Mar 27, 2023

Women of Amazigh origin in Catalonia narrate their Amazighness

Özgür Güneş takes part in the first study on women of Amazigh origin in Catalonia

The report «Sempre he sentit forces que em diuen com he de ser. Les dones d’origen amazic a Catalunya narren la seva amaziguitat», prepared by our colleague Özgür Güneş Öztürk, on the accounts of Amazigh women in Catalonia is published this week. The dossier is the result of a research project commissioned by CIEMEN as part of the Education for Global Justice project, Som Part.

The text is the first study carried out in Catalonia that focuses exclusively on women of Amazigh origin who live in this country, on which Istar Montull Mussach and Elena Ferreiro Santos have also worked. Its content is the result of nineteen interviews with Amazigh women who live in different territories of Catalonia such as Girona, Tortosa, Cornellà de Llobregat, Sabadell, Vic, Granollers, and Lleida, with family origins in the Rif, High Atlas, Sus and Asammer (Morocco). The objective was to learn about their experiences and understand the nature of those experiences, situating them in their social, political, and economic context, in order to identify their main needs and claims.

The diagnosis with these women addresses contextual issues such as the “eternity” of their migratory transition, their Amazighness, the social control mechanisms on their lives, and the identity conflicts that arise from living between two codes. Starting from there, the women identified obstacles such as urban segregation, religious discrimination, the instrumentalisation of difference, or the lack of references; and expressed the need, among others, to have more resources and opportunities (such as getting to know Amazigh people’s culture, and the Catalan, Spanish, and Amazigh languages), to have their own spaces where they can decide for themselves and incorporate anti-racist policies and practices in public administration. In general, the women pointed out the need for their social, cultural, and political baggage to be socially valued and recognized, and spaces for mutual knowledge to be promoted.

At Col·lectivaT, we believe that it is very important to address the different forms of minorization faced by nations without a state, as well as by marginalized or subaltern groups or collectives, either through critical research or creation of digital tools in order to fight against the digital divide that minoritized languages suffer. On the one hand, we are especially pleased with this publication, because we live in a world where imagining, explaining, and building national identity is a space that mostly belongs to men, a fact that is even more accentuated in contexts of minorized peoples. Therefore, it a privilage to access Amazigh women’s accounts, get to know their Amazigh identity, and learn about how they live and how they explain themselves. On the other hand, the population of people from Amazigh origin in Catalonia is one of the main groups that we work within order to ensure the survival of the Amazigh language in the digital age, also thanks to another collaboration with CIEMEN. Given that Amazigh could be the third languagege in number of speakers in Catalonia, just behind Spanish and Catalan according to the estimations provided by Casa Amaziga de Catalunya, we believe that with all these efforts that take place in a space of intercooperation, we are contributing to the fight for social justice in Catalonia, and we would like to continue doing so.