Just between us

Identity and representation among Muslim women

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5772874
AutoresAmina Jamal (autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen12
Número2
Páginas202-212
Fecha de publicación2011-05-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInter-Asia Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1464-9373 • E-ISSN: 1469-8447
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649373.2011.554648
OpenAlexW1999855315
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas22

Postcolonial feminist representations of Muslim women as subjects and agents have successfully cleared a space for unsettling oppressive colonial representations of Muslim women as unchanging victims of patriarchal religion and Muslim men. This space has also brought into view new problems and issues that divide Muslim women into feminist and fundamentalists, secular and religious, diasporic and native. This paper focuses on one of the most contentious issues of Muslim women's representation: secular feminists' attempts to represent women in Islamic religious movements. In this process I examine some of the normative and ethical dimensions of feminist research as they emerged in my research with women in the Jamaat-e-Islami, a movement for religious reform and renewal in Pakistan. I reflect critically on issues in feminist research across ideological differences, incongruent locations and divergent cultural and spiritual investments. Keywords: feminist researchreflexivityIslamismIslamist womenJamaat-e-IslamiMuslim womenIslamPakistani women Acknowledgement The research for this was enabled by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Notes 1. I use the term Islamist, as does the extant literature on political Islam, as an ideology that resonates with other political ideologies such as socialist, communist, fascist and so on (Nasr 1994 Nasr, Syed Vali Reza. 1994. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama'at-i Islami of Pakistan, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], 1996 Nasr, Syed Vali Reza. 1996. Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]; Grare 2001 Grare, Frederic. 2001. Political Islam in the Indian Subcontinent: The Jamaat-e-Islami, New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors. [Google Scholar]; Esposito 2003 Esposito, John L. 2003. "'Introduction: modernizing Islam and ee-Islamization'". In Global Perspective. Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East, Edited by: Esposito, J.L. and Burgat, F. 1-14. London: Hurst and Company. [Google Scholar]). This term captures the ideological nature of movements, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, which seek to redefine completely the nature of Islam, from a religion into an all embracing system in which the Shariah is yoked to the acquisition of political power (Nasr 1994 Nasr, Syed Vali Reza. 1994. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama'at-i Islami of Pakistan, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], 1996 Nasr, Syed Vali Reza. 1996. Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). 2. The Jamaat-e-Islami was compelled to abandon a longstanding reservation about women's participation in public life, especially electoral politics, in order to challenge the candidates from other parties. The government of Pakistan reserved special seats for women in the elections of 2002 in compliance with CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). This was the first time that Pakistan's politico-religious parties claimed a significant performance in national elections. However, this was overturned when they suffered a crushing defeat at all levels of representation in 2008. 3. For details and a discussion of the party's structure see Nasr (1994 Nasr, Syed Vali Reza. 1994. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama'at-i Islami of Pakistan, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]). 4. See for example Harding and Norberg (2005 Harding, Sandra and Norberg, Kathryn. 2005. 'New feminist approaches to social science methodologies: an introduction'. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(4): 2009-2015. [Crossref], [Web of Science (R)] , [Google Scholar]); Spivak (1993 Spivak, Gayatri C. 1993. "'Scattered speculations in the question of cultural studies'". In Outside in the Teaching Machine, 255-284. New York and London: Routledge. [Google Scholar], 2004 Spivak, Gayatri C. 2004. 'Terror: a speech after 9-11'. boundary 2, 2(Summer): 81-111. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 5. Other views are evident among leaders in South American states, many citizens of North American and European societies and many Muslims around the world, who understand this war to be connected in complex ways to the Israeli-Arab conflict and the effects of US policies towards the ongoing Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation. 6. See for example Zine (2006 Zine, Jasmin. 2006. 'Unveiled sentiments: gendered Islamophobia and experiences of veiling among Muslim girls in a Canadian Islamic school'. Equity and Excellence in Education, 39: 229-252. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Also, Jabbra (2006 Jabbra, Nancy W. 2006. 'Women, words and war: explaining 9/11 and justifying U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq'. Journal of International Women's Studies, 8(1): 216-235. [Google Scholar]); Jiwani (2005 Jiwani, Yasmin. 2005. 'The Great White North encounters Sept 11: race, gender and nation in Canada's national daily, the globe and mail'. Social Justice, 32(4): 50-69. [Google Scholar]); also see the discussion of European and Turkish leaders' statement about Muslim women and religious extremism in Clark (2007 Clark, Sevda. 2007. 'Female subjects of International Human Rights Law: the Hijab debate and the exotic other female'. Global Change, Peace and Security, 19(1): 35-48. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). 7. For a fuller discussion see Mamdani (2004 Mamdani, Mahmood. 2004. "'Good Muslim, bad Muslim - an African perspective'". http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/mamdani_text_only.htm, accessed July 2004 [Google Scholar]) and Zine (2006 Zine, Jasmin. 2006. 'Unveiled sentiments: gendered Islamophobia and experiences of veiling among Muslim girls in a Canadian Islamic school'. Equity and Excellence in Education, 39: 229-252. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]); see also Jabbra (2006 Jabbra, Nancy W. 2006. 'Women, words and war: explaining 9/11 and justifying U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq'. Journal of International Women's Studies, 8(1): 216-235. [Google Scholar]) and Jiwani (2005 Jiwani, Yasmin. 2005. 'The Great White North encounters Sept 11: race, gender and nation in Canada's national daily, the globe and mail'. Social Justice, 32(4): 50-69. [Google Scholar]). 8. I refer to my interviewees as 'interlocutors' as other postcolonial feminists have done (e.g. Deeb 2006 Deeb, Lara. 2006. An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) to refer to the subjects of their ethnographic projects. I consider this term appropriate for my relationship with Jamaat-e-Islami women in Karachi and Lahore since it establishes the dialogic nature of all writing and also the inevitably political character of social research. 9. For an excellent discussion of the relationship between classical and modernist Islam see Smith (1957 Smith, Wilfed Cantwell. 1957. Islam in Modern History, New York: The New American Library. [Google Scholar]). 10. Some of these feminist awakenings are described in Ahmad (2009 Ahmad, Sadaf. 2009. Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism Among Urban Pakistani Women, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. 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