Visiting cemeteries a "woman's ritual"

Ahmed Radi, Faculty of Letters, Kaddi Ayyad University, Marrakech, Morocco

Note 2 in the author's "'Visual Representation' and 'Cultural Geography': Constructing Linkages -- a Reading of Fatima Quazzani's At My Mother's House"

In the Moroccan context, visiting the cemetery is basically a "woman's ritual", in particular in traditional communities. The cemetery becomes a space of contradictions, for though it is women who most often visit this place, their prayers, however, need the mediation of a religious person who is a man. The cemetery, then, is a geography pregnant with culture, a hierarchically gendered space, which suggests the much larger gender relations of power, in particular in relation to the interpretation of the Koran, the articulation of religious statements, and the conservation and protection of sacred places.


Postcolonial OV Morocco Visual Arts gender matters

Last modified: 31 May 2001.