The Art of Resistance in Islam
The Art of Resistance in Islam
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Based on first-hand ethnographic insights into Shi'i religious groups in the Middle East and Europe , this book examines women's resistance to state as well as communal and gender power structures. It offers a new transnational approach to understanding gender agency within contemporary Islamic movements expressed through language, ritual practices, dramatic performances , posters and banners. By looking at the aesthetic performance of the political on the female body through Shi'i ritual practices – an aspect that has previously been ignored in studies on women's acts of resistance -, Yafa Shanneik shows how women play a central role in redefining sectarian and gender power relations both in the Middle East and in the European diaspora.
- Studies the performance of sectarian power relations as expressed in Shi'i ritual practices
- Provides new insights into understanding female agency and empowerment within transnational Muslim women's resistance movements
- Based on first-hand ethnographic insights into Shi'i religious groups in Europe and the Middle East
Reviews & endorsements
‘Shanneik presents a well-researched multi-sited ethnographic study that brings together local and transnational trajectories in the lives of Twelvers Shia women who follow ayatollah al-Shirazi. The study offers an original approach to research on women and resistance by theorizing social agency through the examination of ritual performance and material culture.’ Ingvild Flaskerud, University of Oslo
‘This exceptional study explores a movement among contemporary Shi'a women who have begun to incorporate bodily practices previously reserved for men within Shi'a mourning rituals (e.g. self-flagellation, walking on coals). With great subtlety and insight. Shanneik analyzes these emergent ritual forms as theo-political practice, a response both to growing sectarian (anti-Shi'a) violence and to the patriarchal constraints of Shi'a traditionalism.' Charles Hirschkind, University of California, Berkeley
‘Shanneik beautifully illustrates how ritual performances are a means of empowerment for Shi‘i Muslim women and a form of resistance to religious sectarianism. This groundbreaking book erases traditional area studies boundaries by ambitiously connecting the understudied Arab Gulf to the Shi‘i diaspora in Europe through artistic expression and political protest.’ Mara Leichtman, Michigan State University
Product details
February 2022Adobe eBook Reader
9781009034883
0 pages
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. Trajectories of Shiʿis in the Gulf and their presence in Europe
- 2. The rites of mourning within Shiʿi Islam
- 3. Performing the sacred: emotions, the body, and visuality
- 4. Aestheticisation of politics: the case of taá¹bÄ«r
- 5. Fatima's apparition: power relations within female ritual spaces
- 6. The power of the word: the politicisation of language
- 7. Conclusion.
