We Are Not Like Them
Reinventing modernity within tradition in the debates on female khatna / female genital cutting in India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3946286 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Reetika Revathy Subramanian (0000-0003-4459-3226, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 135 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-24 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/01417789231206047 |
| OpenAlex | W4389619625 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 53 |
Since 2011, female khatna, or the practice of female genital cutting within the Dawoodi Bohra community, has become a big topic of debate in India and globally. The 'secret' tradition has been challenged by community activists, tabled in parliament, heard by international courts of law and debated on news channels. In response, a growing number of Bohra women have come to the fore to publicly defend their right to khatna by subverting seemingly Western tropes of autonomy, equality and modernity. Situated in the thick of these polarised exchanges, this article examines the complicated, under-explored relationship between gender and Islam by foregrounding self-narratives of the Bohra women who actively participate within, as opposed to fight against, patriarchal norms to preserve the tradition. I juxtapose their narratives with those of anti- khatna activists to further contextualise and clarify their 'modern-yet-traditional' subjectivities. As such, this article combines a postcolonial feminist lens with Eric Hobsbawm's notion of 'invention of tradition', to investigate the multiple ways in which a majority of Bohra women are using the rhetoric of 'modernity' in public-by reinventing history, renegotiating patriarchies, reimagining the other and incorporating biomedicine-to preserve and perpetuate this contested tradition
Aesthetics · Autonomy · Feminism · Foregrounding · Human sexuality · Literature · Modernity · Narrative · Political science · Rhetoric · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Gender Studies · Law
Beyond the Veil
Before European Hegemony
Women Claim Islam
Contentious Traditions
Chapter 7. The Marriage of Feminism and Islamism in Egypt
Chapter 6. Eluding the Feminist, Overthrowing the Modern? Transformations in Twentieth-Century Iran
Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism
The Subject and Power
Reproducing Gender
Feminist Epistemologies
Gender
Questions of Cultural Identity
Religion, Feminism, and the Problem of Agency
“Under Western Eyes” Revisited
Formations of the Secular
Methods, methodologies and epistemologies in the study of gender and politics
The prosecution of Dawoodi Bohra women
Multiple modernities and mass communications in Muslim countries
Un-/Re-Productive Maternal Labor
In the Best Interests of the Child
Gender in the Making of the Indian Nation-State
Dis/locating Cultures/Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism
Islam and Gender in Europe
Currentcontroversies Infeministtheory
Whose Voices? Whose Choices? Reflections on Gender and Participatory Development
The Forbidden Modern
Circumcision, body and community
Male complications of female genital mutilation
Veiled Discourse-Unveiled Bodies
Feminist 'Selves' and Feminism's 'Others
On Selective Consumerism
Situated Knowledges
Reconstructing Self and Society
State versus Islam
Veiled Sentiments
Islam in Public
Islamic Traditions of Modernity
Conceptualizing Gender-Sexuality-State-Nation
Piety politics and the role of a transnational feminist analysis
Religious Reason and Secular Affect
Gender and nation
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |