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1 – 10 of 577This study aims to identify the challenges of Muslim women in terms of their dress code in Western society by including their clothing needs in the strategies of the fashion…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the challenges of Muslim women in terms of their dress code in Western society by including their clothing needs in the strategies of the fashion industry and marketing. The study focuses on wardrobe choices that have helped overcome these challenges and facilitated Muslim women’s integration into western society.
Design/methodology/approach
Descriptive statistics were used in this study through a questionnaire that was distributed among 265 randomly selected Muslim women in London, UK. The results have been presented in charts showing the percentages and frequencies of the different behaviors and challenges that were faced by Muslim women in the west.
Findings
The majority of the study sample preferred to use a variety of modern fashion trends from global brands to integrate with the community. The essential criteria for the Muslim women’s clothing choices include head hair cover and conservative full-length clothes that are non-transparent that cover the neck and chest area.
Originality/value
A study has investigated the clothing needs and behaviors of Muslim women in the west for their community integration. It analyzed the results and linked them with the role and contributions of designers, producers and fashion marketers in accepting the western society of Muslims and their integration with its members.
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Jayne Krisjanous, Nilufar Allayarova and Djavlonbek Kadirov
This paper aims to explore marketing practices related to online halal maternity wear by examining the characteristics of halal maternity wear promoted to Muslim women (Muslimah…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore marketing practices related to online halal maternity wear by examining the characteristics of halal maternity wear promoted to Muslim women (Muslimah) and how these differ between sponsoring websites.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative content analysis of 24 websites promoting halal maternity wear to pregnant customers was undertaken.
Findings
Several issues related to the availability and promotion of halal maternity wear online, particularly when addressing the needs of Western Muslim women, were found. Successful marketing solutions to the problems of halal maternity wear require solving a number of tensions arising at the intersections of the following distinctions: mahram versus non-mahram settings, crude versus stylish fashion and the normative perceptions of immodesty versus modesty.
Practical implications
Careful research and attention need to be taken before promoting and targeting products as appropriate for Muslimah maternity wear. Those brands that display the requisite skills and knowledge necessary to determine whether a product meets the needs of modesty, fashionability and local climate/weather conditions in their maternity lines have much to gain from the Muslimah maternity market.
Social implications
The availability of maternity wear that makes Muslimah feel comfortable and satisfied with their appearance will contribute to a positive pregnancy body image. Positive pregnancy body image is associated with positive pre and postnatal infant attachment by the mother, which in turn leads to beneficial outcomes for mother and baby.
Originality/value
Research to date has focused on Islamic fashion in general, with a dearth of research on Islamic maternity wear. This paper addresses the gap by focusing on maternity wear and associated marketing practices, from the Islamic point of view.
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Debates over ritual slaughter, sacred food, fasts, and forbidden foods, perpetuated by religion and tradition, are nothing new. Dietary obligations and prohibitions, in all their…
Abstract
Debates over ritual slaughter, sacred food, fasts, and forbidden foods, perpetuated by religion and tradition, are nothing new. Dietary obligations and prohibitions, in all their diversity, have always been the object of comment, critique, or even concern from one human group towards another. The consumption of meat (or its prohibition) has always been about more than its nutritional function. Reducing religious dietary obligations to hygienic or gustatory practices would be an unrealistic attempt to erase the diversity of the procedures which people undertake to give meaning to life, death, and the world, and to locate themselves in relation to “others”. These rites, legitimated by myths, inevitably provoke phenomena of influence, reciprocated within and outside groups. The selection of food – of meat in particular – plays a primordial role as a social marker, the rules of which contribute to the organisation of groups by tracing differences between individuals, between men and women, and between communities. Formerly attached to a totemic group and its territory, then to a religion and its society, dietary practices are globalising and encountering one-another. Questions are now raised about the management, in shared spaces, of a diversity of dietary prohibitions and obligations. These questions are at the core of this chapter, notably, what place should be reserved for dietary particularities in collective catering in human organisations? And what limits should be given to the expectations of each regarding dietary purity or fasting?
