Women and the New Media in the Mediterranean Region

The Isis Centre for Women and Development is organizing an international conference on "Women and the New Media in the Mediterranean Region" on June 24, 25 and 26, 2011 in Fez, Morocco . We feel that with the growing dominance of the Internet, blog, chat and mobile telephony, communication is rapidly changing and becoming mobile, interactive, personalized and multi-channel. This extraordinary revolution is affecting the basic structure of Mediterranean societies, especially those in the south, and is raising discussions and debates that are profoundly related to women: the rapid transformation of the boundaries between the public and the private spaces, the relationship between the new media and women’s activism, the relationship between new technology and women’s oral literature, changes in the Relationship between written and oral languages, the (problematic) increase in the use of mother tongues (mainly oral) in the field of education, and the challenges of new transmissions of women’s versatile knowledge. These issues constitute the five main axes of the conference. We plan to bring together activists and researchers from the Mediterranean region, North America and Asia . The upcoming conference is a follow-up of the events that Isis Center has been organizing since 2006. The recommendations of the last 2010 international conference on “Marginalized women and social insertion” underlined the importance of addressing women and the new social media in the Mediterranean region and internationally. The outcomes of the upcoming conference will not be just paper-based. In addition to publishing a volume on the theme of the conference, we plan to link our activities with the Journal of New Media Studies, supervise MA and PhD theses within international networks of research on the theme, and train 15 local women in new media knowledge. Given our tight budget, potential participants are kindly asked to organize their trip, board and lodging. We can make reservations at a nearby 4 stars hotel (Volubilis) with reasonable charges. We will post the program on our website (which will be ready soon). There is no registration fee.

Fatima Sadiqi (for Isis) sadiqi_fatima@yahoo.frSenior Professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies (MA, PhD)Co-Founder of the International Institute for Languages and Cultures (INLAC), Fez, Morocco www.inlac.netDirector of the Isis Center for Women and DevelopmentUN Gender ExpertPresident of the National Union of Women's Organizations www.nuwo.orgwww.fatimasadiqi.on.ma