This book presents a multi-voice narrative of the history and significance of current contestations over the increasing prominence of expressive piety in Hui Muslim women’s mosques in central China.By drawing on a ‘Song Book’ of chants, collected from the tradition of women’s mosques, as context it reveals just how the increasing prominence of female voices has given rise to considerable misgivings among senior religious leaders over the potential destabilization of orthodox Islami...

What enables women to hold firm in their beliefs in the face of long years of hostile persecution by the Communist party/state? How do women withstand daily discrimination and prolonged hardship under a Communist regime which held rejection of religious beliefs and practices as a patriotic duty? Through the use of archival and ethnographic sources and of rich life testimonies, this book provides a rare glimpse into how women came to find solace and happiness in the flourishing, female-domi...

This is a study of Chinese Hui Muslim women's historic and unrelenting spiritual, educational, political and gendered drive for an institutional presence in Islamic worship and leadership: 'a mosque of one's own' as a unique feature of Chinese Muslim culture. The authors place the historical origin of women's segregated religious institutions in the Chinese Islamic diaspora's fight for survival, and in their crucial contribution to the cause of ethnic/religious minority identity and solida...

In the late 1970s Islam regained its force by generating novel forms of piety and forging new paths in politics throughout the world, including China. The Islamic revival in China, which came to fruition in the 2000s and the 2010s, prompted increases in government suppression but also intriguing resonances with the broader Muslim world—from influential theoretical and political contestations over Muslim women’s status, the popularization of mass media and the appearance of new patterns of ...

This handbook looks at cross-cultural work on harmful cultural practices considered gendered forms of abuse of women. These include female genital mutilation (FGM), virginity testing, hymenoplasty, and genital cosmetic surgery.Bringing together comparative perspectives, intersectionality, and interdisciplinarity, it uses feminist methodology and mixed methods, with ethnography of central importance, to provide holistic, grounded theorizing within a framework of transformative resear...

In the process of helping women to help themselves, female activists have assumed a decisive role in negotiating social and political transformations in Chinese society. This is the first book that describes and analyzes the new phase of women's organizing in China, which started in the 1980s, and remains a vital force to the present day. The political and social changes taking place in contemporary Chinese society have, surprisingly, received scant attention. This volume enriches our unde...