A meeting with Dr. Habib Al-Qazdoghly
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Dr. Habib Al Qazdoghly is professor of contemporary history, with the faculty of Arts, University of Tunisia 1. Professor Al Qazdoghly who was recently guest of CEDEJ Cairo, has a special interests in oral history as part of his wider interest in women's history and minority groups. This interview has been conducted with him when he visited Women and Memory Forum last month.
 
WMF Could you tell us more about what led you to take an interest in women's history in Tunis?
H.Q. I was responsible for activating a unit on oral history in one of the departments of the Institute of the History of the Nationalist Movement in the University of Tunisia 1. This unit is concerned with collecting and documenting collective memory in contemporary Tunisian history. We record interviews with those leaders of the nationalist, social and syndicalist movement who are still alive. It is worth noting here that interest in women's history come under what is known as micro-history. Since the late sixties we have concentrated especially while addressing what is termed "important events". But since the seventies interest also began in the individual and the role of the individual in those events. Current interest in women's conditions in Tunis and related issues in the late seventies has sprung form the work of a group of women active in a cultural club (Taher Al Haddad). From amongst that group a generation of women researchers took an interest in women's history of whom I would like to mention, Laila Al Abeide, Elham Al Marzouki, Dalinda Al Arqash and Nae'la Garrad among others.
 
WMF Can you tell us about the work of your unit in the field of women's history?
H.Q. In 1992 I supervised group work which was supported by the Institute for the Nationalist Movement together with the Center for Research, Documentation and Media Studies (CREDEVE) on women in Tunis and in 1993 research undertaken by that group was published in the book "Women and Memory", which contained specimen of biographies of women who had played a public role in Tunis between 1920 and 1960. Members of the research group by interviewing thirteen women aimed to pinpoint changes in Tunisian women have come to be involved in political, social, educational, artistic fields as well as labor unions. Seven women colleagues with special interest in women's history worked with me on that book. The book attracted the attention of the media and academic as well as others generally interested in women's history especially that research depended on delving into women's memory in compliance with oral history methodology.
 
WMF Do you hope to bring out other works after Memory and Women?
H.Q. Upon publishing that book and all through 1994 a series of meetings was held in university departments and cultural clubs organized to discuss it. Members of the research group attended those meetings and occasionally also some of the women who had been interviewed and who regained a good deal of their vitality after years of silence and disillusion. Upon those writers we organized a symposium in the first week of March 1995. Researchers from Tunis, Algeria and France with an interest in both women's history and oral sources attended. The symposium resulted in a recommendation to expand interest in women's history and include other historical epochs, as well as the history of women in all areas of the Arab Maghreb. Hence research groups were sent to work in Algeria, Tunis and Morocco in preparation for further meetings. In Tunis we have become active as part of a university research group called Arab Maghreb Women's Research Group, under the supervision of Dalinda Al Arqash and Monira Shaboto-AlRamady. That group has organized an international conference in Tunis in October 1996 to which more than thirty researchers contributed to the subject of "Material life of Women of the Maghreb across the Ages". Proceedings of this conference are pending publication in a special book. The Moroccan research team which is active in the faculty of Arts in Quneitra, invited participants to a symposium held in Morocco in December 1997 the theme of which was: "Women's Answer to Marginalization Across the Ages", proceeding of that conference are under publication. It is expected that the next symposium will be held in Cosantina, where there is a group of active women researchers in the university.

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