United States and Morocco and informed by interdisciplinary research on space, this paper argues that attaining the diasporic space should be understood both in terms of physical migration and in terms of discursive migration that includes non-territorial movement. The paper starts by addressing the debate on diasporic spaces, the local or global spaces that can still be considered diasporic in an era of mediated communications. Second, the paper illustrates how the respondents negotiate diasporic identities in relation to both physical migration and discursive immigration. Finally, it considers how these young women are exploring possibilities for their gender identities by drawing on alternative diasporic identifications.