Mounira M. Charrad (born October 8, 1942) is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.
She is an award-winning author whose work focuses on political sociology, comparative history, gender politics and the Middle East. Her research has centered on state formation, colonialism, law, citizenship, kinship and women's rights.
Charrad received an undergraduate degree from the Sorbonne in Paris, France, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Her book States and Women's Rights (2001) considers strategies of state building in kin-based societies and how struggles over state power shaped the expansion or curtailment of women's rights.
Charrad studies conceptions of modernity in legal discourses in the Middle East. Challenging explanations of politics based on a textual approach to religion, she offers instead a focus on social solidarities and where they are grounded (kinship, ethnicity, or other), as for example in her articles "Gender in the Middle East: Islam, State, Agency" and "Central and Local Patrimonialism: State Building in Kin-Based Societies".
Her work has been translated into French and Arabic, and featured on websites including the International Museum of Women and in the media.
Charrad's research has been funded by several grants, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the American Association of University Women and the American Institute of Maghribi Studies.
At the University of Texas at Austin, she is affiliated with The Center for European Studies, The Center for Middle East Studies, the Center for Women's and Gender Studies, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice; the The Center for Middle East Studies and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Middle East Studies.
Charrad's book States and Women's Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco (University of California Press, 2001) won the following awards:
Distinguished Scholarly Book Award, American Sociological Association
Best Book on Politics and History Greenstone Award, American Political Science Association
Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award. Outstanding Book in Political Sociology, American Sociological Association, Section on Political Sociology
Outstanding Scholarly Book in Any Field Hamilton Award, University of Texas at Austin
Best First Book in the Field of History Award, Phi Alpha Theta, 2002
Best Book in Sociology Komarosvky Award, Honorable Mention, Eastern Sociological Society, 2003
The book is being translated into French, Arabic and Chinese.
Charrad, Mounira M. (Summer 1997). "Policy shifts: State, Islam, and gender in Tunisia, 1930s–1990s". Social Politics. Oxford Journals. 4 (2): 284–319. doi:10.1093/sp/4.2.284.
Charrad, Mounira M. (2000), "Becoming a citizen: lineage versus individual in Morocco and Tunisia", in Joseph, Suad, Gender and citizenship in the Middle East, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, pp. 70–87, ISBN 9780815628651.
Charrad, Mounira M. (2007), "Unequal citizenship: Issues of gender justice in the Middle East and North Africa", in Mukhopadhyay, Maitrayee, Gender justice, citizenship and development, Ottawa, Canada: International Development Research Centre, pp. 233–262. ISBN 9788189884314
Charrad, Mounira M. (2007). "Contexts, concepts and contentions: Gender legislation in the Middle East". Hawwa: Journal of Women in the Middle East and the Islamic World. Brill. 5 (1): 55–72. doi:10.1163/156920807781787635.
Charrad, Mounira M. (Fall 2007). "Tunisia at the forefront of the Arab world: Two waves of gender legislation". Washington and Lee Law Review. Washington and Lee University School of Law. 64 (4): 1513–1527. Pdf.
Charrad, Mounira M. (December 2009). "Kinship, Islam, or oil: culprits of gender inequality?". Politics & Gender (Debate: Oil, Islam, and Women). American Political Science Association. 5 (4): 546–553. doi:10.1017/S1743923X09990353.
Charrad, Mounira M. (Guest editor) (November–December 2010). "Women's agency: silences and voices (special issue)". Women's Studies International Forum. ScienceDirect. 33 (6).
Charrad, Mounira M. (August 2011). "Gender in the Middle East: Islam, state, agency". Annual Review of Sociology. Annual Reviews. 37: 417–437. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102554.
Charrad, Mounira M. (Guest editor); Adams, Julia (Guest editor) (July 2011). "Patrimonial power in the modern world (special issue)". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Sage. 636 (1).
