Studying gendered embodied consumption with poststructuralist feminist hermeneutics

Purpose This study aims to consider how research methodologies and methods can afford holistic inquiry into gendered embodied consumption. Noting the salience of gender in past and present discourse surrounding the body and building on poststructuralist feminist hermeneutic philosophy and practice, the authors introduce a novel methodological framework situated within three considerations borne of the current socio-cultural landscape: the politics of embodiment, embodied identity and intersectionality. Design/methodology/approach To assist scholars and practitioners in interpreting themes of gendered embodiment in textual data surrounding consumption topics, the authors orient the framework around three principles of listening, questioning and hospitality. This framework fosters embodied empathy by linking the researcher’s body to those of research participants. To illustrate the method, the authors interpret consumption narratives extracted from semi-structured interviews with 26 women-identified recreational runners on the topics of embodiment, sport and media. Findings The interpretations of gendered consumption narratives show that using the principles of listening, questioning and hospitality invites an understanding of consumers as multifaceted, contradictory and agentic. The authors argue that consumers’ everyday experiences are often simple and quiet but embedded in history wherein bodies are both biological and inescapably social. Originality/value The methodological framework allows both the researcher’s and research participants’ embodiment to play a role in the research process. It also illuminates the entanglement of embodiment and consumption in a fraught, politicized context. The authors show that by listening to consumers, questioning their narratives and traditional interpretations thereof and inviting consumers to feel comfortable and heard, researchers can see what other approaches may overlook.

The Call to Preach

Chapter 1 defines the call to preach as containing two aspects, inward and outward, and identifies a gender gap or difference in how men and women can claim their call to preach. By identifying the central problem of gender inequality, this chapter establishes the fundamental concern of this book as a significant issue of patriarchy and ecclesiastical authority. Next, the chapter reviews relevant scholarship in homiletics and history of preaching to contextualize this issue. Drawing on social theorists, obstacles are identified and defined that have formed and maintained the dominant narrative limiting women preachers and their voice and agency. Utilizing feminist hermeneutics, this chapter argues that the historical women preachers of this work and their power of resistance still hold valuable lessons for people struggling to claim their call to preach today.

Claiming the Call to Preach

Claiming the Call to Preach traces the history of call through the nineteenth century, at a time when the question of women’s call to preach, although seemingly fixed by ecclesial authority and cultural convention, was being raised by courageous women in different settings, through different genres, and to different effect. This book recovers the neglected narrative of women’s call to preach through the historical accounts and rhetorical witness of four groundbreaking women preachers: Jarena Lee, Frances Willard, Louisa Woosley, and Florence Spearing Randolph. Scholarship has been written on women who have preached in history, but not on how they managed to claim their call to preach despite the restrictions of gender inequality. This project explores the question: how did women claim their call to preach? Through feminist hermeneutics, this book examines call narratives which used rhetorical strategies to articulate effective arguments for women’s call to the preaching ministry of the church. In response, these women received endorsement of their claims to pulpit places, engaged in sacred persuasive speech, and preached as ministers of the sacred office. This project examines women’s call to preach—the history and theology, rhetoric and practice, struggle and success, and the necessary work of interpretation and re-interpretation through call narratives. This book concludes with practical applications for contemporary homiletics, showing how historical tradition can be re-invented in order to give women—and anyone struggling with their call to preach—rhetorical tactics and narrative scripts in order to make effective claims to preach today.

Islamic Feminism and Hegemonic Discourses on Faith and Gender in Islam

Islamic feminism is characterised by a debate, a practice enunciated within the Islamic values and frame. Muslim women brought their experiences to the forefront and challenged the traditional and post-classical interpretation of the Qurʾan and Sunna. They claimed interpretations of the religious text as totally biased and based on men’s experience, questions that are male-centric, and the overall influence of the patriarchal society and culture. According to Islamic feminists, Islam has guaranteed women’s rights since its inception, confirming the notion of egalitarian ethics within Islam. However, the original message of Islam has been hindered by the hegemonic interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence; a product of existing patriarchy in the long passage of Islamic history for over several centuries. The rights of women as prescribed in Islam are not in practice anymore, even the demand for women’s rights is seen by many as going against the basic principle of Islam. Islamic feminists give their justifications from the Qurʾan and Hadith, and they called for re-opening the door of ijtihād (reasoning). This paper captures the significant works of feminist discourses and analyses different perspectives by the Islamic feminists who challenged the dominant discourses in Islam. It deals with the dominant discourse of Islamic feminists such as feminist hermeneutics of the Qurʾan, and includes a discussion on how feminist hermeneutics or new gender-sensitive interpretation of the Qurʾan tries to assert gender equality in the Qurʾan. There are two ways in which Muslims read patriarchy in the Qurʾan: first from the verses and the other from the different treatment of the Qurʾan on issues including marriages, divorce, inheritances, and witness. Islamic feminists reject anti-women elements, present in the Muslim umma and consider them as unethical and against Islam.

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible brings together thirty-seven essential essays written by leading international scholars, examining crucial points of analysis within the field of feminist Hebrew Bible studies. Organized into four major areas — globalization, neoliberalism, media, and intersectionality, the essays provide vibrant, relevant, and innovative contributions to the field. The topics of analysis focus heavily on gender and queer identity, with essays touching on African, Korean, and European feminist hermeneutics, womanist and interreligious readings, ecofeminist and animal biblical studies, migration biblical studies, the role of gender binary voices in evangelical-egalitarian approaches, oand the examination of scripture in light of trans women’s voices. The volume includes essays examining the Old Testament as recited in music, literature, film, and video games. In short, the book offers a vision for feminist biblical scholarship beyond the hegemonic status quo prevalent in the field of biblical studies, in many religious organizations and institutions that claim the Bible as a sacred text, and among the public that often mentions the Bible to establish religious, political, and socio-cultural restrictions for gendered practices. The exegetically and hermeneutically diverse essays demonstrate that feminist biblical scholarship forges ahead with the task of engaging the many issues and practices that keep the gender caste system in place even in the early part of the twenty-first century. The essays of this volume thus offer conceptual and exegetical ways forward at a historic moment of global transformation and emerging possibilities.

