Contentious Theoretical Issues: Third World Feminisms and Identity Politics

Author(s): Lila Abu-Lughod

Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3/4, Internationalizing the Curriculum (Fall -
Winter, 1998), pp. 25-29
Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York
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Contentious Theoretical Issues:
Third World Feminisms and
Identity Politics
Lila Abu-Lughod

I come to "contentioustheoreticalissues"from my own local experi-

ence of workingon gender as a MiddleEastanthropologist.If one is
either interestedin promotingfeministscholarshipwithinarea stud-
ies or in introducingan internationalperspective,or even a socialsci-
ence or anthropological perspective, within feminist studies, one
confrontssignificantand distinctproblemsand divides.Withinarea
studies,the main problemis thatone cannotget everyoneto be inter-
ested in scholarshipon gender and that those doing such workget
labeled and ghettoized.For example,MiddleEastgender studieshas
become a whole subfield with its own fairlylarge literature and its
debates. How can one get others not in this subfield to read one's
books, to take this importantscholarshipseriously?
On the other hand,withinfeministstudiesin the academy,those of
us who workon areasoutside the United Statesand WesternEurope
face differentissues.Some discomfortarisesfromthe factthatwe seem
to be a minority.The field continues to be dominated (even afterthe
gesturestowarddifference, multiculturalism,race, and so forth) by
people who workon Euro-Americansocieties and white women and
men. Furthermore,the greatesttheoreticalactivityand thus the pres-
tigious core of theorizing in feminist studies seems still to be in the
humanities,literarytheoryand philosophyin particular.The hottest
areastoday- performancetheory,queertheory,and culturalstudies-
can lie at some distancefrom the workof the empiricallygrounded
disciplines,like anthropologyand history,aswell as from thatof schol-
arswho takeup the concernsof the women theyworkwithin verydif-
ferent- non-U.S.- contexts.Feministhistoriansand anthropologists
who studywomen and gender in differenterasand regionsoften can-
not be asfreewiththeory,interpretation,and speculationas colleagues
in literatureand philosophy;to whatextent is it even fair to theorize
about the psyches or sexualities of dead or distant subjects?These
scholarsalso feel bound to representthe particularinterestsand lives
of those theystudy,a commitmentsometimesinconsistentwithgrand

25
26 Women'sStudiesQuarterly1998: 3 6s 4

theoreticalgestures.But perhapsthis situationis changing.Forexam-

ple, TheGender/ SexualityReader,a new reader edited by two anthro-
pologists,RogerLancasterand Micaeladi Leonardo,locatesitselfby
posing ethnographicand historicalanalysis(and especiallyhistorical
political-economicinterpretation)againsttextualanalysisand "post-
modernist"culturaltheory;yet the articlesit includesbridge this gap
between the empiricaland the theoretical.1Furthermore,the collec-
tion is resolutelycross-culturaland attentiveto issuesof race.
The most contentiousissuesfacedby thosewho wantto thinkinter-
nationally about gender have, in my experience, centered on the
meanings, history,and implications of feminism in cross-cultural,
Third World,or minoritycontexts. I experience this tension in one
formin my teachingand in anotherin myscholarlywork.In teaching,
I find myselfstrugglingoverhow to presentgendersystemsin societies
foreign to students. As an anthropologist, I want to teach them to
appreciatethat othersdo not live as theydo and that theirsystemsfor
organizinggender relationsmaybe differentfrombut are not inferior
to ours;as a feminist, I would want to be criticalof systemsof domi-
nation,especiallyaroundgender.The dilemmais:how to teachappre-
ciation without apology and criticismwithout ethnocentrism?This
dilemmacomes up especiallywhen I tryto teach about practiceslike
veiling or female genital mutilation.

