Urban religion and gendered bodies

Abstract

The relation between religion and the city is one of mutual social, political, architectural, conceptual and experiential formation. This special issue shifts debates on religion and the city to the body as the site of religious and urban experience, and as a site of regulation and negotiation. Examining Muslim femininities and masculinities in cities in Asia, the collection of articles highlights the gendered dimensions of religious notions of bodies and body practices. Taking the gendered body as a lens of analysis provides important insights into how the religious and the urban affect one another. The special issue demonstrates how religious aspirations, as they intersect with religious and gendered notions of the body and minoritarian experiences, impact how cities are navigated, shaped and appropriated. Religiously informed body practices such as clothing, veiling and beard styles are urban spatial practices that inform and contribute to practitioners' religious and urban experiences. The collection includes case studies on South Asian Muslim embodied masculinities in Hong Kong, Muslim women's urban experiences in Delhi, Chinese female Muslim converts' strategies in Hong Kong, and Muslim male fashion politics in urban Malaysia. Together, the articles highlight gender-specific religious body practices and urban experiences as changing, situational and context-specific.