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Unmapping the “Religious Subject”: The Heterogeneity of Desire in Women’s Islamic Movements in Egypt
Abstract
This proposed paper questions the implicit normative notion of a bounded "religious subjectivity" in studies of Islamic movements in the Middle Eastern region by arguing for an anthropological approach that takes account of the inconsistency of subject production and the heterogeneity of (post) modern subjectivity. Focusing on women who engage in Islamic movements in Egypt, my analysis of their subjectivities trouble the binaries of religion/secularism, tradition/modernity, submission/emancipation and their impact on the literature and analytical categories which to a large degree still influence the field of Islamic movements and women’s studies in the region. The findings of this ethnographic study, underscores the inaccuracy of distilling a consistently pious subjectivity. This is precisely because the socio-political engagements and historical transformations in which actors are embedded are far too varied and complex that uniform, stable and homogenous subjects produced by consistent religious practice seem all the more, unconvincing. The research identifies the ways by which women activists define the religious, the secular and political. It highlights their methods of social change and researches their goals and objectives, how do they reflect religious and secular ideals? How is religion embodied in their notion of piety and secularism and in their engagements with politics? Based on data collected from fieldwork in Egypt, my findings suggest that Islamic women are not caught between two polarizing forces; a modernizing state and an Islamic return to tradition. Rather, people's identities and experiences are mediated in the processes of mutual production that characterize the embedded relationship of secularism and religion in Egyptian history. By considering the inseparability of piety and secularism, this paper demonstrates how desires and subjects are formed and transformed in women’s Islamic movements. It explores the range of desires and subjectivities of Islamic activists that call into question, liberal modernist assumptions about bounded individuality, stability of selfhood and their underlying normative view that creates, then binarizes a secular vs. a religious subject. Desiring modern subjects lie at the nexus of ambivalence, contradiction and heterogeneity of often porous discourses of modernity that can never be truly captured as a single subject position in which the self undergoes a consistent and uniform journey of self-fashioning. By foregrounding the heterogeneity of desire, my intention is to invite a consideration of multiplicities to the discussion of how subjects are produced in women’s Islamic movements.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
Identity/Representation