A Multidimensional Approach in Feminist Ecological Biblical Studies

In the context of anthropogenic climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the extinction of species, ecological hermeneutics has developed in two major strands: The Earth Bible Project based in Adelaide, South Australia, and The Uses of the Bible in Environmental Ethics Project, based in Exeter, UK. Neither project specifically takes up a feminist perspective, but both are, to varying degrees, in debt to feminist biblical studies. One significant area of tension is the question of the priority of the ecological over the feminist in a situation of critical ecological concern. This essay situates ecological hermeneutics in relation to feminist hermeneutics. It focuses on Genesis 1–3 and 6–9, and refers to prophetic and wisdom literature. Violence against women and Earth is the prompt for ecological feminist hermeneutics. In response to such violence, ecological feminist interpreters affirm material agency, reimagine human identity, are open to Earth’s agency in the reading process, and practice biblical interpretation as a form of partnership with Earth. Ecological feminist approaches not only engage with the multiplicity of Earth as partner in their readings but also integrate feminist, postcolonial, and other contextual approaches into a multidimensional reading praxis.

Diálogo inferfé e hermenêutica feminista latino-americana: possíveis caminhos | Interfaith Dialogue and Latin-American feminist hermeneutics: possible paths

A teologia feminista latino-americana está entrelaçada com a sobrevivência e a espiritualidade diárias das mulheres, repensando assim os conceitos tradicionais de corpos subalternos. É a experiência das mulheres como uma direção para desafiar as noções de revelação e dogma. O diálogo inter-religioso tem sido construído com as lentes ocidentalizantes do Paradigma das Religiões Mundiais que fixam apenas uma noção do que é Religião. Este artigo tem como objetivo desafiar esses conceitos, tecendo hermenêuticas latino-americanas do diálogo inter-religioso, nesse caso, com as mãos de mulheres feministas. Como podemos entender a hermenêutica do diálogo inter-religioso das mulheres latino-americanas? Dialogaremos com o tema a partir do conceito de diálogo interfé, conectando-o com a colonialidade em Abya Yala, para assim pensar os possíveis caminhos da hermenêutica inter-religiosa feminista latino-americana e do Princípio Pluralista na América Latina. Utilizaremos autoras/res da teologia feminista latino-americana e do princípio pluralista para construir possíveis bordados a partir do nosso chão e luta, tais como Maricel-Mena López, Ivone Gebara, Cláudio de Oliveira Ribeiro entre outras/os pensadoras/os.Abstract Latin American feminist theology is intertwined with women's daily survival and spirituality, thus rethinking traditional concepts of subordinate bodies. It is the experience of women as a direction to challenge the notions of revelation and dogma. Interreligious dialogue has been built with the Westernizing lens of the World Religions Paradigm, which has fixed the notion of what Religion is. This article aims to challenge these concepts by weaving Latin American hermeneutics of interreligious dialogue, in this case, with the hands of feminist women. How can we understand the hermeneutics of inter-religious dialogue among Latin American women? We will dialogue with the theme based on the concept of interfaith dialogue, connecting with coloniality in Abya Yala to think about the possible paths of Latin American feminist inter-religious hermeneutics and the Pluralist Principle in Latin America. We will use authors from Latin American feminist theology and the pluralist principle to build possible embroidery from our ground and struggle, such as Maricel-Mena López, Ivone Gebara, Claudio de Oliveira Ribeiro among other thinkers.

Perempuan dan Kepemimpinan Gereja: Suatu Dialog Perspektif Hermeneutika Feminis

The feminist movement became a movement that moved and challenged the church from the comfort of male domination. The role of women is increasingly strengthened and developed in various aspects of life, including aspects of church leadership. This resulted in debates among male-dominated church leaders; whether women's leadership roles can be accepted or rejected. This article is presented to add to the theological study of women and their leadership in the church through the perspective of feminist hermeneutics while upholding respect and authority for the Bible. The method used is grammar-accommodative, which is a combination of grammatical understanding of the text and translatively translated. Finally, the involvement of women in the formation of Christian social ethics in the future will broaden the horizon of understanding the interaction of women and men in social structures and ecclesiastics. Abstrak Gerakan feminis menjadi sebuah gerakan yang menggugah dan meng-gugat gereja dari kenyamanannya dominasi laki-laki. Peranan perempuan semakin diperkuat dan dikembangkan di pelbagai aspek kehidupan, termasuk aspek kepemimpinan gereja. Hal ini ini berdampak perdebatan di kalangan pimpinan gereja yang didominasi laki-laki; apakah peranan kepemimpinan perempuan bisa diterima atau ditolak. Artikel ini disajikan untuk menambah kajian teologis mengenai perempuan dan kepemimpinannya di gereja melalui perspektif hermeneutika feminis, dengan tetap menjunjung tinggi penghargaan dan otoritas terhadap Alkitab. Metode yang digunakan adalah grammar-akomodatif, yang merupakan perpaduan pengertian teks secara gramatikal dan diterjemahkan secara akomo-datif. Akhirnya, keterlibatan perempuan ke dalam pembentukan etika sosial Kristen di masa depan akan memperluas cakrawala pemahaman tentang interaksi perempuan dan laki-laki dalam struktur sosial dan kegerejawian.