Dossiers

In some contexts, such as Sri Lanka, women from the minority have been demanding positive reform in the existing separate legal system that is binding upon Muslims and in the Philippines an entire alternative Code has been drafted; in Israel, Arab women’s groups have focused on demanding access to the State Family Court, rather than reforming the Shari’a Courts).

Tandis que de plus en plus de mouvements politiques de droite - y compris les mouvements fondamentalistes qui affectent le plus la vie des femmes, nous contraignent et nous enferment dans une identité unique, nous luttons pour réclamer nos identités multiples, concomitantes, et non antagonistes: genre, classe, ethnicité, race, religion, culture, etc.

This volume seeks to address issues of concern to women in Muslim countries and communities around the concepts of identity, politics, movements, and alliances. Crucial to identity politics is the fraught question of alliances: all the articles, ultimately, address this question.

The Dossier explores and synthesizes a broad range of feelings, interpretations and strategies of women on issues of feminism, nationalism, internationalism, and religion.

The Dossier is dedicated to a question which comes up again and again in the discussions about women in the Muslim world: the centrality of religion as an analytical concept. Most articles included in this issue discuss, under one form or another the right to define oneself as secular vs a "natural" religious identity, and all the potential epistemological bias in the analysis of a specific situation that could follow the lack of conceptual clarity in these matters.

History is replete with examples of use of religion for social-political mobilization and for community control. The backdrop for this Dossier reflects processes leading sociological Muslims to becoming institutionalised subjects of organised Islamic nation states, communities and families.

Fundamentalist political movements and their onslaught on women have been subject to much debate over the years and have become one of the key concerns of our network.

The Dossier explores and synthesizes a broad range of feelings, interpretations and strategies of women on issues of feminism, nationalism, internationalism, and religion.

The increased labeling of diverse immigrant communities of Muslim background in Europe as having a common culture since they share a common religion is appearing as a dominant trend. Religion is becoming equated with “culture”.

The Dossiers explore and synthesize a broad range of feelings, interpretations and strategies of women on issues of feminism, nationalism, internationalism, and religion. Our dossiers had announced the first two Asian lesbian conferences; we are now beginning to recieve articles about the situation of lesbians in Muslim countries and communities which we will be publishing in the future issues. 

Syndicate content