This thesis investigates women’s political and organizational participation in the changing process and new political context in Bolivia. Different levels of women’s positioning are examined through interviews with actors in Cochabamba, complete with observations, literature and local text-documents. The discourse of women's participation versus the actual practice of women’s decision making is taken under account. The struggle of Bolivian feminists indicates challenges of dominant patriarchal ideologies and has been named ‘postcolonial feminism’. Struggles are directed against the postcolonial state as well as against the western interests that contributes to its postcolonial status. Women’s experienced participation is shown to be very diverse, depending on their identities of class and ethnicity as well as their different location in the rural areas and in the city of the department of Cochabamba. There have been important advances achieved by women’s movements and organizations in order to stress equality between men and women, but much of the advances are still rhetorical, yet not facing legitimate implementation. There is a lack of implementation of gender issues in the government and institutions. Social movements and critics from civil society are therefore crucial in its attempt to visualize and stress the plurality of social conditions. The challenge of different women's organizations is to create and build consensus from the recognition of this diversity. In the process towards welfare and harmony in Bolivia the women and their strength constitutes a fundamental part. They have introduced new human qualities in the public sphere, raising the values associated to ‘motherhood’ as central for shaping the wider order of political community.

Cette thèse propose une analyse sociologique de la subjectivation féministe au sein de trois sociétés arabes, le Liban, la Jordanie et l’Égypte. Partant du constat que ni le féminisme nationaliste ni le féminisme islamique ne renvoient à l’épaisseur des expériences féministes contemporaines, cette thèse propose une lecture postcoloniale des multiples formes de subjectivation féministe. Le travail de recherche s’appuie sur une étude de l’Histoire des mouvements féministes arabes depuis le début du 20ème siècle, ainsi qu’une étude sur trois terrains, au plus près des acteurs/actrices féministes contemporaines, pendant quatre ans. Cette thèse démontre comment par une analyse microsociologique des actes des individus se disant féministes, il est possible de comprendre comment les sociétés arabes participent à la modernité. Cette thèse démontre l'importance des déplacements les moins visibles au sein de l'agir des féministes arabes. Cet agir sera étudié à l'aune de la subjectivation féministe, sans laquelle il serait difficile de comprendre les mouvements culturels arabes. Les expériences féministes contemporaines sont le produit de longues années de subjectivation féministe. Celle-ci est le produit des épreuves collectives vécues dans les sociétés arabes (colonisations, décolonisation, nationalisme, panarabisme et islamisme). Elles sont aussi une raison, toutes choses égales par ailleurs, qui explique les multiples formes de résistance aux épreuves spécifiques à la patriarcalisation du corps des femmes arabes. À partir de récits individuels, de formes multiples de l’auto-identification au féminisme, de l’activisme organisé ou des activismes quotidiens, cette thèse montre le glissement de la subjectivation comme mouvement dans la culture vers des dynamiques de mouvements culturels. Ces derniers attestent d’une modernité hybride et contradictoire propre à l’histoire de l’individuation dans les trois sociétés étudiées. / This thesis suggests a sociological analysis of the feminist subjectivation in three Arab societies: Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Based on the fact that neither the nationalist feminism, nor the Islamic one, refer to the substantial experiences of contemporary feminists, this thesis implies a postcolonial reading of the multiple forms of feminist subjectivation. The research is based on a historical study of the Arab feminist movements since the beginning of the 20th century, in addition to a four-year fieldwork, in close proximity to feminist stakeholders (men and women), in the three societies mentioned above. Through a micro-sociological analysis of individuals’ actions, declaring themselves feminists, this thesis demonstrates how it is possible to understand the process through which Arab societies partake of modernity. This act will be studied with respect to the feminist subjectivation without which it would be difficult to understand Arab cultural movements. Contemporary feminists’ experiences are the result of many years of feminist subjectivation. The latter is the result of collective challenges faced in Arab societies (colonization, decolonization, nationalism, Pan-Arabism and Islamism). These experiences are also the reason, all other things being equal, which explains the multiple forms of resistance to specific challenges related to the patriarchalization of Arab women’s body. Based on individuals’ narratives, multiple forms of auto-identification to feminism and of organized activism or daily activism, this thesis clarifies the passage of the subjectivation as a movement in culture into the dynamics of cultural movements. The latter affirms a hybrid and a contradictory modernity proper to the history of individuation in the three studied societies.