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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

Mengia Hong Tschalaer
Affiliation:
City University of New York
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Summary

Muslim Women's Quest for Justice marks an important milestone of a long journey. A journey that begun in 2005. Back then, in November, I set off to commence fieldwork for my master thesis in rural south Rajasthan, near Udaipur. There, I examined the ways women of the Meena community (re)negotiate patriarchal gender norms and women's identities within an unusual tribal women's court. Presided over by women, this court offered room for impoverished tribal women to articulate novel ideas of women's rights in the areas of marriage and the family within a women-friendly environment. During the six months of fieldwork, I learned that for many tribal women, this informal court was the only place where their concerns about domestic violence, marital rejection, polygamy, child custody, property, and maintenance were taken seriously. Then in contemporary India the sluggish and expensive state courts as well as the men-reserved community assemblies are generally more concerned with upholding patriarchal values than with the socio-economic needs of tribal women as mothers, daughters, and wives. My research evinces that such a female legal space could be particularly valuable for tribal women who are confronted with a predominantly men-dominated patriarchal legal context.

However, the possibilities for the realisation of gender justice on the ground that are opened up by informal legal institutions, such as this tribal women's court in Rajasthan, have been little acknowledged in the scholarship concerned with women's rights in contemporary India. Instead, legal, political, and feminist scholarship on issues of gender and law tends to posit non-state law and accompanying social forums as diametrically opposed to the modern state-legal system and to classical liberal-legal ideology in general. From such a perspective, informal institutions and laws – and especially Islam – are disparaged as illiberal obstacles to justice and citizenship rights and progress.

This book challenges such simplified modernist accounts that stress the dichotomy of non-state law versus state law. Instead, it highlights the recently renewed endeavours of Muslim women's rights activists to re-articulate gender justice and Muslim women's rights outside of the state legal system.

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Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
Gender, Law and Activism in India
, pp. ix - xii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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  • Preface
  • Mengia Hong Tschalaer, City University of New York
  • Book: Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
  • Online publication: 08 February 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316659236.001
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  • Preface
  • Mengia Hong Tschalaer, City University of New York
  • Book: Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
  • Online publication: 08 February 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316659236.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Mengia Hong Tschalaer, City University of New York
  • Book: Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
  • Online publication: 08 February 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316659236.001
Available formats
×