Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court

by Susan F. Hirsch

The title of Susan Hirsch's study of disputes involving Swahili Muslims in coastal Kenya reflects the image of gender relations most commonly associated with Islamic law. Men need only "pronounce" divorce to resolve marital conflicts, while embattled and embittered wives must persevere by silently enduring marital hardships. But Hirsch's observations of Islamic courts uncover how Muslim women actively use legal processes to transform their domestic lives, achieving victories on some fronts but reinforcing their image as subordinate to men through the speech they produce in court.

Pronouncing and Persevering focuses closely on the language used in disputes, particularly how men and women narrate their claims and how their speech shapes and is shaped by gender hierarchy in postcolonial Swahili society. Based on field research and court testimony, Hirsch's book debunks the conventional view that women are powerless under Islamic law and challenges the dichotomies through which Islam and gender relations are currently understood.

374 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1998

Reviews

[Charlie Bavis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty solid ethnography focusing in gendered language. Some more attention to intersectionality would have been interesting, but it certainly stuck to the topic of indexing gender. Definitely a bit of jargon, but that should be evident as a linguistic anthropological study. Hirsch’s ethnographic research at times felt unethical and I don’t want to merely attribute that to how anthropology has been conducted historically. All in all, well done, but more conversations could have been made between Hirsch and the Swahili population in terms of respect.