Layla AbdelRahim

{{Short description|Canadian comparatist anthropologist and anarchoprimitivist author}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Layla AbdelRahim

|image = Layla AbdelRahim in Sebastopol, May 2006.jpg

|caption = AbdelRahim in Sevastopol in May 2006

|birth_place = Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union{{cite journal |last1=Jandric |first1=Petar |title=Anarchism's Posthuman Future |url=http://layla.miltsov.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Jandric-Review-Childrens_Literature_Domestica.pdf |journal=Anarchist Studies |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=117 |access-date=July 25, 2020}}

|alma_mater = {{plainlist|

}}

|nationality = Russian, Sudanese{{cite web |url=https://www.routledge.com/authors/i10144-layla-abdelrahim |title=FEATURED AUTHOR Layla AbdelRahim |website=Routledge |access-date=Jul 25, 2020 |quote=AbdelRahim was born in Moscow, in an inter-racial, inter-continental, and multi-lingual family. As a child she moved to Sudan...}}

| occupation = {{hlist|Comparatist anthropologist|author}}

}}

Layla AbdelRahim is a comparatist anthropologist and anarchoprimitivist author, whose works on narratives of civilization and wilderness have contributed to the fields of anthropology, literary and cultural studies, comparative literature, philosophy, animal studies, ecophilosophy, sociology, anarcho-primitivist thought, anarchism, epistemology, and critique of civilization, technology, and education.{{cite web|author=Routledge |url=http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415661102/#authorbio |title=Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness (Hardback) |publisher=Routledge |access-date=2012-10-01}}{{cite web|url=http://www.deepgreenphilly.com/?p=277 |title="Primitivism" 101 |publisher=Deep Green Philly |date=2011-05-05 |access-date=2012-10-01}} She attributes the collapse in the diversity of bio-systems and environmental degradation to monoculturalism and the civilized ontology that explains existence in terms of anthropocentric utilitarian functions.{{cite web|url=http://www.inthelandoftheliving.org/essays/interview-with-layla-abdelrahim |title=Interview with Layla AbdelRahim |publisher=In the Land of the Living |access-date=2012-10-01}}

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 EducationThe book launch during "La journée contre la civilisation" at La Déferle (May 19, 2013) http://www.mediarechercheaction.info/?p=602 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140419025430/http://www.mediarechercheaction.info/?p=602 |date=2014-04-19 }} (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.{{cite web|author=Routledge |url=http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415661102 |title=Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness (Hardback) |publisher=Routledge |access-date=2012-10-01}}

Education

AbdelRahim received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and, upon graduation in 1993, received the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship 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) or l'EHESS and master studies in social sciences at Stockholm University where she later worked as Visiting Researcher at the department of social anthropology. 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.{{cite web|url=https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/jspui/handle/1866/5965 |title=PAPYRUS - Université de Montréal: Order and the literary rendering of chaos : children's literature as knowledge, order, and social foundation |publisher=Papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca |date=2011-11-03 |access-date=2012-10-01|last1=Abdelrahim |first1=Layla }}

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.{{cite web|author=miltsovorg |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTYHgXEwlG4 |title=Layla AbdelRahim - How Ivan the Fool Defeats Civilized Pedagogies | date=18 February 2012 |publisher=YouTube |access-date=2012-10-01}} 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 as well as on systems of education and parenting.{{cite web|url=http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/audio/interview-layla-abdelrahim-education-and-student-strike-quebec/12635 |title=Coop média de Montréal | Journalisme indépendant |publisher=Montreal.mediacoop.ca |access-date=2012-10-01}}{{cite web|url=http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/layla-abdelrahim-avatar-an-anarcho-primitivist-picture-of-the-history-of-the-world |title=Avatar: An Anarcho-Primitivist Picture of the History of the World (Layla AbdelRahim) |publisher=The Anarchist Library |date=2010-01-21 |access-date=2012-10-01}}{{cite web|url=http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/layla-abdelrahim-beyond-the-symbolic-and-towards-the-collapse |title=Beyond the Symbolic and towards the Collapse (Layla AbdelRahim) |publisher=The Anarchist Library |date=2009-08-18 |access-date=2012-10-01}}{{cite web|url=http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/audio/domestication-alienation-et-civilisation-partie-1/12423 |title=Domestication, aliénation et civilisation (Layla AbdelRahim) |publisher=Montreal.mediacoop.ca |access-date=2012-10-01}} 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, cultural studies, environmental economics, education, literary theory.

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 philosophers.{{cite web|url=http://documentaryheaven.com/another-story-of-progress |title=anOther Story Of Progress | Watch Documentary Online Free |publisher=Documentary Heaven |access-date=2012-10-01}}

Selected works

=Books=

{{cite book | last = AbdelRahim | first = Layla | title = Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2015 | isbn = 978-0-415-66110-2}}
{{cite book | last = AbdelRahim | first = Layla |author-mask = 0 | title = Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education | publisher = Fernwood | location = Halifax | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-1-552-66548-0}}

= Articles =

{{cite journal|first=Layla |last=AbdelRahim |access-date=September 16, 2012 |url=http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/layla-abdelrahim-beyond-the-symbolic-and-towards-the-collapse |date=May 2008 |journal=The Anarchist Library |title=Beyond the Symbolic and towards the Collapse}}
{{cite journal|first=Layla |last=AbdelRahim |access-date=September 16, 2012 |url=http://ejournals.ph/index.php?journal=TPC&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=348/ |date=June 2009 |journal=The Paulinian Compass |title=On Objects, Love, and Objectifications}}
{{cite journal|first=Layla |last=AbdelRahim |access-date=September 16, 2012 |url=http://ejournals.ph/index.php?journal=TPC&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=88 |date=November 2009 |journal=The Paulinian Compass |title=The Nature of Mind Destruction}}
{{cite journal|first=Layla |last=AbdelRahim |access-date=September 16, 2012 |url=http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/layla-abdelrahim-avatar-an-anarcho-primitivist-picture-of-the-history-of-the-world |date=December 2009 |journal=The Anarchist Library |title=Avatar: An Anarcho-Primitivist Picture of the History of the World}}
{{cite journal|first=Layla |last=AbdelRahim|access-date=September 16, 2012 |url=http://ejournals.ph/index.php?journal=TPC&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=718 |date=July 2010 |journal=The Paulinian Compass |title=Genealogies of Wilderness and Domestication in Children's Narratives: Understanding Genesis and Genetics in the Untangling of Identity}}
{{cite journal|first=Layla |last=AbdelRahim |access-date=April 3, 2015 |url=http://fifthestate.org/archive/391-springsummer-2014/education-domestication-inner-space/ |date=May 2014 |journal=Fifth Estate |issue=391 |title=Education as the Domestication of Inner Space}}