Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality – serie

Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with borders and subalternity, Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan suggests new frameworks for understanding religious boundaries in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which social categories and structures constitute the bordering logics inherent within enactments of these boundaries, and positions hegemony and resistance through popular religion as an important indication of wider developments of political and social change. The book also shows how borders are continually being maintained through violence at national, community and individual levels. By exploring selected sites and expressions of piety including shrines, texts, practices and movements, Virinder S. Kalra and Navtej K. Purewal argue that the popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarised picture between formal, institutional religion, nor the 'enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of 'religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, resistance and power in which gender and caste are connate of what comes to be known as ‘religious’. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, dynamic and contested relations that characterize everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, the book highlights how popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism and theological frameworks while simultaneously reflecting gender/caste society.

Can a Christian organization with colonial roots work towards reproductive justice for Kenyan women and resist sexist interpretations of Christianity? How does a women’s organization in Africa navigate controversial ethical dilemmas, while dealing with the pressures of imperialism in international development?Based on a case study of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Kenya, this book explores the answers to these questions. It also introduces a theoretical framework drawn from postcolonial feminist critique, narrative identity theory and the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: ‘everyday Christian ethics'. The book evaluates the theory’s implications as a cross-disciplinary theme in feminist studies of religion and theology.Eleanor Tiplady Higgs argues that Kenya YWCA’s narratives of its Christian history and constitution sustain a link between its ethical perspective and its identity. The ethical insights that emerge from these practices proclaim the relevance of the value of ‘fulfilled lives’, as prescribed in the New Testament, for Christian women’s experiences of reproductive injustice.

What does it mean to become religiously queer or queerly religious in one’s everyday life? What narratives of becoming ‘person’ emerge from these lived realities? Sharon A. Bong addresses these questions by exploring the personal journeys of several GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) persons negotiating the tensions between living out their sexuality and religiosity in the context of Malaysia and Singapore. By sharing their stories, Bong presents a broad spectrum of queer strategies emerging from participants’ narratives of ‘becoming’, which encompass becoming Asian, becoming postcolonial, becoming sexually religious and religiously sexual, and becoming ‘persons’. These strategies are used in the book as counterpoints to nationhood narratives of becoming Asian or postcolonial, which are still mired in religious-sponsored and colonial-inherited sexual regulations. Finally, Bong shows how the insistence of identifying as both queer and religious is critical in challenging the conservative social-political milieu surrounding issues of gender diversity and inclusion within these south-east Asian states.

Based on original ethnographic research in a multicultural neighbourhood in The Hague, this open access book gives detailed insights into the challenges, negotiations and resistances girls with Moroccan-Dutch and Muslim backgrounds face in the world of street football. Kathrine van den Bogert traces the experiences of teenage girls who play football in public playgrounds, as well as in a girls’ football competition the girls have set up themselves: Football Girls United. She addresses how race, ethnicity, religion, gender and citizenship are entangled in the access to and construction of the public street football spaces, such as football courts, urban playgrounds and public squares. While Muslim girls in football are often stigmatized and excluded based on their religious and ethnic backgrounds, this book emphasizes their street football practices as critical and creative ways of belonging, both in football and in wider Dutch society. By focussing on a domain largely absent in religion and gender research, namely sport, this book brings forth new perspectives on religious and ethnic diversity in Europe. The football players show that ‘Muslim’ is not always a relevant identity in their lives, and hence urge us to rethink the categories of analysis that we use, and often take for granted, as feminist and intersectional scholars of gender, religion and Islam. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Based on original ethnographic research in a multicultural neighbourhood in The Hague, this open access book gives detailed insights into the challenges, negotiations and resistances girls with Moroccan-Dutch and Muslim backgrounds face in the world of street football. Kathrine van den Bogert traces the experiences of teenage girls who play football in public playgrounds, as well as in a girls’ football competition the girls have set up themselves: Football Girls United. She addresses how race, ethnicity, religion, gender and citizenship are entangled in the access to and construction of the public street football spaces, such as football courts, urban playgrounds and public squares. While Muslim girls in football are often stigmatized and excluded based on their religious and ethnic backgrounds, this book emphasizes their street football practices as critical and creative ways of belonging, both in football and in wider Dutch society. By focussing on a domain largely absent in religion and gender research, namely sport, this book brings forth new perspectives on religious and ethnic diversity in Europe. The football players show that ‘Muslim’ is not always a relevant identity in their lives, and hence urge us to rethink the categories of analysis that we use, and often take for granted, as feminist and intersectional scholars of gender, religion and Islam. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Tracing the development of Catholic ideas in Japan and China during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, this book provides an overview of the evolution of the missionary strategy in East Asia while focusing on the early emplantation of Catholicism in Korea.Kevin Cawley recreates the tumultuous period for gender relations and explores interreligious interactions between Confucians and Catholics. Highlighting the textual production this period inspired, this book examines writings such as the catechism of the Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), which went on to convert a group of elite Confucian scholars to the new religion. It also underscores the importance of the vernacular catechism written by Chong Yakchong (1760–1801), a convert from a prominent Confucian family, who was eventually executed. Chong's text made Catholicism easily understandable for women, as well as men from lower social classes, who eventually converted in significant numbers effecting real social change. Outlining the shift from rejection to acceptance of new texts composed by early Korean converts, this book explores emergent Catholicism in Japan, China and Korea, as well as the various challenges encountered and how the mission strategy changed as a result.Exploring gender relations, both in relation to Confucianism and Catholics during this period, this book provides insight into this previously under researched aspect of East Asian Catholicism. In this study, we learn how religious persecution and political tactics manipulated, terrified and exterminated converts to Catholicism. From European Jesuits to Korean Confucians, this book outlines a fascinating journey of intercultural engagement between Western and Eastern worldviews.

