Islamic Feminism in Kuwait: The Politics and Paradoxes by Alessandra L. González (review)

Islamic Feminism in Kuwait is the product of extensive research and interviews in Kuwait, and the volume is densely packed with data and excerpts from the author’s thirty-five interviews and surveys conducted with 1,000 college students. González ambitiously tackles what is often considered Kuwait’s exceptionalism, the amorphously deceptive meaning of “feminism” anywhere in 2013, the compatible yet often contradictory claims of Islam and patriarchal/tribal structures, and, finally, how women and men in Kuwait understand and negotiate women’s rights and their access to economic independence and political agency. This is a huge agenda made even more daunting by the exigencies of the so-called Arab Spring and the surprising speed by which seemingly secular “revolutions” were transformed into or coopted by conservative Islamist parties and factions.

González steers us toward understanding how Islam—both principles and jurisprudence—is used in the Kuwaiti context as the sole legitimate authority upon which all discussions about women’s rights rest. Means and desired ends differ greatly, but the starting point, the foundation for argument, are the rights bestowed upon seventh century women by Islam. Most of the Kuwaiti elite interviewed eschew what they consider to be the institutionalized misunderstanding and misappropriation of women’s rights through generations of tradition, which they hold intellectually separate from the patriarchal political structure. In this, highly educated, elite Kuwaitis are not unique; this resonates elsewhere in the Arabian Gulf among those who consider themselves to be more educated and cosmopolitan than their perhaps more tradition-bound compatriots.

The Kuwaiti situation is unique among the oil producing nations of the Gulf because at the core of this book lie the ways in which Kuwaiti women define themselves politically and operate as actors in the sometimes chaotic and always raucous world of Kuwaiti politics. Not surprisingly, the majority of the women González interviewed listed economic independence as their prime concern and their primary goal in political action, yet most had chosen not to champion that goal immediately and had focused on other issues such as education and health care—even leaving the issue of personal status laws on the table. It is here that the issue of authority—of legitimacy—plays a signal role because women (and men) commonly decide to back an Islamist candidate rather than a so-called liberal one because their perception of authority was and is firmly grounded in Islam, not in ideas which have their genesis in non-Islamic cultures. In this regard, González might have considered the textual nature of Islamic authority and legitimacy in a manner similar to Arjun Appadurai’s 1981 analysis of “the past as a scarce resource” in Man.

While Islamic Feminism in Kuwait is rich with information, the architecture of the book makes it a difficult read. The Introduction is far too long and, in the confusing way of introductions, presages far too much that is to come later without the background to make it understandable. The chapter subheadings are in large capital letters throughout the book with the inexplicable exception of Chapter 4, in which sentence case italics are used. The subheadings—in both formats—were vexing because they seemed like declarative sentences that were about to be explicated when, in fact, they were often not fully supported. Often, a subheading such as “KUWAIT’S UNIQUE PLURALISM IN POLITICS” (74) is followed by a brief, three-paragraph discussion that is inconclusive and undeserving of a subheading.

Recreating the detail and nuance acquired through ethnographic interviews for readers is a considerable challenge for all of us. How much background information is sufficient to contextualize the interview? What does the reader need to know about the interlocutor to understand the significance of her or his comments? González chose to include voluminous excerpts from her interviews, and on many pages the bulk of the text are such excerpts. In some instances the specifics of the...