Interpreting piety among young Singaporean Muslim women of different ethnicities in secular Singapore : an intersectional approach

• Main Author: Parveen Kaur Bawinder Singh
• Other Authors: Han Sam
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology; DRNTU::Humanities::Religions::Islam; DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Family, marriage and women
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73691
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Women have known to be bearers, markers and transmitters for both religion and ethnicity — these intersecting social categories have shown to create new beliefs and identities. However, little has been said about the influence of such intersections on the way a woman interprets her piety. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 19 Singaporean Muslim women from Malay, Indian, Arab and Pakistani ethnic backgrounds, this study uses intersectionality as a framework to explore how interpretations of piety among young Muslim women living in secular Singapore are influenced by their ethnicities. Marrying Bourdieu’s idea of the habitus with Foucault’s concept of the ethical subject along with Shibutani’s reference groups, I reveal how my participants intepret piety in varied ways when they resist ethnicity, accommodate ethnicity, or use ethnicity as a basis to argue against a socialised patriarchal outlook of Islam. These multiple intepretations of piety, I argue, depict a kind of piety movement that is multidimensional.