Beyond Western Feminism
Beyond Western Feminism
The Harriet Tubman Department is pleased to announce Beyond Western Feminism, a talk with Dr. Hawra Rabaan, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the university of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab.
This talk introduces Islamic feminism as a critical theoretical, analytical, and design lens in technology research. While feminist scholarship has significantly advanced conversation on gender, power, and oppression in digital and sociotechnical spaces, dominant frameworks remain largely rooted in Western secular traditions. Islamic feminism offers an alternative perspective that accounts for the lived experiences, agency, and values of Muslim women while challenging patriarchal interpretations of religious and cultural structures.
The talk will address three key questions: What is Islamic feminism? Why and when should it be used in research? And how can it be applied in empirical and design contexts? By unpacking these questions, it illustrates how Islamic feminism serves as a generative tool for understanding sociotechnical agency, systemic inequities, and pathways for justice-oriented technology design. Through empirical research examples, the talk will demonstrate how Islamic feminism can be operationalized in research methodologies, analysis, and design implications, offering a nuanced and culturally grounded approach to technology development.
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Hawra Rabaan is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab. Her work, grounded in feminist and justice-oriented frameworks, focuses on community-driven AI education, research, and design. She introduced Islamic feminism as a theoretical and analytical lens in HCI and developed the Survivor-Centered Transformative Justice approach for designing with victim-survivors. Her research, published in top-tier venues, bridges feminist perspectives with computing and design.