Kandiyoti Again
Dec. 14th, 2004 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ziasudraSOME AWKWARD QUESTIONS ON WOMEN AND MODERNITY IN TURKEY
Deniz Kandiyoti, Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Lila Abu-Lughod, ed., 1998.
Motivation Summary: "What, if anything, singles out Middle Eastern reformers is the relentless search for local roots for their reformist ideals and the references they make to a 'tradition' that better approximates their modernist vision than do the current arrangements in their societies." (p. 271)
Afterword Purpose: To further focus on modernity, postcoloniality, and feminism and their debates through exploring omissions and silences.
To what extent are:
- Middle East discourses on modernity "conditioned not only by colonial encounters with the West but by societies' changing and troubled relations to their varied ancien régimes?"
- "contested images and attributions of tradition and modernity also mediated through the internally heterogenous nature of Middle Eastern societies?"
- discourses on reforming women "also about reshaping gender by establishing new models of masculinity and femininity to better institutionalize the monogamous, heterosexual, nuclear family?" (pp. 271-272)
On Shakry:
"Omnia Shakry, in this volume (chapter 4), points to a similar emphasis in Egypt where feminist projects were often conceptualized as an illustration that 'true Islam,' uncorrupted by Turkish backwardness and European colonization, was entirely compatible with modernity." (p. 271, c.f. class notes & discussions)
Context:
"On must also emphasize the effects of the dislocations and human losses occasioned by the Balkan Wars and World War I, which pushed Ottoman women into occupations and services that were formerly considered the exclusive domain of men. This set the scene for CUP [Committee for United Progress] policies exhorting women to contribute to the war effort both as workers and as prolific mothers." (p. 274)
~ This explains, against historical and political backdrops, how women came to expand beyond their traditional boundaries. The cause for this is abstract. But Kandiyoti also stresses the role that women themselves played in demanding equality according to their own agenda.
Referring to Mervat Hatem:
"more often than not, the images, which Middle Eastern and European women formed of themselves and each other were forged in an encounter that encouraged the projection onto each other of what they found most threatening for themselves." (p. 275)
"The influence of the West was, therefore, mediated through multiple and varying levels of 'othering' that must have had an impact on women's positionality, daily lives, and apprehensions of the 'modern.'" (p. 275)
~ So while there has been numerous works on society's, and men's, influence on women's perception of who they are and where they can be, there is a gap in the scholarship of female influence on female perception—a "level of othering" that still needs to be explored.
Through the French telephone company example, Kandiyoti points out the distinguishing characteristics between women of different social strata. Who, then, should one analyze as "the locus of encroaching Westernization might have been in late Ottoman society"? Kandiyoti claims:
"There is, of course, little doubt that they all represent facets of an Ottoman modernization that was powerfully shaped by colonial mediations and nationalist aspirations." (p. 277)
The differences:
"[changing material cultures of the Ottoman Empire] became complex markers of class and community where the 'modern' got translated into new and more diverse lines of cleavage within Ottoman society. These cleavages were also intergenerational..." (p. 277)
"It is, therefore, within the cultural field of modernity that we must attempt to locate the search for new family forms and contested notions of masculinity and femininity in Turkey." (p. 278)
On Abu-Lughod:
"In her critique of Qasim Amin in this volume, Lila Abu-Lughod argues that it was not so much women's emancipation but the promotion of the modern bourgeois family with its ideal of conjugal love scientific child rearing that lay at the heart of his reforming project." (p. 278)
~ Kandiyoti agrees with Abu-Lughod's conclusions, but suggests that "a great deal more may have been at stake" in the Qasim case study: "There are...so many facets to the debates on the Ottoman family that one must be prepared, as in peeling an onion, to discover many hidden layers beneath the thin outer skin." (p. 278)
On the need to study the worlds of men:
"Redefining domesticity in the fashion advocated by modernist reformers could target these more complex gender regimes in favor of the monogamous, heterosexual couple as the normative ideal." (p. 280)
~ Here, the silence and omission is the study on contextualized male & male roles.
