Defining, Refining, and Enacting Religious Reflexivities in Pakistani-Canadian Muslim Families

Political and popular discourse maintain Orientalist myths about Muslims as uniformly and fatalistically driven by a monolithic Islam, fueling a clash of civilizations. While researchers disrupt this Orientalist narrative by underscoring the presence of Muslim “reflexivity,” or the critical engagement with religious identities, beliefs, and practices, they nevertheless unintentionally reify a uniform Muslim reflexivity. This dissertation is the first empirically based study that demonstrates the social patterns of multiple forms of Muslim reflexivities. I highlight two patterns of reflexivities that relate to different approaches to religion: orthodox and heterodox. I further refine these patterns by highlighting how group and individual statuses shape social location, and thus subjectivity. I draw on theories of racialization and gender and I utilize a sample of 56 currently and previously married Pakistani Canadian Muslims to parse differences between orthodox and heterodox reflexivities and explore how divergent approaches to religion coincide with contrary patterns. These patterns are complicated by group identity for minorities within minorities (e.g., Shias) and by individual statuses (e.g., previously married women). In order to understand these divergent patterns, I extend the concept of Muslim reflexivity by incorporating a religious approach. Orthodox reflexive Muslim participants, who view one approach as correct, are preoccupied with authority given their identification with a marginalized minority group. Thus, they perceive ethnic boundaries as bright and gender boundaries as rigid. The focus of their reflexivity is dawat, or teaching others about the “true” Islam. This contrasts with heterodox reflexive Muslim participants, who view multiple approaches as correct. They do not perceive their minority group as being threatened, and thus do not seek out authority to legitimize their identity. In turn, they perceive ethnic boundaries as blurred, and maintain gender fluid attitudes and practices. The focus of their reflexivity is akhlaq, or having polite manners and ensuring mutually satisfying intimate relations. I conclude by discussing theoretical contributions and policy implications, cautioning against conflating categories of practice and analysis, and also problematizing liberal feminist approaches that pathologize Islam in efforts to ‘liberate Muslim women.’

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