Gender, Identity and Belonging: New Citizenships beyond Orientalism

Abstract

By applying the gender perspective to the concept of Orientalism elaborated by Edward Said, the article debates how the Orient is not only a cultural construction, but also a sexual one. This lens is able to disclose the gender rhetoric through which the Western feminist eye has framed the ‘Other Woman’, depicting her as bounded by cultural ties. This is well exemplified by the stereotype of the Muslim woman as veiled, victim and powerless. The deconstructive strategy and the intersectional approach will fruitfully interact with the vivid experience of some Italian and British Muslim women activists, to show that the agency of Muslim women emerges in different contexts, thus breaking the Western mainstream essentialist perspective. The concept of fluid identity is proposed to make sense of the processes of identity formation with a focus on the intertwining of religious, gender and political dimensions vis-à-vis controversial practices such as the veil and arranged marriages. It is the voices of these women that challenge and re-signify fundamental principles such as democratic citizenship and personal autonomy, creating the basis for a transnational feminism that, from the recognition of women’s specificities and global inequalities, proves able to devise shared, more equitable and empowering pathways.

Notes

1. On the role of deconstruction within gender studies see A. Loretoni, ‘Identity and belonging. Gender criticism of the liberal tradition’, in A. Loretoni, J. Pauchard and A. Pirni (eds), Questioning Universalism. Western and New Confucianist Conceptions, ETS, Pisa, 2013, pp. 97–114.

2. S. Moller Okin, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1999.

3. E. Said, Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient, Penguin, London, 1978.

4. S. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Touchstone, New York, 1997.

5. Challenging the Orientalist approach, in the recent past the Arab Spring confirmed that the capacity to include dissenting and critical views on traditional values no longer belongs exclusively to the northern part of the world, by showing a new agency for women. See Olivier Roy, ‘The transformation of the Arab world’, Journal of Democracy, 23(2), 2012, pp. 5–18.

6. In relation to the topic of the ‘war on terror’ see M. Khalid, ‘Gendering Orientalism. Gender, sexuality, and race in post 9/11 global politics’, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 10(1), 2014, pp. 1–18.

7. R. Salih, Musulmane Rivelate. Donne, Islam, Modernità [Muslim Women Revealed. Gender, Islam and Modernity], Carocci, Roma, 2008.

8. F. Mernissi, Beyond the Veil. Male‒Female Dynamics in Muslim Society, Saqi, London, 2011.

9. On Islamic feminism see B. Henry’s article in this special issue, B. Henry, ‘Islamic Feminism(s) in the Mediterranean Area: a Hermeneutical Approach’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 19(5), 2017. doi: 10.1080/19448953.2017.1296254

10. M. M. Hasan, ‘The Orientalization of gender’, The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 22(4), p. 48.

11. S. Benhabib, The Rights of Other. Aliens, Residents and Citizens, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.

12. See C. T. Mohanty, ‘Under Western eyes’, in C. T. Mohanty, Feminism without Borders. Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2003, pp. 17–42.

13. G. Spivak, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1988, pp. 271–313.

14. For the critical concern of ‘sisterhood’ see C. T. Mohanty, Under Western Eyes, op. cit. On intersectionality see K. Crenshaw, ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex. A black feminist critique of anti-discrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and anti-racist politics’, in University of Chicago Legal Forum. Feminism in the Law: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 1989, pp. 139–167.

15. The part of the essay which analyses the vivid experiences of some Muslim women living in Italy and the UK relies on the qualitative research conducted by A. Belli between 2009 and 2011 as part of her PhD dissertation titled ‘Progressive multiculturalism and fluid identities: the case of Muslim women activists in Italy and the United Kingdom’, discussed on 19 December 2011 at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.

16. Following Katherine Bullock’s definition, activists are understood as ‘people committed to a “cause”, to something they believe will benefit humanity and that requires struggle and self-sacrifice (of time and resources). I see activism as doing something concrete for the sake of a social good’. This definition is flexible enough to include women involved in associations, movements, NGOs, scholars and intellectuals and also those linked to the political sphere. Katherine Bullock, Muslim Women Activists in North America. Speaking for Ourselves, University of Texas Press, Austin, 2005, p. xv.