The contrast:
"If, as I speculated earlier, there was a muted preoccupation with male sexualities, concerns over women's sexual freedom were expressed overtly and, at times, vehemently." (p. 282)
"Expressions of femininity, just like masculinities, became multivalent signifiers of class, cultural tastes, and styles but did so under an ambivalent male gaze that continued to sexualize the female body and presence." (p. 283)
"The field of women's studies in the Middle East has, for a long time, remained locked into either relatively uncritical endorsements of modernization or defensive apologies of what was presumed to represent 'tradition.'" (p. 283)
~ Kandiyoti cites in her footnote: "for a fuller treatment of the historical reasons behind this state of affairs, see Deniz Kandiyoti, 'Contemporary Feminist Scholarship and Middle East Studies,' in Gendering the Middle East," i.e. (for me), c.f. my notes on this article!
Summarizing the volume's articles:
"This studies in this volume achieve, each in its own way, a radical break from the definitive unsettling of this framework. They do so by illustrating the complexities, contradiction, and ambiguities of modernity and, ultimately, the futility (and political unwisdom) of attempting to cast postcolonial phenomena in terms of (Western) foreignness or (indigenous) authenticity, categories that themselves emerge as dubious artifacts of the colonial gaze." (p. 283)
~ So, specifically regarding the notion of authenticity, does this mean there is no "one" definition of authenticity, but not the authenticities do not exist? Since Kandiyoti mentioned earlier that there are many different strata within something presumed to be homogenous, such as the different classes of women (and men), it shows that she is still driving towards discovering the "authentic," only that the end discovery may not fit existing boxes of definition and the "true" real thing(s) may look rather messy and un-groupable.
Three neglected sets of issues:
1) dangers of reification of the West
2) homogenization of societies in the Middle East
3) "remaking woman" exposes only part of a complicated story on gendering the Middle East (p. 284)
~ Particularly in the last point, Kandiyoti shows how a fledging gender discourse prompts a "new regulatory discourse on sexuality" that debunks existing assumptions about sexuality (e.g., bourgeois heterosexual monogamy) and opens the door to further research on non-hampered sexuality.
"refashioning gender...implies the creation of new images of masculinity and femininity that involve the repudiation of the old as well as the espousal of the new." (p. 284)
Deniz Kandiyoti, Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Lila Abu-Lughod, ed., 1998.
Motivation Summary: "What, if anything, singles out Middle Eastern reformers is the relentless search for local roots for their reformist ideals and the references they make to a 'tradition' that better approximates their modernist vision than do the current arrangements in their societies." (p. 271)
Afterword Purpose: To further focus on modernity, postcoloniality, and feminism and their debates through exploring omissions and silences.
To what extent are:
- Middle East discourses on modernity "conditioned not only by colonial encounters with the West but by societies' changing and troubled relations to their varied ancien régimes?"
- "contested images and attributions of tradition and modernity also mediated through the internally heterogenous nature of Middle Eastern societies?"
- discourses on reforming women "also about reshaping gender by establishing new models of masculinity and femininity to better institutionalize the monogamous, heterosexual, nuclear family?" (pp. 271-272)
On Shakry:
"Omnia Shakry, in this volume (chapter 4), points to a similar emphasis in Egypt where feminist projects were often conceptualized as an illustration that 'true Islam,' uncorrupted by Turkish backwardness and European colonization, was entirely compatible with modernity." (p. 271, c.f. class notes & discussions)
Context:
"On must also emphasize the effects of the dislocations and human losses occasioned by the Balkan Wars and World War I, which pushed Ottoman women into occupations and services that were formerly considered the exclusive domain of men. This set the scene for CUP [Committee for United Progress] policies exhorting women to contribute to the war effort both as workers and as prolific mothers." (p. 274)
~ This explains, against historical and political backdrops, how women came to expand beyond their traditional boundaries. The cause for this is abstract. But Kandiyoti also stresses the role that women themselves played in demanding equality according to their own agenda.
