Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302006
Nina ter Laan
{"title":"“Assalamu ʿAlaykum, Can We Add This Sister?”","authors":"Nina ter Laan","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the use of a WhatsApp chat group by Dutch and Belgian Muslim women (born or converted), who are considering or made hijra (religiously inspired migration to a Muslim country) to Morocco. I argue that WhatsApp plays a crucial role in facilitating and narrating these women’s migration by providing a support network and shaping a gendered sense of community and religious belonging. Drawing on theories of religion and gender, migration, and digital media, I conceptualize WhatsApp in the context of hijra to Morocco as a social practice of homemaking that helps alleviate the precarious conditions these women find themselves in. This article also illustrates the complex entanglement of offline and online realities by highlighting how my interlocutors’ interactions in this WhatsApp group foster a trans-local Muslim ‘sisterhood,’ that informs their offline practices and experiences of hijra to Morocco.","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44572772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302001
Véronique Lecaros, Samuel Asenjo Alvarado
{"title":"Masculinity Challenged?","authors":"Véronique Lecaros, Samuel Asenjo Alvarado","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article aims to present some of the results of our investigation on prisoners’ conversion into Evangelical churches, amongst (ex)convicts in Piura, a Peruvian Northern city and in Lima. Our objective is to research highly debated and understudied topics about this type of process of conversion: whether it is an individual process or a strategy to gain protection from the church in a dangerous surrounding (Algranti)? Which changes do (ex)convicts undergo through conversion, especially in ways of enacting virile masculinity, a very important feature of gang members and of Evangelical churches? Many (ex)convicts’ religious careers oscillate between extremes, from delinquency to strict church discipline, until some of them may stabilize. We argue that in spite of conversion and apparent changes in behaviors, the social religious imaginary (Morello), especially in terms of ideals of masculinity, remains almost unchanged, based on relations of power, fights and domination. (Ex)convicts pass from a “perverse” version of masculinity to a “virtuous” one (Fuller). For them, the ideal of femininity remains rooted in submissive women.","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46911772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302005
Lucy Spoliar, Julia Martínez-Ariño
{"title":"A Conversation with Dr Julia Martínez-Ariño","authors":"Lucy Spoliar, Julia Martínez-Ariño","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44412732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302008
Vanessa Rau
{"title":"Between Symbolic Distancing and Following Desires","authors":"Vanessa Rau","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Over the past decades, Judaism and Jewishness have been subject to transformation and more fluid boundaries. This article looks at women’s conversions to Judaism in Germany. Analyzing differing biographical trajectories, the article shows how individuals negotiate their desire to become Jewish, which is often closely related to an experience in Israel and a Jewish partner. Arguing that the context makes the conversion, I show how desires and negotiations are deeply entangled with the socio-historical context of German society as well as with the erotic and sexuality. I demonstrate how becoming Jewish presents a way of symbolically distancing oneself from biographical experiences of difference, which are negotiated in and through the conversion. As these conversions are not uncontested, I also show how becoming part of Jewish socialities evokes a negotiation of one’s positionality at the intersection of gender and religion.","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49141775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302003
Nella van den Brandt, Mariecke van den Berg, Béracha Meijer
{"title":"Producing Authenticity, Difference and Extremism","authors":"Nella van den Brandt, Mariecke van den Berg, Béracha Meijer","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, we explore the framing of religious converts by Dutch and Flemish newspapers in the period 1991–2017. We focus on the differences and commonalities in ways of talking about religious conversions to Christianity and Islam. Our approach is to probe the ‘figure’ of the convert: How is the religious convert framed and understood? We present a typology of figures of the religious convert emerging from our material, including the ‘authentic seeker’, the ‘exemplary believer’, the ‘cultural other’, the ‘victim’, the ‘opportunist’ and the ‘extremist’. This approach allows us to explore how newspapers promote particular notions of conversion, and to show that the framing of religious converts is mediated by religion, gender, race and citizenship.","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44368810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302007
A. Korte
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Issue “Contested Conversions”","authors":"A. Korte","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302007","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of Religion and Gender on Contested Conversions presents seven articles related to the programme “Beyond ‘Religion versus Emancipation’: Women’s Conversions to Judaism, Christianity and Islam in Contemporary Western Europe” of the Dutch Research Council, which was executed between 2016 and 2022 at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. This programme and the key insights into which it has resulted will be presented here, followedby an introduction to the seven articles. Iwould like to take this opportunity to thank Karin van Nieuwkerk, who has co-edited this issue with me.","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49375770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302004
Karin van Nieuwkerk
{"title":"“Islam Is My Washing Line”","authors":"Karin van Nieuwkerk","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Although conversion is an ongoing religious journey, it is rarely studied as such. This article provides a longitudinal study of conversion to Islam by Dutch women. People who recently convert might firmly hold on to their new convictions, not providing space for doubts and uncertainty, whereas studying the long-term process also gives insights into moments of weak belief, doubts, and ambivalence, or growing faith and spirituality. Not only these internal contestations are important to examine, also the context of the conversion narrative can change over time. Conversion is a contested issue, yet which aspects of the conversion are contested can shift due to societal debates on Islam. This article conceptualizes the conversion experience as a contextual narrative of the ongoing religious transformation of the ‘self’ in relation to different ‘others’ over time.","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42308334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1163/18785417-01302002
M. Vliek
{"title":"Let’s Talk about Gender","authors":"M. Vliek","doi":"10.1163/18785417-01302002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-01302002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Within Europe, gender and Islam have a complex and often polarised discursive history. Whilst some find only repression of women in patriarchal and religious structures, others hail Islam as the birthplace of emancipation. This article explores the experiences of women who have moved out of Islam in both the Netherlands and the UK and finds that many navigate in between these narratives of suppression and liberation. The aim of this article is twofold: based on 22 life-history interviews, it firstly explores gendered experiences whilst growing up (from personal experienced inequality to observing theological or legislative problems), which may have led to various degrees of doubt or distress. It further unpacks gendered embodied experiences, such as veiling, modesty or mosque attendance as having relative importance when moving out of Islam. Secondly, this article elaborates on how these women position themselves, within religious and secular expectations of what it means to be a former Muslim woman. It explores their positionality in a polarised debate: how did they relate to the discourses of suppression and liberation, from either secular(ised) or religious environs?","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45504083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Religion & genderPub Date : 2023-07-31DOI: 10.1163/18785417-tat00007
Ilse Swart
{"title":"The Gospel of Inclusion: A Christian Case for LGBT+ Inclusion in the Church , by Brandan J. Robertson","authors":"Ilse Swart","doi":"10.1163/18785417-tat00007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-tat00007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":92716,"journal":{"name":"Religion & gender","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43336059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}