Governing Divorce Practices of Somali Finnish Muslims : Does Religious Literacy Matter?

Peer reviewe

Social Control in Transnational Families: Somali Women and Dignity in Johannesburg

Transnational mobility often separates families and distances individuals from the kinship and social structures by which they organized their lives prior to migration. Myriad forms of insecurity have been the impetus for Somali movement into the diaspora, with people fleeing the realities of conflict that have marked Somalia for decades while physically dividing families as individuals settle in different countries around the world. Mobility has altered the dynamics of households, families, and communities post-migration, reshaping social constructions as individuals move on without the familial support that sustained them in Somalia. While outcomes of these hardships are variable and often uneven in different settlement spaces, migration can offer new opportunities for people to pursue avenues from which they were previously excluded, such as by assuming roles and responsibilities their relatives once filled. These changes precipitate shifting identities and are challenging for women who find themselves self-reliant in the diaspora, particularly in the absence of (supportive) husbands and close kin.Drawing on ethnographic research in Johannesburg’s Somali community, this chapter explores the assumption that migration provides an opening for women to challenge subordinating gender norms. Settlement often grants women greater freedom to make choices in their lives, such as in employment and personal relationships, and yet they remain constrained by networks that limit their autonomy. Even with transnational migration and protracted separation, women are family representatives who must uphold cultural notions of respectability despite realities that position them as guardians and family providers. Women remain under the watchful eye of their extended families through expansive networks and the ease of modern communication, which facilitate a new form of social control as women’s behavior is carefully monitored and reported to relatives afar. These actualities raise questions about the degree to which transnational movement is a liberating force for women or rather a reconfiguration of social control. I argue that despite women’s changing position in their households and families, they remain limited by social control within their extended families and communities

Introduction

Muslim marriages are far from homogeneous, and the inherent variability of norms and practices is often missing in the framing of such marriages in Western societies. Marriage and family laws in Muslim-majority contexts are sights of contention, debate, and development. These debates often centre around family as a site of state governance driven by overlapping national and international agendas; gender equality and calls for marriage law reform; and tensions between Islamic jurisprudence, state laws, and lived realities. This introductory article sets the scene for this special issue focussing on the plurality of norms and practices in Muslim marriages within Muslim-majority jurisdictions

Introduction

Muslim marriages are far from homogeneous, and the inherent variability of norms and practices is often missing in the framing of such marriages in Western societies. Marriage and family laws in Muslim-majority contexts are sights of contention, debate, and development. These debates often centre around family as a site of state governance driven by overlapping national and international agendas; gender equality and calls for marriage law reform; and tensions between Islamic jurisprudence, state laws, and lived realities. This introductory article sets the scene for this special issue focussing on the plurality of norms and practices in Muslim marriages within Muslim-majority jurisdictions

Introduction

Muslim marriages are far from homogeneous, and the inherent variability of norms and practices is often missing in the framing of such marriages in Western societies. Marriage and family laws in Muslim-majority contexts are sights of contention, debate, and development. These debates often centre around family as a site of state governance driven by overlapping national and international agendas; gender equality and calls for marriage law reform; and tensions between Islamic jurisprudence, state laws, and lived realities. This introductory article sets the scene for this special issue focussing on the plurality of norms and practices in Muslim marriages within Muslim-majority jurisdictions

Converts, Marriage, and the Dutch Nation-state: Contestations about Muslim Women’s Well-being

In the Netherlands, transnational marriages and Islamic marriages concluded prior to a civil marriage are hotly debated in the public domain. These marriages are perceived as not only bringing the ‘wrong’ kinds of migrants to the Netherlands – those with little education and few skills – or as involving the ‘wrong’ kind of Muslims, such as the radical or salafi-oriented, but also as harmful to Muslim women’s wellbeing. Policy makers and politicians have come to associate these marriages with child marriages, cousin marriages, and polygamous marriages, which, in turn, are considered indications of forced marriages. Attempts to limit marriage migration and to further criminalize Islamic marriages are presented as measures that will strengthen Muslim women’s wellbeing. In this chapter we analyse the tensions between how politicians, policy makers, and other state agents problematize transnational Muslim marriages and how female converts to Islam experience the concluding of such marriages. Drawing on long-term anthropological fieldwork with converts in the Netherlands, we show that converts themselves quite regularly opt for concluding an Islamic marriage, which is often simultaneously transnational. These women view an Islamic marriage as important for their ethical, relational, and material wellbeing, and may have good reasons not to conclude a civil marriage first