Referring to Mervat Hatem:
"more often than not, the images, which Middle Eastern and European women formed of themselves and each other were forged in an encounter that encouraged the projection onto each other of what they found most threatening for themselves." (p. 275)
"The influence of the West was, therefore, mediated through multiple and varying levels of 'othering' that must have had an impact on women's positionality, daily lives, and apprehensions of the 'modern.'" (p. 275)
~ So while there has been numerous works on society's, and men's, influence on women's perception of who they are and where they can be, there is a gap in the scholarship of female influence on female perception—a "level of othering" that still needs to be explored.
Through the French telephone company example, Kandiyoti points out the distinguishing characteristics between women of different social strata. Who, then, should one analyze as "the locus of encroaching Westernization might have been in late Ottoman society"? Kandiyoti claims:
"There is, of course, little doubt that they all represent facets of an Ottoman modernization that was powerfully shaped by colonial mediations and nationalist aspirations." (p. 277)
The differences:
"[changing material cultures of the Ottoman Empire] became complex markers of class and community where the 'modern' got translated into new and more diverse lines of cleavage within Ottoman society. These cleavages were also intergenerational..." (p. 277)
"It is, therefore, within the cultural field of modernity that we must attempt to locate the search for new family forms and contested notions of masculinity and femininity in Turkey." (p. 278)
On Abu-Lughod:
"In her critique of Qasim Amin in this volume, Lila Abu-Lughod argues that it was not so much women's emancipation but the promotion of the modern bourgeois family with its ideal of conjugal love scientific child rearing that lay at the heart of his reforming project." (p. 278)
~ Kandiyoti agrees with Abu-Lughod's conclusions, but suggests that "a great deal more may have been at stake" in the Qasim case study: "There are...so many facets to the debates on the Ottoman family that one must be prepared, as in peeling an onion, to discover many hidden layers beneath the thin outer skin." (p. 278)
On the need to study the worlds of men:
"Redefining domesticity in the fashion advocated by modernist reformers could target these more complex gender regimes in favor of the monogamous, heterosexual couple as the normative ideal." (p. 280)
~ Here, the silence and omission is the study on contextualized male & male roles.
The contrast:
"If, as I speculated earlier, there was a muted preoccupation with male sexualities, concerns over women's sexual freedom were expressed overtly and, at times, vehemently." (p. 282)
"Expressions of femininity, just like masculinities, became multivalent signifiers of class, cultural tastes, and styles but did so under an ambivalent male gaze that continued to sexualize the female body and presence." (p. 283)
"The field of women's studies in the Middle East has, for a long time, remained locked into either relatively uncritical endorsements of modernization or defensive apologies of what was presumed to represent 'tradition.'" (p. 283)
~ Kandiyoti cites in her footnote: "for a fuller treatment of the historical reasons behind this state of affairs, see Deniz Kandiyoti, 'Contemporary Feminist Scholarship and Middle East Studies,' in Gendering the Middle East," i.e. (for me), c.f. my notes on this article!
Summarizing the volume's articles:
"This studies in this volume achieve, each in its own way, a radical break from the definitive unsettling of this framework. They do so by illustrating the complexities, contradiction, and ambiguities of modernity and, ultimately, the futility (and political unwisdom) of attempting to cast postcolonial phenomena in terms of (Western) foreignness or (indigenous) authenticity, categories that themselves emerge as dubious artifacts of the colonial gaze." (p. 283)
~ So, specifically regarding the notion of authenticity, does this mean there is no "one" definition of authenticity, but not the authenticities do not exist? Since Kandiyoti mentioned earlier that there are many different strata within something presumed to be homogenous, such as the different classes of women (and men), it shows that she is still driving towards discovering the "authentic," only that the end discovery may not fit existing boxes of definition and the "true" real thing(s) may look rather messy and un-groupable.
Three neglected sets of issues:
1) dangers of reification of the West
2) homogenization of societies in the Middle East
3) "remaking woman" exposes only part of a complicated story on gendering the Middle East (p. 284)
~ Particularly in the last point, Kandiyoti shows how a fledging gender discourse prompts a "new regulatory discourse on sexuality" that debunks existing assumptions about sexuality (e.g., bourgeois heterosexual monogamy) and opens the door to further research on non-hampered sexuality.
"refashioning gender...implies the creation of new images of masculinity and femininity that involve the repudiation of the old as well as the espousal of the new." (p. 284)
