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"Taking a transnational approach, this book challenges the belief that the Muslim world is unrelentingly antifeminist. The author challenges assumptions about inevitable civilizational antagonism between the "West" and the "Muslim world," a notion that has become increasingly popular in recent decades, and of a lag in the emergence of feminism in the latter. While it shouldn't be controversial to insist that male bias and privilege are present in Western as well as in Muslim-majority societies, it is more difficult to show how and why efforts to improve women's lives in even these geographically distant parts of the world have long been interconnected and interdependent. Sisters in the Mirro...
Through extensive field research, Elora Shehabuddin explores the profound implications of women's political and social mobilization for reshaping Islam. Specifically, she examines the lives of Muslim women in Bangladesh who have become increasingly mobilized by the activities of predominantly secular NGOs, yet who desire to retain, reclaim, and reshape-rather than reject-their faith. In their employment and in their interactions with the legal system, the state, NGOs, and political and religious groups, women are changing state practices, views of women in the public sphere, and the nature of lived Islam itself. In contrast to most work on Islam and Muslims, which has focused on the Middle East and has privileged the study of religious and legal texts, this book redirects our attention to South Asia, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, and emphasizes the actual experiences of Muslims. Women and gender, as well as Bangladesh's formally democratic context, are central to this inquiry and analysis.
The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Women offers authoritative contributions from well-known scholars whose sophisticated and cutting-edge research explores the diversity of Muslim women's lives and their accomplishments, challenging common stereotypes that are particularly prevalent in the West.
This book provides a broad-ranging analysis of the growth and impact of "political Islam" in Bangladesh, and reactions to it. Grounded in empirical data, experts examine the changing character of Bangladeshi politics since 1971, with particular focus on the convergence of governance, Islamism and militancy. It is a timely, incisive and original examination of the rise of political Islam and Islamic militancy in Bangladesh.
The articles in this volume build up ethnographic analysis complementary to the historiography of South Asian Islam, which has explored the emergence of reformism in the context of specific political and religious circumstances of nineteenth-century British India. Taking up diverse popular and scholarly debates as well as everyday religious practices, this volume also breaks away from the dominant trend of mainstream ethnographic work, which celebrates Sufi-inspired forms of Islam as tolerant, plural, authentic and so on, pitted against a 'reformist' Islam. Urging a more nuanced examination of all forms of reformism and their reception in practice, the contributions here powerfully demonstrate the historical and geographical specificities of reform projects. In doing so, they challenge prevailing perspectives in which substantially different traditions of reform are lumped together into one reified category (often carelessly shorthanded as 'wah'habism') and branded as extremist – if not altogether demonised as terrorist.
Is there a truly Arab feminist movement? Is there such a thing as 'Islamic' feminism? What does it meant to be a 'feminist' in the Arab World today? Does it mean grappling with the main theoretical elements of the movement? Or does it mean involvement at the grassroots level with everyday activism? This book examines the issues and controversies that are hotly debated and contested when it comes to the concept of feminism and gender in Arab society today. It offers explorations of the theoretical issues at play, the latest developments of feminist discourse, literary studies and sociology, as well as empirical data concerning the situation of women in Arab countries, such as Iraq and Palesti...
A generation after the first publication of Joan W. Scott's influential essay, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," this volume explores the current uses and valences of the term--and the ongoing influence of Scott's work in history and other disciplines. Leading scholars from history, philosophy, literature, art history, and other fields examine how gender has "translated" into their own disciplinary perspectives. How has the study of gender, independently or in conjunction with other axes of difference such as race, class, and sexuality, inflected existing fields of study and created new ones? To what extent has this concept modified or been modified by related paradigms such as womens' and queer studies? With what discursive politics does the term engage, and with what effects? In what settings, and through what kinds of operations and transformations, can gender remain a useful category in the twenty-first century?
Providing a comprehensive overview of the study of gender in South Asia, this Handbook covers the central contributions that have defined this area and captures innovative and emerging paradigms that are shaping the future of the field. It offers a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives spanning both the humanities and social sciences, focussing on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The Handbook brings together key experts in the field of South Asia and gender, women and sexuality. Chapters are organised thematically in five major sections: Historical formations of gender and the significance of colonialism and nationalism Law, Citizenship and the Nation Representations of Culture, Place, Identity Labour and the Economy Inequality, Activism and the State This timely survey is essential reading for scholars who research and teach on South Asia as well as for scholars in related interdisciplinary fields that focus on women and gender from comparative and transnational perspectives.
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