South African Muslim women's experiences : sexuality and religious discourses
Doctoral Thesis
2010
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
This dissertation seeks to investigate the experiences of South African Muslim women in relation to sexual dynamics and marital relationships. By using in-depth interviews as the main empirical research method, this feminist study foregrounds women's voices in the production of religious meaning. I explore dominant religious discourses that influence women's conceptualisations of sexuality and the related implications for sexual praxis in contemporary Muslim communities that are also characterised by living conditions of poverty and violence. Focusing on women's engagements with religious meaning as it relates to their intimate relationships, the dissertation engages these findings with relevant literature and theory proposed by Islamic feminists on issues of morality, ethics and agency. This study finds that while patriarchal religious norms powerfully influence and give meaning to the lives of many Muslim women, these same women also contest, subvert and reconstitute these norms in varying ways. The diversity and richness of women's narratives illustrate the multifaceted, paradoxical and ambivalent nature of religious discourses as it is embodied in everyday life. I conclude that religious systems of meaning as they are lived in this local context are marked by tensions between patriarchal and egalitarian perspectives that are imbricated and interwoven in a variety of ways. The dissertation contends that the inclusion of women's narratives is imperative in order to highlight the dynamic nature of religion as well as to challenge patriarchal legacies that still impact many local contexts.
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-241).
Reference:
Hoel, N. 2010. South African Muslim women's experiences : sexuality and religious discourses. University of Cape Town.