Issue No. 15 (29)/2020

PREVIEW SUMMARY OF THE FOLLOWING ISSUE –

PLAYGROUNDS FOR MOTHERS,
FATHERS, STATES AND IDEOLOGIES

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Thematic Articles

Xhenis SHEHU and Maria TRIFON
Undoing Motherhood: How ART Breeds ‘New’ Mothers

In this study, the authors analyze the way in which assisted reproductive technologies redefine the concept of motherhood, fluidifying its moral and biological borders, and correlate this new reality with existing anthropological theories on kinship, both classic and more recent ones.

Adela ALEXANDRU and Rodica-Corina ANDREI
The Myth of Wonder Woman: Motherhood and Entrepreneurship Challenges

This text looks at the pressure put on women who are both dedicated to their careers and families. Looking at the experience of the 10 interviewed entrepreneurs, the article studies the complicated relations between being a mother, committing to a career and especially facing societal expectations and pressures.

Aizada ARYSTANBEK
Introduction to Kazakhstan’s Contemporary Gendered Nationalism:
The Case of 2019 Protests of Mnogodetnye Materi

Looking at the 2019 protests of ‘mothers of multiple children’ (Mnogodetnye Materi) from Kazakhstan, this article analyses the relatively lenient reactions that the protesters faced by applying V. Spike Peterson’s theoretical framework on gendered nationalism.

Sarolta KREMMER
Born in Corruption: Maternity Care after the Change of System in Hungary
(currently under revision)

Based on a series of in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals, this article seeks to demonstrate how the practice of informal payments in Hungarian hospitals impacts women’s and newborns’ welfare and health outcomes.

Matei LUCACI-GRÜNBERG
Male Gaze in the Cinema. How Women in General, and Mothers in Particular,
are Represented in the Movies of the ʹ70s

This paper closely inspects a series of ‘70s movies (especially Romanian ones) by applying the theory of the ‘male gaze’ in cinema and aims to deconstruct how they shape ideas about femininity and, in particular, motherhood.

Nonthematic Articles

Ilham ZEMOULI
Women in the Arab Feminist Discourse, Between the Transnational
Feminist Theory and the Islamic Feminist Theory

The author puts forth a distinction between the Western feminist discourse and that of Arab Muslim feminists, suggesting that the former are unable to identify with the ideas of Western feminism since it doesn’t fully encompass the particularities of their multidimensional oppression.

Dunya SULEYMANOVA
Is it possible for an “Islamic Feminism” to exist?

Tackling again the differences between Western feminism and Islamic feminism, this paper manages to paint a broader picture of the debate going on in Muslim academic communities about the ideas of feminism.

Kristína KÁLLAY and Veronika VALKOVIČOVÁ
Bias and the Politicization of Gender Studies Scholarship

In this article, the authors notice a trend in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in other regions – that of trying to restrict the domain of gender studies through certain policies – and try to explain why gender scholars are perceived as having an inferior epistemic status.

Book Review

Frank ELBERS
Women, Civil Society and Policy Change in the Arab World –
eds. Nasser Yassin and Robert Hoppe

This edited volume is one of the few in the literature on the Arab Uprisings to focus on women and their role in the revolutions that shook up the Middle East in 2011 and subsequent years.