[Bilimsel Haber] Book review: _Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion and Space_

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Ghazi-Walid Falah and Caroline Nagel, eds. Geographies of Muslim Women:
Gender, Religion and Space. New York: Guildford Press, 2005. viii + 337
pp. Index. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 1-593-85183-9; $30.00 (paper), ISBN
1-572-30134-1.
*Reviewed by:* Peter Hopkins, Department of Geography, Lancaster University.
*Published by:* H-HistGeog <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/%7Ehistgeog/>
(July, 2006)

This is, in many ways, an impressive collection, highlighting, as it
does, the ways in which religion shapes the experiences of Muslim women
and influences their everyday spatiality. The collection is structured
around three sections: gender, development and religion; geographies of
mobility; and discourse, representation and the contestation of space;
and it includes contributions from a range of graduate students, early
career researchers and experienced academics. The coverage of this
collection and the standard of the various contributions suggest that
this is likely to be a landmark collection in human geography. Not only
will this book be relevant to researchers working in religion, gender
studies and human geography more generally, the various contributions
will be invaluable for undergraduate courses exploring connected issues.

There are many aspects of this edited collection that are impressive.
First, the editors have brought together a collection of works that
embrace a wide range of subfields of geography, including, but not
limited to, development studies, demography, economic approaches and
gender studies. Moreover, the contributors also adopt a wide range of
methods and methodologies, including ethnographic approaches,
interviewing and content analysis. Second, and connected to the previous
point, the geographical coverage of this collection brings to life the
experiences of Muslim women in a variety of contexts, including Asia,
Africa, Europe and North America, in a range of urban and rural
contexts. Third, I think that one of the key strengths of Geographies of
Muslim Women is the way in which it clearly demonstrates how Muslim
femininities are constructed in relation to Muslim masculinities as well
as the gendered identities of non-Muslims, and so it adopts an open,
flexible and relational approach to understandings of gendered identities.

Having read Geographies of Muslim Women, there are four chapters in
particular that stand out as being particularly influential in their
arguments, original in their approach, and constructively composed and
well written. These are the contributions by Sarah Halvorson, Rachel
Silvey, Robina Mohammad and Anna Secor, all of which make significant
contributions to knowledge and understandings of the everyday gendered
experiences of Muslim women in different contexts.

Sarah Halvorson's chapter empirically explores the experiences of girls
growing up in Northern Pakistan. By focusing on the lack of scholarship
on "children's geographies in Muslim societies" (p. 24), this chapter
highlights a number of important issues influencing the gendered
experiences of young Muslim women, including the perceived value of
having a daughter compared with having a son, the role of the economy in
determining young people's experiences, social reproduction and
well-being, and the primary role of the family in the lives of young
women. Overall, this chapter clearly demonstrates the factors
determining the everyday experiences and future trajectories of Muslim
girls as they progress towards adulthood.

Equally impressive is Rachel Silvey's chapter about Indonesian domestic
workers in Saudi Arabia. Drawing upon work on migration, mobility and
transnationalism, this chapter demonstrates the ways in which "people
employ religion to reaffirm, challenge or survive the power relations
structuring their position in this transnational migration network" (p.
129). Here, Silvey emphasizes the ways in which state policies,
household circumstances and gendered migration experiences influence the
circumstances of Muslim women, displaying in particular "the multiple
meanings of Islam to different actors" (p. 140).

Focusing on the importance of school work and home, Robina Mohammad's
contribution to this collection sensitively explores the experiences of
young, working-class, British Pakistani Muslim women. This chapter
explores issues connected with global discourses, such as those
discussed by Silvey; however, I found Mohammad's excavation of the local
and embodied experiences of young Muslim women particularly interesting.
Emphasizing the importance of Muslim women's embodied purity, this
chapter explores the complex ways in which the conduct and behavior of
Muslim women is carefully monitored through the gaze of parents, the
gendering of the workplace and the reinforcement of women as the
"guardians of collective identity" (p. 182).

With the heightening of markers of Muslim identities in recent years, as
a result of events such as September 11, 2001 in New York and the London
bombing of July 7, 2005, Anna Secor's chapter about the "headscarf
issue" (p. 203) is particularly timely. Not only does this chapter
clearly highlight the ways in which practices of dress determine
embodied everyday experiences, it also shows how such practices
influence wider power relations in society. One of the most important
factors demonstrated by this chapter is the way in which the women
consulted by Secor distinguished their own veiling practices from other
women, thereby highlighting that such customs are not fixed and so may
be interpreted in a range of different ways.

In the introduction, Caroline Nagel raised a personal concern: "I have
... been acutely aware that this volume may further reify the category
of 'Muslim woman,' thereby reducing the identities and experiences of
these women to their religious affiliation" (p. 5). Quite to the
contrary, Nagel has little to be concerned about, as this collection has
successfully demonstrated the range of social, cultural, political and
economic factors influencing Muslim women's everyday lives, as well as
the ways in which Muslim women construct, resist and contest assumptions
and stereotypes about their identities, their appearance and their
general behavior and conduct. Furthermore, the collection has firmly
established religion as a focus of inquiry in geography. This collection
makes it clear that Islam is an important influence in how everyday
lives are lived, and an important marker of identity and factor in
cultural change.