Paper short abstract:

The paper reflects research on the negotiation of global development concepts by Muslim women in Senegal. Doing research on various societal levels entailed a permanent crossing of boundaries, challenging stereotyped oppositions between 'the West' and 'the Muslim world', academics and activists.

Paper long abstract:

The paper reflects on research on the negotiation of global development concepts such as "gender equality" or "women's rights" by Muslim women in Senegal, carried out in the framework of a comparative research project on the negotiation of development in different Muslim societies. It refers to the exciting and confusing experience of doing fieldwork among Senegalese women organised in different kinds of structures on different societal levels, ranging from NGOs, academic and state institutions, to diverse political, cultural, or economically oriented groups and associations, including religious organisations of different kinds. Interacting with women in these different fields meant a transgression of boundaries and an engagement in relations with shifting, partly adopted and partly rejected identities (as anthropologist, sociologist, possible donor, possible convert, and last but not least as mother of a child with a Senegalese Muslim father). While participant observation during fieldwork was oscillating between participation as an insider and as an outsider, the research process as such opened other dimensions of participation: it meant to be part of a trans-local space constituted by (mostly female and some male) academics and activists, who are engaged in different ways in the de- and re-construction of identities. Transgression is an important aspect of this space, where discursive boundaries and stereotyped oppositions (between "the West" and "the Muslim world") are challenged, transformed and re-invented. Reflecting on this encounter (between "we" academics, and "the other" activists, Muslim feminists, etc.), crossing boundaries based on territory, gender-order, social, cultural or religious norms, the papers also intends to present a perspective on the transgression of disciplinary boundaries (sociology - anthropology).