Tara
Deubel, University of South Florida, will present “Working Towards Empowerment:
Sahrawi Women and Human Rights in the Western Sahara Conflict” on March 24 at
6:45 p.m. in the HUB Susquehanna Room.
In 1975, Morocco annexed the Western Sahara on its southern
border following the end of Spanish colonial rule of the desert territory. Over
150,000 refugees fled to camps in neighboring Algeria in the wake of a violent
conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front resistance fighting for the
independence of the former colony. Now 40 years later, Morocco continues to
administer this disputed territory, which remains the last part of the African
continent to complete decolonization. Refugees continue to live in Algeria
under the governance of a state in exile, and Western Saharans (Sahrawis) living
under Moroccan rule face discrimination and political repression.
Based on
anthropological field research in the region from 2006 to 2009, this talk
highlights the central role of Sahrawi women in the social and political life
of the refugee camps and the ongoing struggle for self-determination in the
Western Sahara. Since the onset of the conflict, women have emerged as key
leaders in the camps and the Western Sahara independence movement with the work
of activists such as Aminetou Haidar, recipient of the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy
Human Rights Award. Deubel will examine salient discourses of nationalism, women’s empowerment,
and human rights in promoting Sahrawi women in public life, and will also question
the extent to which empowerment is possible under present conditions that
constrain contemporary Sahrawi communities living on both sides of the
protracted conflict.
Deubel is assistant professor of Anthropology
at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She holds a PhD in Anthropology
with a minor in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona. Her
research in cultural and applied anthropology focuses on gender and
development, human rights, cultural heritage conservation, and performance. She
has conducted ethnographic research in North Africa with Sahrawi communities in
southern Morocco, Mauritania, and Algeria. Deubel has also worked with international
aid organizations in Mali, Guinea, and Niger to study the impacts of food
security and women’s microfinance programs in rural West African communities.
She is the co-editor of Saharan Crossroads: Exploring Historical, Cultural
and Artistic Linkages between North and West Africa (2014).
Department of Anthropology