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Women's Interpretive Community: Between Feminism and Islamism
Abstract
This research looks at women’s religious activism and the extent to which their involvement in the production of religious knowledge challenges and transforms hierarchal interpretations of sacred scriptures. I analyze how Iranian women are employing religious activism to challenge hegemonic religious configurations in order to transform the discourse on women and Islam. Women’s agency and their engagement in religious movement should be understood as an attempt to deconstruct traditional paradigms and renegotiate gender roles and spaces in an Islamic context. My research analyzes how the different modalities of agency are reconstituted in interaction with political and religious institutions and power structures. I contend that women’s activism and participation in the production of knowledge has transformed legal reasoning, legal institutions, and the nature of lawmaking in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Drawing upon ethnographic research methods and textual analysis, this project argues that women’s religious activism and their involvement in hermeneutic projects, is advancing egalitarian principles within the Shi'i tradition. In an effort to better comprehend women’s religious movements in Iran, I conducted a case study involving members of E'telaf-I Islamiyyih Zanan (Women’s Islamic Coalition) since 2008. I had familiarity with this organization before conducting relevant fieldwork in Iran. My insider status provided me with the advantage of direct knowledge of the subject and the benefits of academic training and inquiry. Since the Iranian Revolution, women’s rights activists have recognized that the only reform that can be effective needs to be rooted in Islamic jurisprudential approaches, which appeals to both the traditional sectors of society and the Islamic state. Accordingly, women’s resistance took on a new dimension as women became involved in hermeneutic projects. For the first time women’s rights advocates embraced religious activism as an alternative to the secular model in their struggle to achieve gender justice. The manifestations of women’s religious activism are as diverse as the women themselves, who differ in educational, social, and philosophical background. Although some express their scholarship in a reformist agenda, others categorize themselves as “traditionalists.” Through interviews and textual analysis, I highlight several factors that distinguish the reformists’ approach to gender equality from their traditional and secular counterparts. Women in this study are positioned not just as critics of the canon, but in some instances as reproducers of patriarchal norms and, in others, as reformers advancing liberal perspectives for theorizing about women’s legal status.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
Islamic Studies