Office: Carney 260
Phone: (617) 552-2939
Email: alexandra.pittman.1@bc.edu
Primary Advisor: Ali Banuazizi
Secondary Advisor: Sarah Babb
Third Member: Brinton Lykes
Scholarly Interests: Alexandra is a fourth-year doctoral student at Boston College pursuing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Sociology & Cultural Psychology. Her dissertation, Localizing the Transnational Women’s Movement: Negotiating Resources and Discourses in Legislative Reform Efforts in the Middle East and North Africa, focuses on the campaigns of reformist Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) feminists to achieve legislative changes in the Islamic Family Law. Specifically, I aim to better understand: the national socio-legal contexts in which activists operate; how international, local, and religious laws are framed by activists in their messages for reform; and the limits and opportunities of drawing from diverse intersections of international and local law. Alexandra’s prior research focused on conducting a 2-year collaborative evaluation with Moroccan activists to explore the effectiveness of a women’s leadership program, Leading to Choices, on participant’s conceptualization of the self as well as impact on participation in the family, community, and professional lives.
Undergraduate: Portland State University, B.S. Psychology with a concentration Women’s Studies
Graduate: Harvard University, Ed.M. International Education Policy
Presentations
Pittman, A. (2008, May). Diversifying the Master’s Tools: Moroccan Women’s Rights Activists Transforming Family Law. Poster presented at the Law and Society Association Conference, Montreal, Canada.
Pittman, A. (2006, June). Balancing Objectivity and Subjectivity in Cross-Cultural Collaborative Research Project: A Moroccan Case Study. Poster presented at SPSSI, Long Beach, CA.
Pittman, A. (2006, November). Cultural Reconstructions: The Case of the Moroccan Family Law Reform. Poster presented at the Institute for Development Studies, Participation and National Policy Working Group.
Pittman, A. (2005, October). The Moroccan Case to Change the Moudawana. Working in Alliances or Coalitions. How Does Change Happen? Poster presented at the AWID Forum, Bangkok, Thailand.
Publications
Pittman, A (in press). Democratizing the Legal Reform Process: The Case of the Moroccan Women’s Movement. CAWTAR 2008 Arab Women and Legislation Development Report.
Pittman, A. (2007). Cultural Adaptations: The Moroccan Women’s Campaign to Change the Moudawana. Institute for Development Studies "Participation and National Policy" project. Retrieved from http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/Part/proj/pnp.html.
Pittman, A. (2007). The Evolution of Discourse: The Women’s Campaign to Change the Moudawana in Morocco. Building Feminist movements and organizations:
lessons from diverse experiences (N. Payne, ed.). London, UK: Zed.
Pittman, A. (2006). Book Review. Guide to Equality in the Family in the Maghreb. Middle Eastern Studies Association Bulletin, 40, 2, 281-82.