Editorial

Abstract

Shirin Saeidi’s “A Passionate Pursuit of Justice: Towards an Ethics of Islamic
Feminist Research Practice” is a well-researched and thought-provoking
piece on the question of how a scholar investigating lived practices (of Islam,
in this case) may fruitfully deploy feminist theoretical perspectives;
in particular, “how a feminist committed to breaking down hierarchies
between research participants and herself can carefully study ambiguous
activism.” By “ambiguous activism” the author seems to mean the practices
of groups or forms of life toward which the author feels morally ambivalent.
Her essay is a judicious combination of literature review of feminist
theorization, methodological reflection, and self-reflection in the context
of her object of study. Her object of study is Iran’s Hezbollah, a conservative
cultural movement backed by the mullahs and in this respect, quite unlike
other Islamist movements in the Middle East; a movement, Saeidi notes,
which may be regarded as both “oppressive, but also suppressed.” While
enjoying powerful backing by the Supreme Leader (still the king-maker in
Iran) it struggles within civil society against secularization and individualistic
religiosity introduced by neoliberalism ...