Segregated from the City: Women’s Spaces in Islamic Movements in Pakistan

Abstract

AbstractWomen’s spaces in Islamic movements in Pakistan appear very similar in their external elements but are radically different in their reorganizations of domestic space, which signal deliberate attempts by movement leaders to appease urban middle‐ and upper‐class Pakistani anxieties related to the demands these movements make on women’s time and attention. Leaders lay out guidelines for the creation of space which attempt to speak to multiple audiences regarding women’s roles in these movements.I draw on the work of Michel de Certeau to examine the ways in which female members alter the carefully structured spaces of Islamic movements by living in them, and significantly shape women’s movement‐defined roles. I argue that women ultimately combine movement leaders’ visions with their own understandings of virtuous practice to enunciate new ways of imagining their role within movements and in urban Pakistan. [Pakistan; Islamabad; Islamic Movements; Space; Gender]