17. This part draws from A. Belli’s abovementioned PhD dissertation. The choice to focus on the UK and Italy, the former an example of the multicultural approach, the latter a case of ‘absent model’, stems from the fact that both countries represent interesting settings, although for opposite reasons, in which to analyse the dynamics of identity formation in situations where people find themselves in the crossfire of multiple manipulative dynamics.

18. P. Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Routledge, New York, 2000.

19. M. Franks, Women and Revivalism in the West. Choosing ‘Fundamentalism’ in a Liberal Democracy, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2001, pp. 37–48.

20. M. Westkott, ‘Feminist criticism of the social sciences’, Harvard Educational Review, 49(4), pp. 422–430.

21. L. Haney, ‘Negotiating power and expertise in the field’, in Tim May (ed.), Qualitative Research in Action, Sage Publications, London, 2002, pp. 286–299; S. Harding, ‘Introduction: is there a feminist method?’, in S. Harding (ed.), Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1987, pp. 1–14.

22. Cassandra Balchin, a non-veiled British convert who worked as a freelance researcher, writer and human rights advocacy trainer. I interviewed her twice in London, in April 2008 and in November 2009.

23. Meriem Finti in September 2009 was a 25-year-old Italian woman of Moroccan origin living in Bologna, part of the national managing board of GMI (Giovani Musulmani d’Italia/Young Italian Muslims) and head of the GMI’s sections in Emilia Romagna.

24. Sabin Khan, community adviser at the British Home Office for Security and Counter Terrorism; met at the Home Office in London in February 2010.

25. When I interviewed Shaista Gohir, in November 2009, she was a journalist and the executive director of the Muslim Women’s Network UK.

26. Meriem Finti in September 2009 was a 25-year-old Italian woman of Moroccan origin living in Bologna, part of the national managing board of GMI (Giovani Musulmani d’Italia/Young Italian Muslims) and head of the GMI’s sections in Emilia Romagna.

27. In December 2009 Amra Bone was a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Warwick University, community activist in Coventry and member of the Birmingham Sharia Council.

28. Latifa Bouamoul, co-President of the association Life onlus, based in Ravenna. The author met her in 2009.

29. Bullock, op. cit., p. xvi; K. Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil. Challenging Historical & Modern Stereotypes, The International Institute of Islamic Thought, Richmond, 2002; S. Silvestri, ‘La questione del burqa in Europa’ <http://www.ispionline.it/it/documents/Commentary_Silvestri_13.5.10.pdf> (accessed June 2010); S. Silvestri , ‘Europe’s Muslims: burqa laws, women’s lives’ <http://www.opendemocracy.net/sara-silvestri/french-burqa-and-%E2%80%9Cmuslim-integration%E2%80%9D-in-europe> (accessed July 2010).

30. This expression raised lots of disagreement among my interviewees, who pointed out its exclusionary dimension. For them it reinforces, in fact, and perpetuates the idea of a presumed insurmountable otherness: being a ‘second generation’ means being relegated to a distinct category that is excluded from citizenship. Many preferred the expression ‘second generation of immigration’: <http://www.secondegenerazioni.it/about/> (accessed September 2010).

31. Interview to Sumaya Abdel Qader, young Italian activist, writer and columnist of Jordanian origin, conducted in July 2010.

32. Haleh Afshar, British academic and peer in the House of Lords, interviewed in York in autumn/winter 2009 and in spring 2010. H. Afshar (ed.), Women and Fluid Identities. Strategic and Practical Pathways Selected by Women, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2012.

33. J. Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, New York, 1990, p. 187.

34. Haleh Afshar interview 2009.

35. M. Deveaux, Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, p. 162.

36. Ibid., p. 177.

37. On the specific issue of the ‘arranged marriage’ see U. Narayan, ‘Minds of their own. Choices, autonomy, cultural practices and other women’, in L. M. Antony and C. Witt (eds), A Mind of One’s Own. Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, West View Press, Boulder, CO, 2002, p. 429.

38. Anne Phillips, Multiculturalism without Culture, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2007.

39. I. Kant, ‘Perpetual peace. A philosophical essay’, in Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.

40. R. Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects. Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Feminist Theory, Columbia University Press, New York, 1994.