PhD Viva: Time, Difference, and the Transnational. Feminist Activism and Solidarities in Egypt and Tunisia

On December 19, 2025, at 10.15 a.m, at Eden, Lund, Joel Abdelmoez  will defend the PhD thesis titled, Time, Difference, and the Transnational. Feminist Activism and Solidarities in Egypt and Tunisia.

Opponent: Prof. Laleh Khalili, University of Exeter

Abstract:

This dissertation explores possibilities and challenges to the formation of transnational feminist solidarity in the Middle Eastern context, focusing on Egypt and Tunisia. In particular, it asks howfeminist organisations balance the work towards building transnational alliances and support networks with the imperative to remain grounded at the local level and centre local communities in their work, while simultaneously shedding perceptions of feminism as a globalising, Westernising, or neo-colonial movement seeking to dismantle existing value-systems and norms related to gender, sexuality, and family. The concept of solidarity is investigated in relation to three “challenges”: the challenge of difference, challenge of time, and challenge of the transnational. The dissertation posits that these challenges give rise to tensions which may be productive, constituting opportunity rather than risk—such as emergent black and Nubian feminist groups shedding light on the marginalisation of racialised women within the feminist movement, or fragmentation stemming from a loss of intergenerational knowledge-exchange.

Furthermore, a lack of explicit engagement with these tensions constitute a risk which may hinder feminists’ ability to mobilize across borders and ensure movement cohesion and longevity. Using a triangulation of fieldwork, textual analysis, and digital fieldwork, the dissertation uncovers how feminist groups’ engagement with issues of difference, their temporal practices and temporal perspectives, and their transnational interactions comes to shape their work.