Making Space for Embodied Voices, Diverse Bodies, and Multiple Genders in Nonconformist Friday Prayers: A Queer Feminist Ethnography of Progressive Muslims’ Performative Intercorporeality in North American Congregations

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn contemporary North American Muslim congregations involved in the “progressive Muslim movement,” prayer practices rework tradition in recognizably Muslim ways while nevertheless differing markedly from those of most mosques. Ethnographic description and participant narratives shed light on the process through which intercorporeality impacts interpretation of Islamic gender norms, outlining the connections among epicene prayer space, bodily proximity, multivocality, and multicorporeality in creating support for feminist and queer religious interpretations and solidarity with marginalized others. Interreligious critiques of such nonconformist approaches have tended to treat nonconformist Muslims as inappropriately concerned with individual liberties or as individual activists seeking media attention. Attention to alterity in context, however, demonstrates that alternative understandings develop not from individual beliefs, practices, or desires but rather through somatic practice within a community of like‐minded co‐religionists learning new habits through intercorporeality. [progressive Muslims, performativity, congregational prayer, intercorporeality and embodiment, sexual diversity and gender variance]