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Title 'Patriarchal masculinity in recent Swahili-language Muslim sermons'
Full text https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8513508; http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8513508; http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340080; https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8513508/file/8540373
Date 2016
Author(s) Becker, Felicitas Maria
Abstract This paper offers a close examination of statements on patriarchal masculinity from three widely traded sermon recordings produced in Zanzibar, Tanzania. It sets them in the context of Islamic reform, Muslim political discontent, and the consumption of sermon recordings in East Africa. Despite similar assertions on the need for men to protect and control women, in close reading the three preachers offer quite divergent characterisations of the patriarch's methods, obligations, and entitlements within the household. The sermons show that Islamic reform in Zanzibar cannot be reduced to political discontent, and that it hearkens back to longstanding regional history. They also suggest that the concept of patriarchy is more relevant to the understanding of asymmetrical gender relations than recent discussion of Western gender relations has allowed, and highlight the centrality of bearing and rearing children as a site for both assertion and failure of patriarchal control. Lastly, they indicate the failure of sermon preachers and listeners to coalesce into a coherent counterpublic.
Subject(s) Social Sciences; History and Archaeology; Philosophy and Religion; Islam; East Africa; patriarchy; masculinity; women; preaching
Language eng
Type of publication journalArticle; info:eu-repo/semantics/article; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Format application/pdf
Source JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA; ISSN: 0022-4200
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Repository Gent - University of Gent
Added to C-A: 2019-01-29;14:44:33