Book: Gender, Governance and Islam

 The book “Gender, Governance and Islam” Analyses the links between gender and governance in contemporary Muslim majority countries and diaspora contexts.

Following a period of rapid political change, both globally and in relation to the Middle East and South Asia, this collection sets new terms of reference for an analysis of the intersections between global, state, non-state and popular actors and their contradictory effects on the politics of gender.

The volume charts the shifts in academic discourse and global development practice that shape our understanding of gender both as an object of policy and as a terrain for activism. Nine individual case studies systematically explore how struggles for political control and legitimacy determine both the ways in which dominant gender orders are safeguarded and the diverse forms of resistance against them.

About the Authors

Deniz Kandiyoti is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. She pioneered new research into comparative perspectives on patriarchy and on the implications of global governance, Islam and state policies for the politics of gender in Turkey, post-Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan. 2011–2015 she monitored the effects of the Arab uprisings (as guest editor for 50.50 Open Democracy) analysing new forms of gender-based violence and grass-roots mobilization.

Nadje Al-Ali is Robert Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown University. Her main research interests and publications revolve around feminist activism in the Middle East; transnational migration and diaspora mobilization; war, conflict and reconstruction; art & cultural studies and food. Her publications include Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present (2007, Zed Books); What kind of liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq (2009, with Nicola Pratt, University of California Press) and Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian women’s movement (2000, CUP). Her co-edited book with Deborah al-Najjar entitled We are Iraqis: Aesthetics & Politics in a Time of War (Syracuse University Press) won the 2014 Arab-American book prize for non-fiction. Her more recent research and publications focus on the Turkish-Kurdish conflict and the Kurdish women’s movement. She has been a member of the Feminist Review Collective, and is on the editorial board of Kohl: a journal of body and gender research. Prof Al-Ali has been involved in several feminist organizations and campaigns, including being a founding member of Act Together: Women’s Action for Iraq, in addition to her involvement in trade union activism.

Kathryn Spellman Poots is Associate Professor at Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations in London and Visiting Associate Professor at Columbia University and Academic Program Director for the MA in Islamic Studies. Her research interests include Muslims in Europe and North America, the Iranian diaspora, transnational migration and gender studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction – Beyond Women, Islam and the State: situating the politics of gender in a new century; Deniz Kandiyoti, Nadje Al-Ali and Kathryn Spellman Poots
2. Protest, Resistance and Shifting Gender Orders in Egypt: Crossing Red Lines?; Heba El Kholy and Nadia Taher
3. Manufacturing Consent in Iran: From Moral Subjects to (Un)Healthy Citizens; Nazanin Shahrokni
4. Saudi Women: Between Family, Religion and State; Madawi Al-Rasheed
5. Against all Odds: The Resilience and Fragility of Women’s Gender Activism in Turkey; Deniz Kandiyoti
6. Discrete Moves and Parallel Tracks: Gender Politics in post-2001 Afghanistan; Torunn Wimpelmann
7. Palestine: Gender in an Imagined Fragmented Sovereignty; Islah Jad
8. Iraq: Gendering Violence, Sectarianisms and Authoritarianism; Nadje Al-Ali
9. Defiance not Subservience: New Directions in the Pakistani Women’s Movement; Afiya Shehrbano Zia

Muslim Diasporas in Transition: Islam, Gender and New Regimes of Governance; Kathryn Spellman Poots

Bibliographic Information

Title: Gender, Governance and Islam

Editors: Deniz Kandiyoti, Nadje Al-Ali and Kathryn Spellman Poots

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Language: English

Length: 256 pages

ISBN: 978-1474455428

Pub. Date: September 1, 2019