Meriem El Haitami

Meriem El Haitami is a Rice Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. She has just completed her doctoral program at the University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah in Fez, Morocco. Her PhD research explores the dynamics of female religious authority and activism in contemporary Morocco. From 2012-2013 she was a Fulbright Scholar at SUNY Binghamton, conducting research in affiliation with the Political Science Department. Her research during this period explored the development of female religious figures in the context of Morocco’s religious reform and the micro-sociological parameters that define their roles. In spring 2015, she was a Carnegie Fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where she was conducting research relating to modes of religiosity and attitudes towards human rights in Morocco. She has published articles on the role of the state-sponsored female religious leaders in Morcco, including “Restructuring Female Religious Authority: State-Sponsored Women Religious Guides (Murshidat) and Scholars (‘Alimat) in Contemporary Morocco” and “Women and Sufism: Religious Expression and the Political Sphere in Contemporary Morocco” in Mediterranean Studies, as well as “Women in Morocco: Re-Conceptualizing Religious Activism” in the American Journal of Islamic Studies.