Shii News – Zoom: ‘Empowerment through Rituals’ – Y Shanneik (11.5.22, 17:00 GMT)

Empowering Muslim Women in History, Literature and the Arts

The Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies

University of Manchester

“Empowerment through Rituals: Reconsidering Female Agency in Contemporary Islam”

By Professor Yafa Shanneik (University of Lund, Sweden)

Wednesday 11 May 2022, 17:00 GMT on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/93390176851

Abstract:
The presentation is based on my book The Art of Resistance in Islam, which discusses the role diasporic Shi‘i communities in Europe play in shaping women’s acts of transnational resistance in the Middle East. It particularly examines how self-inflicted pain practices on the female body become a tool for the aesthetisation of gender politics. It discusses how such embodied practices contribute to a new understanding of female agency and empowerment within contemporary resistance movements. Shiʿi women claim agency by providing new interpretations of Shiʿi sources that allow them to participate in religious rituals that have traditionally been preserved exclusively for men. Through self-inflicted pain practices, such as self-flagellation or walking on hot coal, women are able to challenge gender-based religious boundaries. It thereby provides a new approach to researching gender agency within contemporary Islamic movements, which use sensory experiences articulated through the female body to de-stabilise existing gender power dynamics in the Middle East. The book equally challenges area studies boundaries by being based on extensive ethnographic research in both the Middle East and Europe.

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