Description
Western feminism has universal pretensions, although it is not inclusive enough. Other potential sites for feminist IR that do not conform to the liberal framework have been marginalized. While it questions mainstream IR's epistemic violence, it indulges in it. However, if our concern is with the emancipation of women (In whatever ways possible), we should welcome epistemic plurality in Feminist IR. It can be done by identifying alternative sites instrumental in women’s emancipation. One such site of broadening this horizon can be the works of the Egyptian Islamist activist Zainab al Ghazali. In the proposed paper, I will explore how she has tried to find women’s agency and visibilize women and their contribution to Islamist movements. Ghazali’s experience does not fit neatly into feminist epistemologies, especially in their traditional Euro-American guise; however, it also stretches the bounds of non-Western experience. Her ability to articulate an Islamic female subjectivity in a traditionally patriarchal structure while resonating with the principles of this very structure against a secularising state aiming to ‘empower’ the individual subjectivity of Muslim women merits attention. By giving space to epistemic plurality, we will not fall into the trap of essentializing feminism, and it can also be a way of realizing and accepting diverse paths to female liberation. Furthermore, contemporary feminist perspectives subscribe to radically different ontologies and epistemologies against Al-Ghazali’s which is situated in an Islamist paradigm. Hence the contribution of the work will also be to broaden the “understanding [between the two] through dialogues across boundaries and cultures in which voices of others, particularly those on the margins, must be seen as equally valid as one’s own” (Tickner, 1997, p. 629). The research also highlights the need to have “pluriversal” (Trownsell et al., 2022, p. 788) knowledge systems to make knowledge production more diverse. It also highlights the need to “devise alternate and disruptive knowledge categories by learning from the lived realities of people around the globe” (Trownsell et al., 2022, p. 798) so that the hegemonic discourses are ‘provicialized’. (Chakrabarty, 2009). By taking into consideration different histories, we can draw new theoretical lessons to produce a global account of world politics and challenge the “provincial representation that effectively equates the international and indeed the global with Europe and the West” (Hobson, 2014, p. 575).
