Khaoula Belghit

My research interests are threefold:
-Decolonial Feminism: My primary focus is on decolonial feminist research, particularly the interrogation of how women (and men) are subjected to oppression and exploitation within intersecting patriarchal, (neo)colonial and capitalist structures. I critically engage with historical, sociocultural and political trajectories that have shaped unequal gender roles and entrenched hegemonies. A key dimension of my framework is the challenge it poses to Euro-American narratives that homogenise, misrepresent or impose reductive constructions on North African and West Asian women. My aim is to deconstruct these intersecting systems of domination in order to rearticulate justice, equality and dignity from a decolonial perspective. Within this framework, I seek to refine and extend the conceptualisation of decolonial feminism and critically reassess its scope and objectives.

-Decolonial Feminist Critical Discourse Studies (DFCDA): I advance feminist critical discourse analysis by embedding it within a decolonial feminist framework. This layered approach enables me to interrogate how gendered ideologies are produced, naturalised and circulated as ‘common sense’ across discourse practices, while simultaneously uncovering the coloniality of power and knowledge that sustains them. My work demonstrates how discourse not only reflects but also reproduces intersecting systems of domination, and how these can be contested from a decolonial feminist standpoint. To date, I have applied this approach to the analysis of classroom discourse within one Algerian higher education setting.

-Classroom Discourse Studies: A further strand of my interest investigates classroom discourse, with a specific focus on Algerian EFL contexts. I examine how language use within pedagogical interactions both mirrors and mediates gendered power relations. This includes analysing teacher–student dynamics, classroom practices and the role of discourse in constructing, negotiating and potentially subverting gendered subjectivities in educational contexts.