Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India: A Study of Social Justice, Identity and Agency in Assam

Description

Based on empirical research in India, this book presents a post-colonial feminist analysis of subjectivities available to Muslim girls and the ways in which they are inhabited and negotiated. Examining government education policies together with the narratives of teachers and parents, the author explores the manner in which gender, class, ethnicity and religion intersect both to confer certain subjectivities and to challenge or reinforce the conferred subjectivities. A study of the imposition of subjectivities that label Muslim girls as economically subordinate and culturally different, Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India analyses Muslim girls’ reconstructions of self through a combination of reflexivity, resilience and agency, and conformity. Drawing on the thought of Pierre Bourdieu and Nancy Fraser, this volume offers an original contribution to the study of gendered minorities, institutions and relationships in post-colonial contexts, and an alternative to identitarian politics or cultural explanations of Muslim women’s educational deprivation in India. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and gender studies with interests in education, class, religion and identity. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations Acknowledgement 1. Introduction 1.1 Girls as ‘new’ idealised citizen subject and education 1.2 Discursive displacements: Muslim women and girls in India 1.3 Politics of identity and belonging in Assam 1.4 Situating the research questions – theoretical and empirical contributions 1.5 Contextualising the ‘field’: Nagaon 1.6 ‘Feminist’ research methods: sampling and data collection 1.7 Structure of the book Notes 2. Social justice, politics of authorisation, and agency: theoretical conundrums in the study of contemporary Muslim girlhoods 2.1 Sociocultural vs economic disadvantages 2.2 Muslim women’s gender rights vs minority rights of the Muslim community 2.3 Multiple axes of power– class, gender, ethnicity, and religion 2.4 Agency vs victimhood 2.5 Conclusion: breaking the impasse 3. Framing ‘difference’: Muslim girls and educational policy regime in India 3.1 The policy framework: educational and cultural rights of gendered minorities 3.2 Universal education policies 3.3 Minorities and educational equality: the case of pre- and post-matric scholarships for students from minority communities 3.4 Conclusion: education for Muslims as ‘Muslim’ education Notes 4. Teachers’ narrative: framing ‘difference’ as pathological 4.1 Appearance as ‘pathological’ 4.2 Material deficit as ‘cultural’ deficit 4.3 Lacking in merit 4.4 Linguistic difference 4.5 Class, ethnicised and gendered ‘difference’ of Muslim girls: everyday pathologies Notes 5. Good girls and good families: symbolic capital and cultural authorisation 5.1 Negotiating the materiality of poverty ‘respectably’ 5.2 Prioritisation of gendered discipline 5.3 Appropriate aspiration: merger of career aspirations with marital prospects 5.4 Conclusion: arbitrating cultural authorisation and acquiring symbolic capital Notes 6. Reflexive selves: Muslim girls’ (re)constructions of ‘self ’ 6.1 The ‘good (Indian) Muslim’ self 6.2 Proud ‘Miyah’ self 6.3 Decently modern self 6.4 The aspirational victim self 6.5 Conclusion: (re)constructing ‘self’, bidding for cultural authorisations Notes 7. Conclusion: from narratives ‘about’ Muslim girls to Muslim girls’ narratives of ‘self ’ 7.1 The politics of Muslim girlhoods: beyond identity 7.2 Theorising Muslim girlhoods 7.3 Authorisation of pathological subjectivity 7.4 Bids for cultural authorisation: about ‘good families’ and ‘good girlhoods’ 7.5 Reflexive selfhoods 7.6 Limitations of the current research and future research outlook Bibliography Index