Muslim Women and Politics: Analytical Framework

Abstract

This chapter considers the question of Muslim women’s involvement in politics within a framework drawing on a critical feminist standpoint which places this population centre-stage and gives voice to their thinking and actions in order to produce knowledge which will impact their lives positively; Margaret Archer’s social realist approach to agency and structure where her concept of emergence and emergent properties is instrumental in analysing Muslim women’s social and political action and Alain Touraine’s sociological intervention (SI) methodology which allows respondents to contribute to interpretation(s) of their own situation and acknowledges the subjective involvement of the researcher(s). This chapter is organised on the basis of the key reference spheres to which the women relate, identifying these three major spheres which constitute the theatre of their action as majority society, the ethnic group, the Muslim group, all of them being traversed by contradictions within and between them.