[Cet article est extrait de notre numéro spécial “Nous les femmes”, dédié à des paroles d’autrices sur la condition des femmes à travers le monde.]
Maya Ouabadi and Saadia Gacem launched the first issue of the magazine in 2021 At Place. Respectively founder of Éditions Motifs and doctoral student in anthropology of law, they place this singular journal in the tradition of the struggles of Algerian women of which they want to be the heirs. But the journal also sees itself as the bearer of a feminism that is both universal and intimate, theoretical and rooted.
Courrier international: How and why was born At Place ?
Maya Ouabadi: At Place follows on from a previous review, Fassl [“chapitre” en français]. This first project of Éditions Motifs was born from the desire to cover a field that seemed untapped to me in Algeria, that of literary criticism. Besides this lack, the feminist question is just as absent in present-day Algeria. However, I discovered archives of Algerian feminist journals from the 1970s and 1980s. These journals no longer existed, but feminist activism had persisted. These journals were feminist, even though the term feminist did not appear on the cover. At Place is part of this Algerian editorial and feminist line and wishes to take up the torch. We have chosen to clearly indicate that this is a feminist journal on the back of the book.
Saadia Gacem : I am a feminist activist within collectives and associations and I campaigned during the Hirak. The Hirak has, for me, signed the revival, the apogee and the national deepening of feminism in Algeria. Just like its media visibility, even if the feminist network has always been active in Algeria. There have always been isolated claims, particularly in relation to the repeal of the Family Code, violence, feminicides. Hirak made it possible to agglomerate all these movements and to put them in resonance with each other.
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