Paper Short Abstract:

To commit to decolonisation without succumbing to teleological imperial progressivism, it is crucial to recognize that categories of privilege and marginalisation may not neatly align, forcing us to embrace paradoxes. My contribution addresses those in the study of women in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Paper Abstract:

In many ways, women in the Muslim Brotherhood have been studied under the lens of “Islamic” or “Islamist” feminism. While anthropological studies dispel notions that women in Islamic movements are powerless or trivial in their political engagement, Islamist women remain excluded from decolonising practices embedded in secular, progressivist norms.

If intersectional feminism teaches us that marginalisation and privilege are not mutually exclusive but coexist, I ask: can we go beyond binary understandings of womanhood within religion and politics broadly, or the Muslim Brotherhood specifically: as good/bad, liberated/oppressed?

To truly decolonize academia without succumbing to teleological imperial progressivism, it is crucial to recognize that categories like queerness, womanhood, indigeneity, colonized and racialized do not necessarily intersect altogether. Despite studying the history of women in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood since 2018, I have not disclosed my queerness to participants to maintain rapport. Nevertheless, drawing from queer, feminist, and indigenous scholarship is essential to explore a region subjected to imperialism and dehumanization, yet central to postcolonial studies.

In the West Asia and North-African context amid the global war on terror, reevaluating Islamic epistemologies as indigenous to the Islamic world becomes pivotal. Rather than dehumanizing or de-nationalizing them, my approach refrains from romanticizing Islamism while highlighting the dynamism of Islamic movements, with the Muslim Brotherhood serving as a significant case study.

Embracing these paradoxes holds implications for understanding indigenous feminisms, nation-building, and dissent beyond Eurocentric traditions. My contribution contextualizes these dynamics on indigenous terms within their cultural context, challenging prevailing (white) Eurocentric/Anglophone intellectual traditions.