Tracing the development of Catholic ideas in Japan and China during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, this book provides an overview of the evolution of the missionary strategy in East Asia while focusing on the early emplantation of Catholicism in Korea.Kevin Cawley recreates the tumultuous period for gender relations and explores interreligious interactions between Confucians and Catholics. Highlighting the textual production this period inspired, this book examines writings such as the catechism of the Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), which went on to convert a group of elite Confucian scholars to the new religion. It also underscores the importance of the vernacular catechism written by Chong Yakchong (1760–1801), a convert from a prominent Confucian family, who was eventually executed. Chong's text made Catholicism easily understandable for women, as well as men from lower social classes, who eventually converted in significant numbers effecting real social change. Outlining the shift from rejection to acceptance of new texts composed by early Korean converts, this book explores emergent Catholicism in Japan, China and Korea, as well as the various challenges encountered and how the mission strategy changed as a result.Exploring gender relations, both in relation to Confucianism and Catholics during this period, this book provides insight into this previously under researched aspect of East Asian Catholicism. In this study, we learn how religious persecution and political tactics manipulated, terrified and exterminated converts to Catholicism. From European Jesuits to Korean Confucians, this book outlines a fascinating journey of intercultural engagement between Western and Eastern worldviews.

Can a Christian organization with colonial roots work towards reproductive justice for Kenyan women and resist sexist interpretations of Christianity? How does a women’s organization in Africa navigate controversial ethical dilemmas, while dealing with the pressures of imperialism in international development?Based on a case study of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Kenya, this book explores the answers to these questions. It also introduces a theoretical framework drawn from postcolonial feminist critique, narrative identity theory and the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: ‘everyday Christian ethics'. The book evaluates the theory’s implications as a cross-disciplinary theme in feminist studies of religion and theology.Eleanor Tiplady Higgs argues that Kenya YWCA’s narratives of its Christian history and constitution sustain a link between its ethical perspective and its identity. The ethical insights that emerge from these practices proclaim the relevance of the value of ‘fulfilled lives’, as prescribed in the New Testament, for Christian women’s experiences of reproductive injustice.

How are the identities of women shaped by religious disciplinary processes in Magdalene laundries and how do women re-engage with their sense of self after leaving the institutions? Chloë K. Gott situates these questions within the current cultural climate in which the institutions now sit, considering how they fit into Ireland’s present as well as its past.This book represents the first significant secondary analysis to be conducted of 81 oral history interviews recorded as part of the Government of Ireland Collaborative Research project, ‘Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Archival and Oral History’, funded by the Irish Research Council. These were taken with women formerly incarcerated in these institutions, as well as others associated with this history.Grounded in qualitative analysis of this archive, the book is structured around the voices and words of survivors themselves. With a strong focus on how the experience of being incarcerated in a Magdalene laundry impacted on the gendered religious selves of the women, this book tracks the process of entering, working in and leaving a laundry, explored through the lens of epistemic injustice.

How are the identities of women shaped by religious disciplinary processes in Magdalene laundries and how do women re-engage with their sense of self after leaving the institutions? Chloë K. Gott situates these questions within the current cultural climate in which the institutions now sit, considering how they fit into Ireland’s present as well as its past.This book represents the first significant secondary analysis to be conducted of 81 oral history interviews recorded as part of the Government of Ireland Collaborative Research project, ‘Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Archival and Oral History’, funded by the Irish Research Council. These were taken with women formerly incarcerated in these institutions, as well as others associated with this history.Grounded in qualitative analysis of this archive, the book is structured around the voices and words of survivors themselves. With a strong focus on how the experience of being incarcerated in a Magdalene laundry impacted on the gendered religious selves of the women, this book tracks the process of entering, working in and leaving a laundry, explored through the lens of epistemic injustice.

Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with borders and subalternity, Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan suggests new frameworks for understanding religious boundaries in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which social categories and structures constitute the bordering logics inherent within enactments of these boundaries, and positions hegemony and resistance through popular religion as an important indication of wider developments of political and social change. The book also shows how borders are continually being maintained through violence at national, community and individual levels. By exploring selected sites and expressions of piety including shrines, texts, practices and movements, Virinder S. Kalra and Navtej K. Purewal argue that the popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarised picture between formal, institutional religion, nor the 'enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of 'religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, resistance and power in which gender and caste are connate of what comes to be known as ‘religious’. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, dynamic and contested relations that characterize everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, the book highlights how popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism and theological frameworks while simultaneously reflecting gender/caste society.

What does it mean to become religiously queer or queerly religious in one’s everyday life? What narratives of becoming ‘person’ emerge from these lived realities? Sharon A. Bong addresses these questions by exploring the personal journeys of several GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) persons negotiating the tensions between living out their sexuality and religiosity in the context of Malaysia and Singapore. By sharing their stories, Bong presents a broad spectrum of queer strategies emerging from participants’ narratives of ‘becoming’, which encompass becoming Asian, becoming postcolonial, becoming sexually religious and religiously sexual, and becoming ‘persons’. These strategies are used in the book as counterpoints to nationhood narratives of becoming Asian or postcolonial, which are still mired in religious-sponsored and colonial-inherited sexual regulations. Finally, Bong shows how the insistence of identifying as both queer and religious is critical in challenging the conservative social-political milieu surrounding issues of gender diversity and inclusion within these south-east Asian states.

This book covers new ground in its focus on the Anglican Church congresses 1861-1938 as a public space in which the views of notable women were widely disseminated. It celebrates the contribution made by women to public life and discourse on womanhood as platform speakers, and commemorates the presence of the large numbers of women who joined congresses as audience members.Original research draws on extensive primary sources from official records, diaries and the press to capture women’s views and voices and to evoke congress as a communicative social space and a window into topical affairs. Women and the Anglican Church Congress 1861-1938 examines the roles of women in the Church and reflects on how women with a sense of vocation negotiated contemporary attitudes to their positions and spirituality. The book also explores how women’s secular aspirations towards citizenship in the context of poverty, work, temperance, eugenics, class and suffrage played out at congress.

This book covers new ground in its focus on the Anglican Church congresses 1861-1938 as a public space in which the views of notable women were widely disseminated. It celebrates the contribution made by women to public life and discourse on womanhood as platform speakers, and commemorates the presence of the large numbers of women who joined congresses as audience members.Original research draws on extensive primary sources from official records, diaries and the press to capture women’s views and voices and to evoke congress as a communicative social space and a window into topical affairs. Women and the Anglican Church Congress 1861-1938 examines the roles of women in the Church and reflects on how women with a sense of vocation negotiated contemporary attitudes to their positions and spirituality. The book also explores how women’s secular aspirations towards citizenship in the context of poverty, work, temperance, eugenics, class and suffrage played out at congress.

Presenting the life stories of ten Uyghur women, this book applies the techniques of narrative analysis to explore their changing worldviews and conversions to political engagement. Born and raised in East Turkestan/Xinjiang in the 1970s-90s, each woman, after personally experiencing incidents of ethnic discrimination, chose to leave China before 2005. Settling in a western country, they strive to become the voice of the Turkic people who are silenced or detained in the “re-education” camps.The narratives are based on interviews conducted online between 2020 and 2021, collected as a form of oral history. The book focuses on the escalating tensions, turning points experienced in their youth, and the religious, political and psychological factors that prompted their transformations in self-identity, ideology and the emergence of a new Uyghur–Muslim feminism.Through the women’s stories, the book describes how women activists are navigating the competing reality constructions of the dire situation in the Uyghur Homeland and actively restorying a genocide to bring about social and political change.

Presenting the life stories of ten Uyghur women, this book applies the techniques of narrative analysis to explore their changing worldviews and conversions to political engagement. Born and raised in East Turkestan/Xinjiang in the 1970s-90s, each woman, after personally experiencing incidents of ethnic discrimination, chose to leave China before 2005. Settling in a western country, they strive to become the voice of the Turkic people who are silenced or detained in the “re-education” camps.The narratives are based on interviews conducted online between 2020 and 2021, collected as a form of oral history. The book focuses on the escalating tensions, turning points experienced in their youth, and the religious, political and psychological factors that prompted their transformations in self-identity, ideology and the emergence of a new Uyghur–Muslim feminism.Through the women’s stories, the book describes how women activists are navigating the competing reality constructions of the dire situation in the Uyghur Homeland and actively restorying a genocide to bring about social and political change.

