Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T17:06:44.633Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminism and the Islamic Revival: Freedom as a Practice of Belonging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Allison Weir
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In her book, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, Saba Mahmood analyzes the practices of the women in the mosque movement in Cairo, Egypt. Mahmood argues that in order to recognize the participants as agents, we need to question the assumption that agency entails resistance to norms; moreover, we need to question the feminist allegiance to an unquestioned ideal of freedom. In this paper, I argue that rather than giving up the ideal of freedom, we can explore the possibility that there are different conceptions of freedom, and that the agency of the women in the mosque movement can be understood through a conception of freedom as a practice of connection, or belonging. I develop this alternative paradigm through discussions of four conceptions of freedom: Foucault's theory of agency as self‐creation, positive freedom, communitarian freedom, and freedom as resistance.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 28 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Crossing Borders Special Issue , Spring 2013 , pp. 323 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu‐Lughod, Lila. 2002. Do Muslim women really need saving? American Anthropologist 104 (3): 783–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, Leila. 1992. Women and gender in Islam: Historical roots of a modern debate. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ahmed, Leila. 2011. A quiet revolution: The veil's resurgence, from the Middle East to America. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Alcoff, Linda Martín. 2006. Visible identities: Race, gender, and the self. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, Amy. 2008. The politics of our selves: Power, autonomy, and gender in contemporary critical theory. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bartky, Sandra. 1990. Foucault, femininity, and the modernization of patriarchal power. In Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Beauvoir, Simone de. 1972. The second sex. Trans. Parshley, H. M.Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 2008. Two concepts of liberty. In Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blaser, Mario, de Costa, Ravi, McGregor, Deborah, and Coleman, William D., eds. 2010. Indigenous peoples and autonomy: Insights for a global age. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Brill Online Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2012. Second Edition. Hurriyya. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2 (accessed October 3, 2012).Google Scholar
Bullock, Katherine. 2002. Rethinking Muslim women and the veil: Challenging historical and modern stereotypes. Herndon, Va.: International Institute of Islamic Thought.Google Scholar
Cole, Anna, Burke, Julia, and Woods, Winnie. 1998. Ngaanyatarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council. In Australian feminism: A companion, ed. Caine, Barbara. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. London: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Avigail, and Spinner‐Halev, Jeff. 2005. Minorities within minorities: Equality, rights and diversity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Ann. 2000. Resisting the veil of privilege: Building bridge identities as an ethico‐politics of global feminisms. In Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world, ed. Narayan, Uma and Harding, Sandra. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984. On the genealogy of ethics: An overview of work in progress. In The Foucault reader, ed. Rabinow, Paul. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 1988. The importance of what we care about. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 2002. Autonomy, gender, politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gülen, Fethullah. 2007. Key concepts in the practice of Sufism. http://www.fethullahgulen.org/sufism-2/1990-hurriya-freedom.html (accessed October 3, 2012).Google Scholar
Hirschmann, Nancy J. 2003. The subject of liberty: Toward a feminist theory of freedom. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lazreg, Marnia. 2009. Questioning the veil: Open letters to Muslim women. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, Catriona, and Stoljar, Natalie, eds. 2000. Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton:Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McNay, Lois. 1992. Foucault and feminism: Power, gender and the self. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Mernissi, Fatima. 1992. The veil and the male elite: A feminist interpretation of women's rights in Islam. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Meyers, Diana Tietjens. 2004. Being yourself: Essays on identity, action, and social life. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Morrison, Toni. 1987. Beloved. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma. 1997. Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions, and third world feminism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma. 2000. Essence of culture and a sense of history. In Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world, ed. Narayan, Uma and Harding, Sandra. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 1989. Reconceiving autonomy: Sources, thoughts and possibilities. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 1 (7): 7–36.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 2011. Law's relations: A relational theory of self, autonomy, and law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nouraie‐Simone, Fereshteh. 2005. On shifting ground: Muslim women in the global era. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY.Google Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller, with respondents. 1999. Is multiculturalism bad for women?, ed. Cohen, Joshua, Howard, Matthew, and Nussbaum, Martha C.Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Oxford Islamic Studies Online. 2012. Islam, an overview. In Oxford dictionary of Islam. http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1087?_hi=1&_pos=1 (accessed October 3, 2012).Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 2009. Multiculturalism without culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Razack, Sherene. 2008. Casting out: The eviction of Muslims from Western law and politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Schachar, Ayelet. 2001. Multicultural jurisdictions: Cultural differences and women's rights. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Joan Wallach. 2007. The politics of the veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. 2002. A third concept of liberty. Proceedings of the British Academy 117: 237–68.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles 1985. What's wrong with negative liberty. In Philosophy and the human sciences: Philosophical papers, vol. 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadud, Amina. 1999. Qur'an and woman: Rereading the sacred text from a woman's perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wadud, Amina. 2006. Inside the gender jihad: Women's reform in Islam. London: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
Weir, Allison. 2008. Home and identity: In memory of Iris Marion Young. Hypatia 23 (3): 4–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, Allison. 2013. Identities and freedom: Feminist theory between power and connection. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willett, Cynthia. 2001. The soul of justice: Social bonds and racial hubris. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2007. Global challenges: War, self‐determination and responsibility for justice. Malden, Mass., and Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar