Saving and fearing Muslim women in 'post-communist' Poland: troubling Catholic and secular Islamophobia. Issue 2 (1st February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Narkowicz, Kasia; Pędziwiatr, Konrad
• Is Part Of: Gender, place and culture. Volume 24:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 288
• Page End: 299
• Publication Date: 2017-02-01
• Subjects: Islamophobia -- Muslim women -- feminism -- Poland -- post-communism -- Central and Eastern Europe; Islamofobia -- mujeres musulmanas -- feminismo -- Polonia -- post-comunismo -- Europa Central y del Este; 伊斯兰恐惧症 -- 穆斯林女性 -- 女权主义 -- 波兰 -- 后共产主义 -- 中欧与东欧; Human geography -- Periodicals; Feminism -- Periodicals; Géographie féministe -- Périodiques; 305.305
• DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2017.1298574
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0966-369X

Abstract

Abstract: Sexual politics play a key role in anti-Muslim narratives. This has been observed by scholarship problematising liberal feminist approaches towards 'non-Western' subjects focusing on countries such as France, the USA and the Netherlands. Yet interrogations into how these debates play out in European national contexts that are located outside of the European 'West' have attracted significantly less scholarly attention. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Poland this article aims to begin to fill this gap by analysing the centrality of feminist discourses within Islamophobic agendas in Poland. The article asks how discourses around women's rights are mobilised simultaneously, and paradoxically, by both secular and Catholic groups in 'post-communist' Poland. By showcasing how feminist sentiments are employed by ideologically opposing groups, we sketch out some of the complexities in the ways Islamophobia operates in a Central and Eastern European context.