Portrait of A Revolutionary: Naglaa-“The Lion of the Midan”

This essay examines the (re)production of the discourses of dispossession that frame women’s issues in the Arab, Middle East and Muslim majority world. Taking the case of revolutionary women in the Arab Uprisings as an example, the author traces the constructs of dehistoricization, disempowerment and western centric logic that underlies media coverage reports about women’s participation in public protest. The essay produces a counter narrative to the dominant coverage of the western driven media by offering an account by an Egyptian revolutionary woman, Naglaa whose lived experience encourages us to rethink how discourse reproduces the grand narrative of western postcolonialist discourse.