Layla AbdelRahim is a Russian-Sudanese comparatist

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

and anarchoprimitivist author, whose works on narratives of civilization and

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

have contributed to the fields of

literary Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

and

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

, comparative literature,

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, animal studies,

ecophilosophy Ecosophy or ecophilosophy (a portmanteau of ecological philosophy) is a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium. The term was coined by the French post-structuralist philosopher and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari and the Norwegian father ...

, sociology, anarcho-primitivist thought,

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

, epistemology, and critique of civilization, technology, and education. She attributes the collapse in the diversity of bio-systems and

environmental degradation Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment (biophysical), environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; an ...

monoculturalism Monoculturalism is the policy or process of supporting, advocating, or allowing the expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. It generally stems from beliefs within the dominant group that their cultural practices are superior t ...

and the civilized ontology that explains existence in terms of anthropocentric utilitarian functions. Her books ''Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness'' ( Routledge 2015) and ''Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education'' ( Fernwood 2013) make a contribution to children's literary theory and a critique of education as rooted in the civilized need for the domestication of children as resources.

Education

AbdelRahim received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and, upon graduation in 1993, received the

Thomas J. Watson Fellowship The Thomas J. Watson Foundation is a charitable trust formed 1961 in honor of former chairman and CEO of IBM, Thomas J. Watson. The Foundation's stated vision is to empower students “to expand their vision, test and develop their potential, an ...

to pursue an anthropological project in Europe. She did graduate work in 1993–94 at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (

École des hautes études en sciences sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

) or l'EHESS and master studies in social sciences at

Stockholm University Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, so ...

where she later worked as

Visiting Researcher In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at the department of

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

. She completed her Ph.D. at the Université de Montréal, Department of Comparative Literature. Her dissertation entitled ''Order and the Literary Rendering of Chaos: Children's Literature as Knowledge, Culture, and Social Foundation'', examines the effect of ontological premises on human self-knowledge ( anthropology) and the repercussions of such knowledge on the anthropogenic destruction of the world's life systems and diversity.

Thought

AbdelRahim traces the root of all oppression to the ontological premises of domestication that define the raison d'être of living and non-living beings in terms of consumption and co-existence in a hierarchy of food chain. Drawing on paleontological studies, ethology, and biological anthropology, she challenges the precepts in the narrative of anthropology that constructs the human as predator and consumer. This critique extends to civilized economic and socio-political cultures and their effect on the

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

as well as on systems of education and parenting. Her examination of civilized and wild narratives is relevant to a variety of domains and disciplines, such as philosophy of science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology,

, environmental economics, education,

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mo ...

Media appearances

AbdelRahim is featured in ''anOther Story of Progress'', a documentary film by Thomas Toivonen, as one of the world's leading contemporary

anarcho-primitivist Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization (anti-civ) that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale or ...

philosophers.

Selected works

Books

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Articles

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References

External links

Layla AbdelRahim's website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:AbdelRahim, Layla Living people 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers 21st-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Russian women writers Anarchist theorists Anarchist writers Anarcho-primitivists Bryn Mawr College alumni Canadian women anthropologists Canadian women non-fiction writers Deep ecologists Green anarchists Russian people of Sudanese descent Russian women anthropologists School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences alumni Stockholm University alumni Université de Montréal alumni Watson Fellows Writers from Montreal Year of birth missing (living people)