Visiting Fellow Nermin Allam recently authored a paper focusing on female recipients of the King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP) in Saudi Arabia. The paper looks at how these women situated between the realms of activism and patronage navigate reform and experience changes in gender norms and personal biographies.
The paper uses KASP to demonstrate how state-led reforms intersect with women’s personal agency and shape their experiences and opportunities in a constricted sociopolitical context. It does so first by surveying the history and development of women’s education in Saudi Arabia, then it looks at social ‘nonmovements’ and their consequences, and finally uses KASP alumni interviews to assess how their experiences shaped their decisions to remove the hijab.
Allam is an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on gender politics and social movements in the Middle East and North Africa.