Topic 6 - Gender and Politics: The case of Afghanistan

We have a very special guest lecturer this week, our very own Meena Masood, who will introduce us to gender and politics in Afghanistan.

In this lecture, we explore representations of Afghanistan, specifically Afghan women. Since the 2021 withdrawal of foreign forces and the subsequent Taliban takeover, Afghanistan is once again being discussed in various media outlets and platforms, with debates often focusing on Afghan women. Yet, representations and imaginaries of Afghan women, and more broadly Afghanistan, have a long history, with narratives especially proliferating in the post-9/11 context of the so-called War on Terror. By the end of this topic, you should be able to:

• Identify how Afghan women have been represented 
  
• Critically investigate the racialised, gendered logics at play in representations of Afghan women
  
• Explore to what extent, if any, recent representations constitute a break from historic ones  

Below you will find some classic texts and some recent work on gender and the Muslim Question, more generally.

Frantz Fanon (1965) “Algeria Unveiled,” in A Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Chevalier.  New York: Grove Press. Print book available at QMUL Library.

Edward Said (1979) Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

Malek Alloula (1986) The Colonial Harem. University of Minnesota Press.

Laila Ahmed (1992) Women and Gender in Islam: Historical roots of a modern debate. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Valerie Moghadam (Ed.) (1994) Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies. London: Zed Books.

Reina Lewis (1995) Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation. New York: Routledge. Print book available at QMUL Library. 

Afsaneh Najmabadi (2000) (Un)Veiling Feminism. Social Text 18(3), pp. 29-45.


Saba Mahmood (2001) Feminist Theory, embodiment and the docile agent: some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival. Cultural Anthropology 16, pp. 202-236.

Lila Abu-Lughod (2002) Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others. American Anthropologist 104(3), pp. 783-790.

Saba Mahmood (2005). Politics of piety. The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Jasbir K. Puar (2005) Queer Times, Queer Assemblages. Social Text 84–85, Vol. 23(3–4), pp. 121-139.

Joan Scott (2005) Symptomatic Politics: The Banning of Islamic Head Scarves in French Public Schools. French Culture, Politics and Society 23(3), pp.106-127.

Joseph A. Massad (2008) “Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World,” in Desiring Arabs. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 160-190. 

Sherene Razakh (2008). Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Annelies Moors and Ruba Salih (2009) ‘Muslim women’ in Europe: Secular normativities, bodily performances and multiple publics. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 17(4), pp. 375-378.

Emma Tarlo (2010) Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith. Oxford: Berg. 

Samah Selim (2010) Book Review: Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Jadaliyya. Available at http:// 

Leila Ahmad (2011) A Quiet Revolution: A History of the Veil, from the Middle East to America. Yale University Press.

Fatima El-Tayeb (2011) European others: queering ethnicity in postnational Europe. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Nadia Fadil (2011) Not-/Unveiling as an Ethical Practice. Feminist Review 98, pp. 83–109.

Sarah Bracke and Nadia Fadil (2012) ‘Is the headscarf oppressive or emancipatory?’ Field notes from the multicultural debate. Religion and Gender 2(1), pp. 36-56.

Fatima El-Tayeb (2012) ‘Gays who cannot properly be gay’: Queer Muslims in the neoliberal European city. European Journal of Women's Studies 19(1), pp. 79-95.

Lila Abu-Lughod (2013) “Introduction: Rights and Lives” and “Do Muslim women (still) need saving?,” in Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, pp. 1-54.

Reina Lewis (2013) “Hijab Stories: Choice, Politics, Fashion,” in Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson (Eds.) Fashion Cultures Revisited. Theories, Explorations and Analysis (Second edition). London: Routledge, pp. 305-321.

Anne Norton (2013) On the Muslim Question. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Print copy available at QMUL Library.

Jasbir K. Puar (2013) Rethinking homonationalism. International Journal of Middle East Studies 45(2), pp. 336-339.

Salima Bouyarden (2013) “Political participation of European Muslims in France and the United Kingdom,” in Jorgen S. Nielsen (Ed.) Muslim Political Participation in Europe. Edinburgh University Press. Print copy available at QMUL Library.

Heidi Safia Mirza (2013) ‘A second skin’: Embodied intersectionality, transnationalism and narratives of identity and belonging among Muslim women in Britain. Women's Studies International Forum 36, pp. 5-15.

Sîan Hawthorne (2014) “Entangled Subjects: Feminism, Religion and the Obligation to Alterity,” in Mary Evans, Clare Hemmings, Marsha Henry, Hazel Johnstone, Sumi Madhok, Ania Plomien and Sadie Wearing (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Feminist Theory. London: Sage, pp. 114-130.

Mary Evans (2014) “Religion, Feminist Theory and Epistemology,” in Mary Evans, Clare Hemmings, Marsha Henry, Hazel Johnstone, Sumi Madhok, Ania Plomien and Sadie Wearing (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Feminist Theory. London: Sage, pp. 131-142.

Douglas T. Northrop (2016) Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Deniz Kandiyoti (2016) “The paradoxes of masculinity: Some thoughts on segregated societies,” in Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne (Eds.) Dislocating masculinity: Comparative ethnographies. London: Routledge, pp. 201-216.

Reina Lewis (2016) Hijabs: The Politics and Price of Cloth, The Funambulist 03. Accessible at https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/03-clothing-politics/hijabs-politics-price-cloth-reina-lewis

Serene J. Khader (2016) Do Muslim Women Need Freedom? Traditionalist Feminisms and Transnational Politics. Politics & Gender 12, pp. 727–753.

Danièle Joly and Khursheed Wadia (2017) Muslim Women and Power: Political and civic engagement in West European societies. Palgrave.

Abeera Khan (2021) In defence of an unalienated politic: a critical appraisal of the ‘No Outsiders’ protests. Feminist Review 128, pp. 132–147.

Faisal Hanif (2022) Nusrat Ghani case: How Islamophobia in Britain crosses party lines. Middle East Eye.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan (2022) “The feminist and queer-friendly West? The patriarchal rest?,” in Tangled in Terror. Uprooting Islamophobia. London: Pluto Press, pp. 135-148.

Finally, you may also want to read the following edited collections: 

Sabrina Mahfouz (Ed.) (2017) The things I would tell you: British Muslim women write. London: Saqi. Print copy available at QMUL Library.

Mariam Khan (Ed.) (2019) It's not about the burqa : Muslim women on faith, feminism, sexuality and race. London: Picador. Print copy available at QMUL Library.