Dilemmas in Middle East Feminism

In my scholarlyworldof MiddleEastgender studies,I experiencethe
contentiousissuesof feminismand the ThirdWorlddifferently.Since
the 1980s,one of the key struggleshas been about who has the right
to speakaboutor for women in particularcommunities,either in cer-
tain partsof the worldor within majoritywhite cultures.I have been
luckybecause,as a hyphenatedPalestinian,mysubjectpositionas both
insiderand outsider,both partof and outsidethe communitiesI work
on and writeabout, has put me in a mediatingrole.
Within Middle Eastgender studies there has been an increasing
presence of excellent scholars of Turkish,Iranian,Egyptian,Saudi
Arabian,and Lebanesebackground.The field has been enriched by
much productive work, collaboration, and debate, the most com-
pelling nowadaysbeing on the subject of Islamic feminism and
whether or not it is possible or dangerous,to be allied with or to be
fought.However,therehavebeen some nastycasesof conflictbetween
women from the region (usuallyteaching at U.S. universities) and
NorthAmericanwomen.
Women'sStudiesQuarterly1998: 3&4 27

I want to consider these fault lines and then to offer some sugges-
tions about what one might do intellectually,borrowing from the
insightsof postcolonialtheory,to negotiate a waybeyond the binary
that opposes Eastto Westand beyondits correspondingidentitypoli-
tics.Overthe pastten yearsa debatehas crystallizedaroundthe place
of and claimsto feminismin the MiddleEast,especiallyEgypt.On one
side there is not only carefulresearchon, but a sympatheticcelebra-
tion of, Egyptianfeministsof the firsthalfof the century.Theyare rep-
resented as "indigenous"feministsbecause of their nationalismand
their positivestatementsaboutworkingwithinthe culture,including
Islam.As it has developed,these argumentshavebeen made more by
U.S. scholars. On the other hand, some arguments by scholars of
MiddleEastoriginsaboutcolonialfeminismcondemnthese earlyfem-
inistsas inauthenticbecauseWesternizedand sometimeslook to dis-
tanthopesof an Islamicfeminismthatmightbe viewedandexperienced
as vernacular.2
WhenI triedto look criticallyat the ties to modernismof earlyfem-
inist projects, I found myself caught in the midst of this debate.
Becauseof this painful historyof argument,stances about Egyptian
feminismcould not be severedfrom the context of priorpersonalhis-
toriesand positions.Forexample,the historianwho has done the most
thoroughworkon the EgyptianFeministUnion, who also happensto
be NorthAmerican(though long based in Egypt),expressesthe sen-
timentthatforeign scholarsand feministswouldfeel precludedfrom
participatingin the societies they studied if the mixture of cultures
representedby these earlier Egyptianfeministswere treated as any-
thing but an indigenousamalgam.This interpretationitselfis thus an
argumentfor contemporaryinclusivenessand a refusalof the East-
Westdivide.

Complex Identities
The intensityof these debatesforcedme to thinkmore carefullyabout
whatexactlyI was tryingto do. I had wanted to examine the links of
Egyptianfeminism to colonial projects and ideas without counter-
poising it to some pure, other possibility.I ended up arguingin the
introduction to my book, RemakingWomen:Feminismand Modernityin
theMiddleEast,that, as MargotBadrannotes, one must escape the
binarythinkingthatpositsa rigidlydistinctWestand Eastand assumes
thereforea crudedynamicthatcorrespondto thisdivision:slavishimi-
tation or culturalloss on the one hand versusnationalistresistance
and culturalpreservationon the other.4But one must also recognize
28 Women'sStudiesQuarterly1998: 3&4

