Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-111). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

This thesis concerns female Islamic dress, the hijab, in contemporary urban Finland. The hijab is not merely a symbol or an inevitable embodiment of either female oppression or agency, but rather is a form of dress that is simultaneously social, mental, material, and spatial. The approach developed here captures the multiple dimensions of the hijab as it is lived and experienced. The thesis draws upon ideas from a range of social theorists, including Bourdieu, Lefebvre, Goffman, and Gramsci. These ideas are deployed to understand the conscious and semi-conscious dress strategies and practices that veiling Muslim women use to manage various everyday issues and challenges. I investigate questions concerning how social, material and spatial relations both impact upon, and are negotiated by, the wearing of the hijab. The research was conducted in Helsinki using ethnographic methods, such as semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The main groups of informants were Finnish converts to Islam, Somalis, and Shi'a Muslims from Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, and the sample covered women of various ages, educational backgrounds, and professional positions. The empirical chapters are organised according to four major themes: Politics, Materiality, Performance, and Visibility in Public Space. According to the findings, Muslim women in Finland negotiate their dress strategies with reference to Finnish ‘mainstream' society, religious doctrine and the demands of their particular ethnic communities. Dress strategies and practices are found to be bound up in complex but identifiable ways with factors such as fashion markets and dress availability, diverse modes of embodiment and habituation, and the socio-spatial relations which produce and are produced by the Finnish built environment. In sum, by focussing on the lived experience of wearing the hijab, many of the more simplistic politicised understandings of Muslim women and their characteristic forms of dress can be challenged and superseded.

No description available.

Understanding how disability is perceived from a cultural perspective, helps create knowledge about the issues related to disability in a particular culture. It helps to understand how much cultural beliefs impact the social status of a person with a disability in a society. In addition to culture, religion also plays a significant role in most South Asian people’s lives. This thesis explores the lives of South Asian Muslim immigrant women in Winnipeg with various disabilities in order to obtain a specific cultural as well as religious perspective on disability in the form of personal stories. A descriptive thematic analysis was performed on the data collected directly from participants. The thematic analysis attempts to understand the meaning of disability from the participants’ and community’s perspective. / October 2016

Magister Artium - MA / Muslim women’s lack of access to mosque space has left them with few opportunities to direct or influence the interpretation of the theological texts. The mosque is an almost strictly gendered space that is seen as a key platform from which Muslims are exhorted to fulfill existing obligations and where new practices emerge as part of the creation of tradition in the Muslim community. I would further like to argue that it is the acts and interventions of the women who have claimed Islam and its belief system in its entirety as their own and then shaped this to fit their lives that will enable Muslims to rethink existing attitudes to women in Muslim communities.

Abstract not available

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-134).

This paper examines coverage of the 1985-1986 Shah Bano Debate in three nonmainstream periodicals: the Organiser, Muslim India, and Manushi. I perform a close reading of these sources to problematize the image of the "Muslim woman" presented in mainstream Indian media at this time. Such an examination necessitates a discussion of women's right versus the rights of minority religious communities in India. I also examine the background to this debate, namely the Shah Bano judgment itself and the environment in which it occurred.

No description available.

No description available.