Based on ethnographic research with women who participated in the Arab Spring revolution in Cairo, Egypt, this talk seeks to “unsentimentalize mothering” by exploring its radical potentials within the context of revolution. I argue that mothering, among my interlocutors, is constituted by a radical potential precisely because they do not experience mothering and revolution as conflictual. Instead, their mothering is a practice of resistance to state violence rather than a sentimentalized identity confined to domestic space that supports the nation. Overall, I seek to challenges nationalist representations of the Egyptian revolution such as sensationalized notions of the grieving mother as an icon of the suffering of Egyptian people who lacks revolutionary agency. I also provide a critique of the liberal feminist tendency to theorize motherhood as inherently oppressive and lacking in possibilities for resistance, agency, and power. Finally, this talk questions the tendency within decolonizing and women of color scholarship to address mothering and activism only when motherhood is the impetus for activism. Here, I map and analyze the narratives of activist women who were long-time activists before they were mothers illustrating how mothering can be mobilized not as an identity or role but as a practice intertwined with other revolutionary practices.
Dr. Nadine Naber is an award winning author, public speaker and activist on the topics of racial justice; gender justice; women of color feminisms; Arab and Muslim feminisms; Arab Americans; and Muslim Americans. She has authored/co-edited five books, most recently Towards the Sun (Tadween Publishing/George Mason University, 2018). Dr. Naber co-founded the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association North America in the 1990s. She has also served on the boards of organizations like the Women of Color Resource Center (WCRC); INCITE!, the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, and the Social Justice Initiative at UIC. As a Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2003-2013), Dr. Naber co-founded the academic program, Arab and Muslim American Studies. At UIC, she is the faculty founder of the first center on a college campus serving the needs of Arab American students in the United States: The Arab American Cultural Center.