that the verycategoriesof "East"and "West," and the notion that they
are utterlyseparatecultures,are colonial legaciesinextricablytied to
colonial,and now postcolonial,politics.
Two implications follow for how to approach Third Worldfemi-
nism.First,one should analyzeparticulardynamicsthatchallengethe
divide;for instance, I devote one chapter to tracing contemporary
Islamistrhetoricabout feminism,which repudiatesfor politicalpur-
poses certain aspectsof feminism as Western-derived,while normal-
izingand barelyquestioningother aspects,especiallythosewithbroad
support in the middle and lower-middleclasses. The clear divide
between cultures disappearswhen one examines complex histories
of entanglement.
At the same time, however,one mustnot shyawayfrom interrogat-
ing the genealogyof feminism,in the sense of a movementdedicated
to achievingpolitical,social,and economic rightsfor women, even if
the endeavorcrossestrickyboundaries.This has been done produc-
tivelyfor othermodernmovementsand conceptslike nationalismand,
as some theoristslike ParthaChatterjeeand TalalAsadnowargue,sec-
ularism.5Provocatively,Chatterjeehas suggested that secularismin
Indiahas an indisputableEuropeangenealogy,indexed among other
wayslinguistically.Asadhas long arguedthat secularism(and its pre-
requisite"religion")emergedin the historyof Christianity. Ratherthan
being a universalidea, it is therefore a local one, tied to a particular
historyin Europe that one can examine. Further,one can trace the
waysin which, when linked to colonial and modernistlawin a place
like Egyptor India,it wastransformedand transformative.
It seemsto me thatfeministprojectsmustbe seen as similarlyrooted
in sets of ideas about politics, law,rights, personhood, and commu-
nity- ideaspartof a modernitythatis both relatedin fundamentalways
to Europeand its colonizationof the MiddleEastand at the sametime
developed in particularwaysin the MiddleEast.That such ideas and
projectsdeveloped in complex interactionwith Europeannotions in
societiesshapedby the encounterwitha more powerfulEuropeis not
to denytheirrelevanceto the communitiesthatmadeuse of them.Nor
is it to underestimatethe waysthat such ideaswere selectivelyappro-
priatedaccordingto local needs and in termsof local struggles.It is to
begin to askhowtheseideasthatinformedprojectsof reformand polit-
ical struggle around women were deployed as part of projects of
power- colonial and nationalist- as well as how theywere translated
and renegotiated.Is it possibleto do both:recognizethe powerof the
colonialencounter,signaledby the term"postcolonial" in speakingof
these societies,and not exaggerateit by obliteratingthe specificitiesof
Women'sStudiesQuarterly1998: 3&4 29

local experienceand culture?Is it possibleto accept the notion of an

amalgam,without attributing to it the authenticity that the term
"indigenous"evokes,and recognizingits class-basedexclusions?
If those of us who are both feminists and specialistsin particular
area studieswantour area studiescolleaguesnot workingon gender
to take it more seriously,we need to make sure that they don't find a
snake pit when they venture into the world of feminist scholarship.
And if we wantour feministcolleaguesto take more of an interestin
the worldbeyondthe bordersof NorthAmericaand Europe,or in the
experiences of "ThirdWorld"women within those borders,we have
to make sure that they won't immediatelyencounter recriminations
over their identities that arise from similar binary constructions.
Carefulcriticaland historicalthinkingaboutthe contendingpositions
this age of identitypoliticscreatesis probablythe firststep.
NOTES
This essaywasfirstpresented as partof a panel on "contentioustheoretical
issues"at the Women's Studies, Area, and International Studies Project
Directorsconference,cosponsoredby the FordFoundationand the National
Councilfor Researchon Womenin October1997.
1. RogerLancasterand Micaeladi Leonardo, TheGender/ Reader:
Sexuality
Culture,History, Political Economy(London and New York: Routledge,
1997).
2. Although the literature on Middle East feminisms is now very rich and
complex, the classic positions are to be found in Margot Badran, Feminists,
Islam, and Nation (Princeton University Press, 1994) and Leila Ahmed,
Womenand Genderin Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992),
respectively.
3. Margot Badran, "AlternativeVisions of Gender," Al-AhramWeekly13-19
(February 1997): 11; and personal communication.
4. Lila Abu-Lughod, ed. Remaking Women:Feminism and Modernityin the
MiddleEast (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
5. Partha Chatterjee, "ReligiousMinorities and the Secular State: Reflections
on an Indian Impasse," Public Culture8, no. 1:11-39; Talal Asad, Genea-
logiesof Religion(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).

Lila Abu-Lughod teaches anthropology at New YorkUniversity. She has writ-

ten widely on women and gender in the Middle East, work based on many years
offieldwork in Egypt. Her most recent books are Writing Women's Worlds:
Bedouin Storiesand RemakingWomen:Feminismand Modernityin
the Middle East. She is currently working on a study of the role of Egyptian
television soap operas in national debates and local lives.

Copyright© 1998 by Lila Abu-Lughod