From Malaysia to Dubai: Muslim Pilgrimage and Gender in the context of Consuming practices
Final Report Abstract
The ethnographic project „Von Malaysia nach Dubai: Muslimisches Pilgern und Geschlecht im Kontext von Konsumpraktiken“ pursued one original primary goal: To investigate how consumerist practices are negotiated on a religious journey in a gender-specific and religious way, especially with regard to the body and dress codes, on the level of the female social actors being on pilgrimage. This project was innovative in two areas: (1) Muslim pilgrimage was analysed with a view to gender dynamics, especially concerning the body, from the perspective of female non-Western social actors who travel. Previous research on connections between pilgrimage and gender lacks research on these connections in the context of Muslim pilgrimage and on the investigation of these dynamics in the regional context outside Europe. (2) This perspective of non-Western travellers, in turn, was investigated with regard to the interface between Muslim travel and consuming practices, which, with a view to corporeality, refer to dress codes and dress regulations. Previous research in the field of pilgrimage and consumption is lacking regarding investigation of one concrete religion, on the one hand, and on the differentiation between different forms of pilgrimage, on the other hand. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates between 2017 and 2018, this research could eventually show that Malay Malaysian pilgrims consume religious connoted travel packages and, especially the women, shop for (partly) spiritual, gender-specific souvenirs on the trip. Consumption on the religious journey becomes highly gendered. The social actors draw on the commercialization of spirituality, driven by local and global tourism and fashion industries specialized in Islamic-related products, especially gendered garments. An ethnographic research that is furthermore based in feminist gender and intersectionality studies, this study moreover argues that gendered spirituality leads to different, mutually constitutive, gendered and religionized embodied practices of this inner disposition and of femininity or masculinity which eventually challenge gendered social hierarchical orders. Therefore, this research contributes significantly to understanding how gendered meanings and practices of spirituality and faith are redefined or reified in the process of religious travel and consuming practices, and, thereby, informs a wider, interdisciplinary debate on intersectionality, constructions and practices of identity, and mobilities.
Publications
- (2021) Gendered pilgrimage: hajj and umrah from women’s perspectives. Journal of Contemporary Religion 36 (2) 223–241
Thimm, Viola
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2021.1930878) - Commercialising Islam in Malaysia: Ziarah at the intersection of Muslim pilgrimage and the market-driven tourism industry. UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 56, December. Bangi: Institute of Ethnic Studies, 2017
Thimm, Viola
- Embodying and consuming Muslim pilgrimage: Gendered shopping and clothing practices by Malaysian women on “umrah and ziarah Dubai.“ Asian Anthropology, Vol 17 (3): 185–203, 2018
Thimm, Viola
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2018.1483477) - Muslim Mobilities and Gender: An Introduction. In: Viola Thimm (ed.): Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender, 2018, S. 1-10. Basel: MDPI
Thimm, Viola
(See online at https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7010005) - Postcolonial Intersections – Asia on the Move: Introduction. Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Vol 8 (3):28–35, 2018
Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi und Viola Thimm
(See online at https://doi.org/10.3167/TRANS.2018.080303) - Special Section “Postcolonial Intersections: Asia on the Move” Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Vol 8 (3), 2018
Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi und Viola Thimm (eds.)
(See online at https://doi.org/10.3167/TRANS.2018.080303) - Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender. Basel: MDPI. 2018
Thimm, Viola (ed.)
(See online at https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03842-752-0) - Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion and Mobility (Routledge) 2020, 222 S.
Buitelaar, Marjo; Manja Stephan-Emmrich; Viola Thimm (ed.)
(See online at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003110903) - Under male supervision? Islamic belief and nationality as basis for Muslim women’s pilgrimage. In: Buitelaar, Marjo; Manja Stephan-Emmrich and Viola Thimm: Muslim women’s pilgrimage practices. Reconfiguring gender, religion and mobility. (Routledge). S. 1
Thimm, Viola
(See online at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003110903-2) - (Re-)Claiming Bodies Through Fashion and Style. Gendered Configurations in Muslim Contexts 2021, XVII, 317
Thimm, Viola (ed.)
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71941-8)
