Performing Islam : gender and ritual in Iran /
:
Performing Islam takes as its main focus the rich array of ceremonial activities that shape and inform the lives of circles of women in south Tehran. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the book describes and analyses rituals that mark religious anniversaries and life course events in Iran today. Arguing that the ritual performances are powerful forums where ideas develop, and where rules, symbols and discourses are contested, this book discusses the values and beliefs underpinning gender constructions in a rapidly changing and complex society. The ambiguous metaphorical language of the rituals is examined, revealing how gender ideologies are projected and renewed, but also challenged, destabilized and ridiculed. Thus the rituals provide possibilities for self-expression, innovation and incremental change. This study goes beyond questions of meaning and culture to interrogate the dynamics of gender performance as products of power and politics.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [261]-280) and indexes. :
9789047410546 :
1570-7628 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Dreaming of Change: Young Middle-Class Women and Social Transformation in Jordan /
:
This anthropological monograph focuses on the everyday experiences of young, highly educated women in contemporary Jordan. It carefully analyses their powerful contributions to social change as well as the strategies they employ in dealing with the problems they generally face. In their struggle to find recognition, religion (Islam and Christianity) often plays a major part and helps them to empower themselves, which is also reflected in this account. The study discusses family relationships, social networks, gender constructions, religiousness, and women's roles in various social spheres. It sheds light on how these young women actively influence transformations in their society and re-negotiate their own and other people's social position, and how they, in turn, are highly influenced (and often restricted) by the socio-cultural environment in their efforts towards change.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047416067
9789004146341
Women, water and memory : recasting lives in Palestine /
:
This book tells a different story about water. Against the backdrop of the end of the Ottoman Empire to the Palestinian uprisings, old Palestinian women recount life before and after piped water. While talking about fetching and managing household water, women also talked about being women. Women, Water and Memory speaks of many different lives. We hear stories about women's own strength and beauty, and about the woman who married a man whose ugly face made her sick. While one woman married the man "she cared for", another was relieved that her husband died when she was too old to be forced to remarry. We learn about the joy they feel each time they dance at a wedding, the sheer satisfaction of lighting a cigarette, the loyalty and shared despair towards families with members in prison, and about the tears of sorrow at each death and the delight at each birth.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [163]-167) and index. :
9789047442561 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ottoman women in public space /
:
Using a wealth of primary sources and covering the entire Ottoman period, Ottoman Women in Public Space challenges the traditional view that sees Ottoman women as a largely silent element of society, restricted to the home and not seen beyond the walls of the house or the public bath. Instead, taking women in a variety of roles, as economic and political actors, prostitutes, flirts and slaves, the book argues that women were active participants in the public space, visible, present and an essential element in the everyday, public life of the empire. Ottoman Women in Public Space thus offers a vibrant and dynamic understanding of Ottoman history. Contributors are: Edith Gülçin Ambros, Ebru Boyar, Palmira Brummett, Kate Fleet and Svetla Ianeva.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004316621 :
1570-7628 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Nawab Faizunnesa's Rupjalal /
:
Nawab Faizunnesa (1834-1903) challenged established notions regarding women's position in a Muslim society in colonial Bengal. Her RupJalal was the first literary text written by a Bengali Muslim woman. The translated text is placed in the historical context of colonialism and the nationalist movement of colonial Bengal. An analysis of the text is also included in order to invite readers to explore the woman question in context of Islam and/in imperial society. With the translated text, along with a critical overview and textual analysis, this book traces in Faizunnesa's life and works the emergence of a self-conscious female voice by addressing the issues of social, political, and economic marginality of women in an Islamic, nationalist, and imperialist culture of colonial Bengal.
:
Translated from the Bengali. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [217]-220) and index. :
9789047442264 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Border Lives: An Ethnography of a Lebanese Town in Changing Times /
:
Border Lives offers an in-depth account of how people in Arsal, a northeastern town on the border of Lebanon with Syria, experienced postwar sociality, and how they grappled with living in the margins of the Lebanese state in the period following the 1975-1990 war. In a rich ethnography of 'changing times,' Michelle Obeid shows how restrictions in cross-border mobility, transformations in physical and social spaces, burgeoning new industries and shifting political alliances produced divergent ideologies about domesticity and the family, morality and personhood. Attending to metaphors of modernity in a rural border context, Border Lives broadens the sites in which modernity and social change can be investigated.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004394346
One foot in Heaven : narratives on gender and Islam in Darfur, West-Sudan /
:
This book is based on extensive anthropological field-research in Kebkabiya, a town in Darfur, West-Sudan(1990-1995), when the Islamist government of Sudan had just come to power. The title of the book is a conflation of two main government perspectives on the role of women. These proved to be decisive for the ways in which two classes of working women - low-class market women and highly esteemed female teachers- negotiated their identities within the Islamist moral discourse on gender. The book focuses on the biographic narratives of one woman from each class, which are analysed as part of the multi-layered context in which the woman spoke and acted - and of which the author also formed part. Finally, the author reflects on the war in Darfur as part of a process of identities-in-construction.
:
Includes fold-out maps.
Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Leiden, 2001. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [497]-520) and index. :
9789047422983 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.