Islamic feminism and transnational Muslim women’s movements

Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter

Susanne Schröter is professor for “Anthropology of Colonial and Postcolonial Orders ” at the Goethe-University (Frankfurt) and adjunct professor at the University of Indonesia (Jakarta). She is principal investigator of the Cluster of Excellence "Formation of Normative Orders", board member of the “German Orient-Institute” and the “European Association of Southeast Asian Studies”, member of the scientific executive committee of the “German Science Foundation” (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), member of the board of trustees of the “Museum der Weltkulturen” (Museum of world cultures) and member of the Cornelia Goethe Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. Previously, she held the position of the chair of Southeast Asian Studies at Passau University.  
Susanne Schröter’s research interests focus on four main issues: gender and power; anthropology of religion; concepts of nonwestern modernities; dynamics of state and nation building. She has been conducting anthropological fieldwork in Indonesia since the early 1990s.  Currently she is directing a PhD-group on “Formation of normative orders in the Islamic world” and two research projects on “Political and cultural transformations in post-tsunami Aceh” and on “Redefining gender in contemporary Indonesia”.

Selected Publications

2010 Ed.: Aceh. Culture, history, politics. Singapur: ISEAS (together with Arndt Graf and Edwin Wieringa).

2010 Ed.: Christianity in Indonesia and beyond. Berlin: Lit (forthcoming).

2009 Islamismus als postkolonialer Diskus. In: Reuter, Julia/Paula-Irene Villa, Hg.: Postkoloniale Soziologie. Empirische Befunde, theoretische Anschlüsse, wissenschaftliche Reflexionen. Bielefeld: Transcript, S.137-158.

2009 Feministische Re-Interpretationen des Qur’an und der Sunna. In: Lanwerd, Susanne/Márcia Moser, Hg.: Frau – Gender – Queer. Gendertheoretische Ansätze in der Religionswissenschaft.  Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, S. 46-54.

2008 Female leadership in Islamic societies, past and present. In. Hellmann-Rajanayagam, Dagmar/Andrea Fleschenberg, Hg.: Godesses, heroes, sacrifices. Female power in Asian politics. Southeast Asian Modernities. Berlin: Lit, S. 52-73.

2008 Sex Talks oder der Untergang des Abendlandes. In: Gottowik, Volker/Holger Jebens/Editha Platte, Hg.: Zwischen Aneignung und Verfremdung. Ethnologische Gratwanderungen. Frankfurt: Campus, S.159-180.

2007 Re-Islamisierungsprozesse in Südostasien. In: Orient 4: 17-30.

Islamic feminism and transnational Muslim women’s movements

The paper focuses on contemporary Muslim women’s rights movements and analyses their transnational dimensions. It aims to contribute to feminist theory, anthropology of globalization and the study of Islamic social movements and tries to understand the dynamics of Islamic feminism from a postcolonial perspective. It will be argued that Muslim women activists reject both Western feminism and Islamic orthodoxy and strive for gender justice within an Islamic framework. They advocate a re-reading of the Qur’an, a re-interpretation of Islamic history and a contextualisation of Islamic traditions. With the examples of two transnational networks, “Musawah” and “Women Living under Muslim Law” it will be discussed whether and how the transnationality of Muslim women activists influence national or local politics and change patriarchal gender orders.