Negotiating Empowerment: A Critical Ethnography of Hijabi Women in Sarajevo
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Author
Jevtić, Jana
Journal
Supplement Series for the Journal of Religion & Society
Supplement Series for the Journal of Religion & Society
Editor(s)
Simkins, Ronald A.; Roddy, Nicolae
Simkins, Ronald A.; Roddy, Nicolae
Volume
19
19
Date
2019Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This ethnographic study explores the daily enactments and negotiations of self and religious practice performed by hijabi women living in Sarajevo, a city marked by gender inequality in social and economic rights on one hand, and civil and political rights on the other. Against this backdrop of severely challenged positions in both public and private spheres, ten women share stories that reveal how embracing and reinterpreting faith can be an act of personal fulfilment and moral regeneration. It is also a public actualization of agency that problematizes the hegemonic narrative of Islamophobia which renders hijabi women oppressed and disempowered. Keywords: Islam, gender, piety, identity politics, empowerment