Introduction

Taking as our starting point the contributions of the debates and considerations around the ‘voice of the subaltern’, discursive colonization and epistemic violence (Spivak, 2009; Mohanty, 2008), some initial questions are inescapable: what happens when that Other that we work with and that interpellates us is not strictly a ‘subaltern’, or in other words, does not necessarily fit the classical description based on supposed racial and/or class parameters? Furthermore, what dilemmas do we face when the otherness or alterity that confronts and affects us includes, in addition to the tensions inherent in diversity, others that are the result of similarities? Who is the ‘subaltern’, who are they for and in what context? And lastly, what happens to empathy and distance when the Other is our neighbour? (Ginsburg, 2004). Can we really avoid indefinite forms of discursive violence and narrative authority even if our stance in the social field is similar to the Other? How to train ‘the eye’ and ‘the ear’ to recognize instances of resistance and normativity in diffuse and unusual spaces?

Many of these questions have arisen out of our own experience of fieldwork with Muslim women in Buenos Aires. We started our work at different times but our paths crossed along the way. The goals and desires driving our two research projects are quite distinct; however, as Argentinean trainee researchers, we agree on the vital importance of a knowledge of the past and present of Muslim communities in the Global South.

Our main objective is to describe, understand and explain the process of identity building among women professing Islam in Argentina by analysing the ways they articulate and reconstruct their different loci of identity belongings (sex/gender, Arab, Argentinean and Muslim identities). This enables comparisons to be drawn between the religious careers of women occupying different positions in the social field, and tries to understand and describe how Muslim women experience (embodiment) and externalize (performance) their religiosity and religious identity, while at the same time paying attention to the different types of female agency (Mahmood, 2005).