Gender, Governance and Islam

Deniz Kandiyoti is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. She pioneered new research into comparative perspectives on patriarchy and on the implications of global governance, Islam and state policies for the politics of gender in Turkey, post-Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan. 2011–2015 she monitored the effects of the Arab uprisings (as guest editor for 50.50 Open Democracy) analysing new forms of gender-based violence and grass-roots mobilization. Nadje Al-Ali is Robert Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown University. Her main research interests revolve around feminist activism and gendered mobilization, with a focus on Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Kurdish political movement. Her publications include What kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq (University of California Press, 2009, co-authored with Nicola Pratt); Women and War in the Middle East: Transnational Perspectives (Zed Books, 2009, co-edited with Nicola Pratt) and Gender, Governance and Islam (University of Edinburgh, 2019, co-edited with Deniz Kandiyoti and Kathryn Spellman). Kathryn Spellman Poots is Associate Professor at Aga Khan University's Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations in London and Visiting Associate Professor at Columbia University and Academic Program Director for the MA in Islamic Studies. Her research interests include Muslims in Europe and North America, the Iranian diaspora, transnational migration and gender studies.

• Preface Introduction - Beyond Women, Islam and the State: situating the politics of gender in a new century; Deniz Kandiyoti, Nadje Al-Ali and Kathryn Spellman PootsProtest, Resistance and Shifting Gender Orders in Egypt: Crossing Red Lines?; Heba El Kholy and Nadia TaherManufacturing Consent in Iran: From Moral Subjects to (Un)Healthy Citizens; Nazanin ShahrokniSaudi Women: Between Family, Religion and State; Madawi Al-RasheedAgainst all Odds: The Resilience and Fragility of Women’s Gender Activism in Turkey; Deniz KandiyotiDiscrete Moves and Parallel Tracks: Gender Politics in post-2001 Afghanistan; Torunn WimpelmannPalestine: Gender in an Imagined Fragmented Sovereignty; Islah JadIraq: Gendering Violence, Sectarianisms and Authoritarianism; Nadje Al-AliDefiance not Subservience: New Directions in the Pakistani Women’s Movement; Afiya Shehrbano ZiaMuslim Diasporas in Transition: Islam, Gender and New Regimes of Governance; Kathryn Spellman PootsEpilogue – Locating Gender in Contentious PoliticsDeniz KandiyotiBibliographyIndex

What makes the book unique is the breadth of the historical narrative in each chapter. The contributors to the book offer a genealogy of the evolvement of women’s activism in most countries since the early 20th century until the present. The book shows, as Deniz Kandiyoti reflects in her concluding remarks, that the politics of gender remains at the core of the struggle for democracy and human rights.