Working against many grains: Rethinking difference, emancipation and agency in the counter-discourse of an ethnic minority women’s organisation in Belgium

Abstract

In this article, we aim to contribute to feminist academic debates about multiculturalism and secularism/religion by drawing upon an analysis of an ethnic minority women’s organisation in Belgium that has been active since 1999: ella. The analysis focuses upon the way in which ella constructs notions of empowerment and emancipation by discussing structural inequalities, cultural-ethnic values and religious authority and identity. First, we look at how ella formulates its ideas about the emancipation trajectories of minoritised women and the potential role of religious belonging. Second, we look at ella’s discussion of religious interpretation and gender/sexual diversity. Here, we explore assumptions about the relationship between religious authority and minoritised women’s and LGBTQs’ desires and pursuit for knowledge. We conclude by considering ella as an affirmative-critical actor of multiculturalism, and an implicit agent of religious reform.

Religious feminists and the intersectional feminist movements: Insights from a case study

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“…Overall, these studies call for reconsidering the opposition between religion and feminism, and the binary opposition between oppressed religious women and liberated secular women (Nyhagen, 2017; Van den Brandt and Longman, 2017). Also, they invite a reconceptualization of autonomy (Lépinard, 2011) and emancipatory feminist practice (Giorgi, 2019a; Reilly, 2017).…”

“…Hence, they both include minority women and provide an intersectional analysis of how power relations work (Choo and Ferree, 2010; Yuval-Davis, 2006). Scholarly research mostly focuses on the alliances between mainstream and minority feminist groups and organizations, while few studies analyse how intersectionality works inside feminist groups (Bernacchi, 2018; Lépinard, 2014a, 2014b; Van den Brandt and Longman, 2017). In her studies comparing feminist groups in Canada and France, Eleonore Lépinard showed four repertoires that feminist organizations use to deal with women’s differences and different interests: the subsumption of women’s differences into the fight for women’s rights (gender first); the inclusion of representatives of minority women in mainstream movements (intersectional solidarity); the recognition of different groups’ interests (intersectional recognition); the recognition of different individual interests (individual recognition).…”

“Hair for Freedom” Movement in Iran: Interreligious Dialogue in Social Media Activism?

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Countering illegibility: Religion, ethnicity and sexuality in public debates and lived experience in Belgium

“…Critical insights into the dynamics of structural inequalities, disadvantages and privileges have spurred antiracist, anti-Islamophobic, anti-fundamentalist, feminist and LGBTQI critique and social movements (Bracke 2004;Coene and Longman 2008;Midden 2010;Tauqir et al 2011;Aune 2015;Dhaliwal and Yuval-Davis 2015;Roodsaz and van den Brandt 2017). In these critiques and movements, 'difference' is often criticised in terms of processes of marginalisation/minoritisation, and simultaneously affirmed in terms of the specificity of religious, ethnic, sexual or gendered viewpoints and experiences as the ground upon which society might be envisioned 'differently' ( Van den Brandt and Longman 2017). 1 Religion, ethnicity and sexuality therefore refer across academia, politics, culture and policy-making to majority/minority positions, identities and experiences and are similarly framed in terms of privilege/ discrimination.…”