Research Student Seminar Series 1 - PolyU · 2014-09-17 · in Muslim fashion industry where young...
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Research Student Seminar Series 1 Date: 1 September 2014 (Monday) Time: 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Venue: GH405 Speaker: Mr. Gong Jin MPhil Program Department of Applied Social Sciences The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Topic: Cultural Politics of the Veil: The Study of Chinese Muslim Women’s Dress and Style Abstract: Following the ten-year prohibition of religion in Cultural Revolution, Muslim communities throughout China began slowly to restore their religious institutions and revive their religious activities. Known as the Islamic resurgence/revivalism, the restoration has affected Muslim people’s ways of living for the last decade. Muslim women’s dress and styles in various forms of the veil (also known as hijab), such as the white cap, the gaitou, headscarf, or the full body covering (Jilbab), have become the signpost of Muslim visibility and battlefield of cultural definition of proper Islam in contemporary China. Since 2012, government authorities have launched explicit campaigns against the veil and jilbab in Xinjiang. Veils have thus become a site of ethnic contention incurring violent conflicts. Meanwhile a different scenario emerges in Muslim fashion industry where young Muslim women started to consume the “fashionable” veils inspired by foreign Muslim fashions. Although veiled women gain more visibility in mass media and advertisements, their subjective experience remains overlooked in media writings of Chinese Nationalism as well as feminist scholarship. This research will take an intersectional perspective of the veil inspired by postcolonial and postmodern feminist studies to investigate the cultural circuit of veil in forging cultural dominance and agency in a matrix of power relations of gender, class, ethnicity and religiosity. Treating the veil as cultural embodiments of different stakeholders, this study will examine how hegemonic systems of meaning and values are configured and reproduced. Through an ethnographic study of veiling practices in a local Hui ethnic minority village of Yunnan province, I will examine Muslim women’s lived experience in their daily encounters. By looking at how resistance, agency and subjectivity are construed and negotiated in women’s lived body experience, this research project not only re-configures the gendered “herstory” of Chinese nationalism, but also contextualizes and revises feminist writing of gender politics in contemporary China by attending to the lived experience of ethno-religious women. Speaker's brief biography: Gong Jin is currently a full-time MPhil student in the Department of Applied Social Sciences. His research engages feminist theory, queer studies, body theory and cultural politics in contemporary China. Prior to his study in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he was a member of a feminist activist group in Beijing advocating gender equality through participatory theatre and performing art.
Transcript of Research Student Seminar Series 1 - PolyU · 2014-09-17 · in Muslim fashion industry where young...
Research Student Seminar Series 1
Date: 1 September 2014 (Monday) Time: 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Venue: GH405
Speaker: Mr. Gong Jin MPhil Program Department of Applied Social Sciences The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Topic: Cultural Politics of the Veil: The Study of Chinese Muslim Women’s Dress and Style
Abstract: Following the ten-year prohibition of religion in Cultural Revolution, Muslim communities throughout China began slowly to restore their religious institutions and revive their religious activities. Known as the Islamic resurgence/revivalism, the restoration has a�ected Muslim people’s ways of living for the last decade. Muslim women’s dress and styles in various forms of the veil (also known as hijab), such as the white cap, the gaitou, headscarf, or the full body covering (Jilbab), have become the signpost of Muslim visibility and battle�eld of cultural de�nition of proper Islam in contemporary China.
Since 2012, government authorities have launched explicit campaigns against the veil and jilbab in Xinjiang. Veils have thus become a site of ethnic contention incurring violent con�icts. Meanwhile a di�erent scenario emerges in Muslim fashion industry where young Muslim women started to consume the “fashionable” veils inspired by foreign Muslim fashions. Although veiled women gain more visibility in mass media and advertisements, their subjective experience remains overlooked in media writings of Chinese Nationalism as well as feminist scholarship.
This research will take an intersectional perspective of the veil inspired by postcolonial and postmodern feminist studies to investigate the cultural circuit of veil in forging cultural dominance and agency in a matrix of power relations of gender, class, ethnicity and religiosity. Treating the veil as cultural embodiments of di�erent stakeholders, this study will examine how hegemonic systems of meaning and values are con�gured and reproduced. Through an ethnographic study of veiling practices in a local Hui ethnic minority village of Yunnan province, I will examine Muslim women’s lived experience in their daily encounters. By looking at how resistance, agency and subjectivity are construed and negotiated in women’s lived body experience, this research project not only re-con�gures the gendered “herstory” of Chinese nationalism, but also contextualizes and revises feminist writing of gender politics in contemporary China by attending to the lived experience of ethno-religious women.
Speaker's brief biography:Gong Jin is currently a full-time MPhil student in the Department of Applied Social Sciences. His research engages feminist theory, queer studies, body theory and cultural politics in contemporary China. Prior to his study in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he was a member of a feminist activist group in Beijing advocating gender equality through participatory theatre and performing art.
