Political geographies of knowledge. Feminism and Islam

The idea of the course is to examine the complexity of changing relations between Islam and feminism, both in Muslim and non-Muslim (Western) contexts, and to interpret them as a result of transformations within a wider historical-epistemological field that can be called "political geography of knowledge". During the classes we will show that the above-mentioned complexity has its sources in the Orientalist framework, strongly entrenched in the European structures of knowledge and political imaginaries, that constructs Islam as an antithesis of emancipation, progress, women's rights and freedom - the values associated with Western modernity. The goal of the course will be three-fold. First, we will discuss typical feminist discourses on Islam, Muslim women and gender relations in Islamic societies that have dominated in the West since the time of European colonialism. We will examine the extent to which these discourses have been shaped by the Orientalist frameworks and pose a question regarding their links with colonial/neo-colonial politics of the Western countries. Second, we will analyse the ways in which feminist ideas have been perceived, developed and implemented in the Muslim societies. We will show how feminists in these societies (or pro-women thinkers and activists) conceptualized their religious identities and how they intellectually situated themselves vis-a-vis Western feminist movements, theories and models of social modernization. Third goal of the course will be to highlight and analyse processes of gradual transformation that have taken place in recent years and that concern both Western (also Polish) feminist attitudes towards Islam as well as the attitudes towards feminist ideas adopted in Muslim contexts. Analysis of this transformation will show that it has been inspired by a number of diverse factors that include political developments ("war on terrorism", Western military interventions in Muslim countries, refugee crisis), intellectual revisions of the history of feminism and its involvement in the colonial projects (application of postcolonial critique to feminism), intensifying contacts between Muslim and non-Muslim/Western women (facilitated by globalization, migration and internationalization of women's movement), growing body of knowledge concerning the history and the present of women's lives and women's movements in the Muslim societies, political contradictions caused by adoption of the Orientalist framework in feminist political projects, etc.

The main objective of the course will be to problematize the links between knowledge and political as well as geographical situatedness of those who produce and use it. In this context our goal will be to outline and develop a concept of "political geography of knowledge". During the classes we will refer both to theoretical-philosophical works as well as texts and visual materials that present sociological, political and cultural implications of the changing relations between Islam and feminism.