Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Comparative Studies

The concept of agency in Muslim women's lives is often approached in binary terms. On one side is the global liberatory paradigm that equates agency with resistance to restrictions and views it as incompatible with Islam. On the opposite side is the Islamic feminist argument that locates agency in women's deliberate acts of ethical self-formation and working within religious structures. Both these approaches come with certain limitations. First, they overlook the large group of "ordinary Muslim" women whose agency is not shaped either in opposition or conscious submission to religion. Second, they measure women's relation to larger structures by relying on a limited understanding of agency as autonomous will enacted through individual actions. To surpass these limitations, I apply a folkloristic approach to the study of Muslim women's social life. I present three ethnographic cases from my 2017-18 fieldwork with Iranian-American Muslim women in Southern California: a popular domestic Shia ritual, several Quran discussion sessions, and a women's charity club engaged in cultural programs. Using these cases and engaging the scholarship in anthropology of Islam, feminist folklore, and vernacular religion, my dissertation explores 1) how agency is formed, dispersed, and negotiated through social actions, shared performances, and sociability practices in everyday lives of Muslim women--rather than tied to individual acts of piety or resistance, and 2) how Muslim women's agency is formed in relation to external and internal sources of power that transcend the presumed force of religion and tradition in their lives. In other words, I argue for rethinking the very terms of the debate with regard to agency, Muslimness, and the assumption of women's unanimity. For example, I show that women who participate in Quranic sessions frequently argue--with different degrees of authority--over the true meaning and application of Quran in their lives as Muslim women in the US. Women (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dorothy Noyes (Advisor); Morgan Liu (Committee Member); Katherine Borland (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Folklore; Gender; Middle Eastern Studies; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Religion; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Comparative Studies

Sikhs are members of a religion founded in the 15th century. Most hail from the Punjab, a cultural/linguistic region now divided between India and Pakistan. However, Sikhs are globally dispersed, both within India and around the globe, and maintain strong communities in diverse locations. Most existing studies of the Sikh diaspora focus on communities in Europe or settler colonial societies such as Canada and the United States, and the majority overlook the histories and experiences of women. My dissertation, by contrast, investigates Sikhs living as a minority community within India, 1,500 miles south of the Sikh cultural and religious center in Punjab, with a focus on women. Sustained contradictions mark Punjabi Sikh women's culturally hybrid lifestyles in Chennai, which women perceive as moving between cosmopolitanism and the maintenance of traditional gender roles and cultural values. I examine how women's rituals, narratives, and everyday practices are both a response to and reaction against hegemonic expectations, such as the expectation that women should not socialize outside the home unnecessarily. Focusing on the discourses around and performances of Sikh women's religious practices in Chennai, my dissertation pursues three objectives: 1) Analyzing how Punjabi Sikh women in Chennai negotiate their religious and cultural identities and hierarchies within and without the frames of institutionalized religion and Punjabi cultural expectations and norms; 2) Describing and theorizing the ways that being a Sikh woman in Chennai creates relationships and understandings of Punjab and Tamil Nadu; and 3) Contextualizing women's public and private religious gathering places and the religious, social, and cultural discourses and narratives invoked through them. My study shows how women's conceptualization and maintenance of cultural obligations simultaneously challenge and affirm established gender norms within Sikh culture, religiosity, and sacred space, offering bo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Amy Shuman Dr. (Advisor); Hugh Urban Dr. (Advisor); Mytheli Srinivas Dr. (Committee Member); Murphy Anne Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; Religion; Womens Studies