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The Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities, Speaker Series, 2012-2013

Bodies and Struggles in Syria: an Anthropological Approach

<span >Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2008-2010), I trace the themes of intimacy, violence, and the body as a site of struggle onto contested Syrian bodies. I take as my starting point the movement theatre performance of Alf Mabrouk (Congratulations! 2009) by the Syrian dance troupe Leish. Alf Mabrouk explores the complex milieu of multiple, and often contradictory, Syrian and Arab identities and power relations through a hybrid performative ritual marriage. This performance offers a lens through which to trace Imperial movements, gendered contours and ritual body struggles contextualised within, and juxtaposed against, the broader socio-cultural, historical and political landscapes of intimacy and violence in contemporary Syria. The danced national, neo-colonial and gendered struggles on the Syrian stage offer, thus, avenues for analysing the construction of bodies though power relations and imperial politics within a changing Middle East and in a Syria where spring is becoming an ever elusive memory. This talk includes the screening of Alf Mabrouk, directed by Noura Murad.

Contact jphoenix.csgs@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.

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