How do Catholic women make sense of their involvement in a church with restrictive gendered roles and responsibilities? Is there a vision for church which might provide Catholic women with a community of hope, justice and flourishing?Introducing a new methodological approach to studying Catholic women, this open access book provides fresh insights into women’s religious and spiritual experiences and church participation. Drawing on a case study of Australian Catholic women, Tracy McEwan develops the notion of “technologies of Catholicism” to explore the ways in which women shape their religious and secular identities against the backdrop of a masculinist Church.This book is a key resource for those seeking to understand women’s struggle to negotiate the impact of Catholicism and its oppressive gendered theologies. It introduces the term “everyday spiritual abuse” to explain the harm Catholic women experience on a day-to-day basis as they negotiate multiple material, spiritual, and structural inequalities. It proposes an alternative feminist model of church, which is contained and produced in the herstories of women.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.

How do Catholic women make sense of their involvement in a church with restrictive gendered roles and responsibilities? Is there a vision for church which might provide Catholic women with a community of hope, justice and flourishing?Introducing a new methodological approach to studying Catholic women, this open access book provides fresh insights into women’s religious and spiritual experiences and church participation. Drawing on a case study of Australian Catholic women, Tracy McEwan develops the notion of “technologies of Catholicism” to explore the ways in which women shape their religious and secular identities against the backdrop of a masculinist Church.This book is a key resource for those seeking to understand women’s struggle to negotiate the impact of Catholicism and its oppressive gendered theologies. It introduces the term “everyday spiritual abuse” to explain the harm Catholic women experience on a day-to-day basis as they negotiate multiple material, spiritual, and structural inequalities. It proposes an alternative feminist model of church, which is contained and produced in the herstories of women.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.

Complementarianism, Gender and Evangelism offers a feminist, sociological account of lived Sydney Anglicanism. Furthering the study of global evangelicalism, Rosie Clare Shorter provides a new frame for analyzing complementarianism as a specific discourse that uses gender to construct and regulate both faith and sexuality. This study theorizes that complementarianism is not simply a set of private beliefs, but rather a specific ecclesial discourse defining orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Embedded in language and the relationships between church leaders and parishioners, this discourse is used as an operation of power which limits Christian belief, behaviour and belonging.Grounded in the author’s research and lived experience in the Sydney Anglican Diocese, the book provides a detailed study of individuals who worship and work at three parishes, covering both the stories told about Sydney Anglicans, and the lived experiences of Anglicans themselves, their identity, their faith and their communities.

Global, interdisciplinary, and intersectional, this book examines the discourses on and interplay between religion and Assisted Reproductive Technologies, shedding light on how religious beliefs and practices can adapt to contemporary challenges.Investigating the issue from diverse theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives, this book serves as a reference for scholars and students engaging with the intersection of religion and ART. To contextualise this contemporary debate, the book also contains chapters on past eras focusing on mythological narratives. These interrogate stories detailing surrogacy and male pregnancies, and case-studies in which a deity, or a priest, personally solve infertility.The historical relationship between religion and ART has been complex and often contradictory. Offspring have been considered divine gifts, juxtaposed with infertility, which has be construed as a form of divine punishment. This book explores, however, that in an era marked by escalating fertility challenges, there now exists a compelling need to explore how religion grapples and adjusts alongside the advancements in ART.

This book provides the first comparative analysis of how religious, gender and national identities have been constructed in Christian, Buddhist and Hindu girls’ schools in Sri Lanka in the context of colonial histories and postcolonial struggles.Attended by the children of the socio-political elite, the Sri Lanka’s girls’ schools in this study have a significant impact on the country’s political, cultural and religious life as their graduates carry the values they were taught beyond these institutions’ doors into society. Combining archival research with ethnographic fieldwork, Jessica Albrecht examines how narratives of the past – including the Aryan myth, the story of the Sinhala Buddhist role model Sister Sanghamitta and ideas of womanhood from the Saivite reform movement – continue to shape religious and national identities in these schools today. She integrates perspectives from religious, postcolonial and gender studies to show that these institutions play a dual role: while they empower women, they also reinforce patriarchal, nationalist and colonial ideologies.By contrasting Buddhist, Hindu and Christian schools, this book illuminates how ideas about gender, womanhood and the nation have differed across religiously diverse educational institutions from colonial times to today while sharing an entangled history. In this way, it contributes to our understanding of Sri Lanka’s complex religious and educational landscape and draws attention to the often-overlooked role that women play in the making of religious and national identities in South Asia.