Paper short abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork with female converts to Islam, this paper documents their practice and aspirations for self-discipline, whilst also attending to the co-existence of, rather than competition between, the different sensory regimes and moral registers that characterise the conversion experience.

Paper long abstract:

While the relationship between agency, piety and morality has become a key focus of the anthropology of Islam and Muslim societies, this paper argues that questions of ambivalence and contradiction in religious practice need further analysis (see Schielke 2009). How do we account for 'spaces between' piety and practice? Drawing on fieldwork with female converts to Islam at several Melbourne mosque groups, I describe how women who attended the groups were committed to self-cultivation through piety practices, yet were struggling to develop a moral self within a secular context. How do we account for the ambivalence, ambiguity, hesitation and fragmentation that are evident in the narratives of female converts? If the focus is only on claims of piety and morality do we obscure the fact that the experience of female converts is often characterised by competing hopes and desires that cannot always be framed by religious doctrine? In an attempt to understand the experience of conversion, I document the converts' practice and aspirations for self-discipline, whilst also attending to the 'inconsistencies and complexities in their attempts to live virtuous lives' (Marsden 2005: 261). By doing so, I hope to delineate the co-existence of, rather than competition between, different sensory regimes, bodily nuances, interpersonal moments and moral registers that characterise the experience of conversion.