THE OTHER WITHIN: MUSLIM RIGHTS WARRIOR IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

In this paper, I reflect on debates about Islams and feminisms by re-centering a class-based analysis of women’s activism and gender politics and re-emphasising the local self-positioning of women activists who are committed to Muslim women’s movements for self-determination and social justice. I do so by considering the lived realities of working class Malay Muslim women activists in urban Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, who suggest that normative understandings of feminist ideals and feminist activists fail to capture the way they conceive of and do activism specific to their class location and local context. I argue that these activists’ contextualised self-positioning opens up a more meaningful space to rethink the designations “Muslim feminist” or “Islamic feminist,” often associated with women in communities of Muslims who are engaging in political struggles to reintegrate understandings of Islam with contemporary conceptions of justice and equality.