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This paper explores the confusion in values that underpin the stereotyping of ‘the Muslim woman’. From the point of view of the ‘woman who veils’, it addresses the idea of…
Abstract
This paper explores the confusion in values that underpin the stereotyping of ‘the Muslim woman’. From the point of view of the ‘woman who veils’, it addresses the idea of strategic self‐presentation geared by the logic of negotiation. Avoiding any uncritical celebration of such play of identities, it also engages with the internal struggle for self‐definition typified by feminist criticisms of the patriarchal control of women's bodies. It points out the limits of external criticisms, primarily because they rest upon a self‐aggrandizing view of the enlightened European. The paper concludes with the recommendation to listen to all the women who ‘speak’: the ones that adopt and the ones that abhor the veil from within the designated ‘non‐Europeans’ among the Europeans. It uses the idea of negotiation of identity to underscore the importance of such ‘listening’.
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Siti Hasnah Hassan and Husna Ara
The desire to find a new look of expressing the Muslim identity in society has led to a renewal of Muslim women’s interest in fashion. This allows fashion players to make trendy…
Abstract
Purpose
The desire to find a new look of expressing the Muslim identity in society has led to a renewal of Muslim women’s interest in fashion. This allows fashion players to make trendy clothing and expand their business to meet the rising needs of Muslim women. Thus, this study aims to explore the concept of hijab fashion from the perspective of Islamic clothing retailers in Malaysia.
Design/methodology/approach
Data for this study were collected qualitatively using semi-structured interviews and analysed using a deductive thematic analysis.
Findings
This exploratory study describes hijab fashion as a representation of clothing for ideal contemporary Muslim women that enhances the beauty in Islamic outfits from the perspective of Islamic clothing retailers. Hijab fashion has emerged as a modern form of the modest dress code in accordance with Islamic guidelines representing the hijaber identity. It is not just a veil to cover the awrah but also represents the impression of fashionableness and modernity, reflecting the self-image, trendy style and personality representing the true ideal Muslim women, who are known as Muslimah.
Research limitations/implications
The sample and findings are based exclusively on the perception of retailers directly involved in Malaysia’s Islamic fashion business.
Practical implications
The findings from this study benefit the fashion retailers, Islamic fashion industry players and policymakers by highlighting the importance of providing appropriate products and services concerning the growth of Muslim consumer market and their spending behaviour.
Originality/value
The findings offer a new perspective on the nature of the phenomenon of hijaber fashion as a symbol of the modern Muslim woman from the viewpoint of Islamic fashion practitioners.
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Sedki Karoui and Romdhane Khemakhem
This study aims to better understand the Islamic consumption incentives because the spectacular flourishing of the halal market in different places around the world has grown the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to better understand the Islamic consumption incentives because the spectacular flourishing of the halal market in different places around the world has grown the interest in understanding and deciphering the mechanisms behind its development.
Design/methodology/approach
Through an exploratory study of some Tunisia-based Islamic groups’ purchasing behavior, this paper investigates factors leading to the purchasing of halal goods (Islamic consumption).
Findings
Findings show that the Islamic consumer is more of an Islamist than simply a Muslim. In addition, findings show that halal consumption is not merely related to religious affiliations but also the product of numerous cultural, social and psychological factors.
Originality/value
In addition to Islamism and Islamic activism, this paper puts in evidence the role of some post-structural factors such as identity, nostalgia and hedonism in relation to the buying intention of halal products and services.
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Doha Saleh Almutawaa, Peter Nuttall, Elizabeth Mamali, Fajer Saleh Al-Mutawa and Doha Husain Makki AlJuma
The purpose of this study is to develop understanding of the extended self-theory by focusing on the influence of other people in identity constructions as experienced in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop understanding of the extended self-theory by focusing on the influence of other people in identity constructions as experienced in collectivist Eastern contexts. It specifically addresses the impact of being treated as an extended self on Arab-Muslim women’s identity constructions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative research approach consisting of 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews. Nonprobability, purposive sampling is followed as the study targets Kuwaiti women who identify as former hijab/veil wearers. Sample diversity is attained in terms of Kuwaiti women’s demographical characteristics, including their age range, marital status and social class.
Findings
The findings of this study reveal paradoxes of experiencing the collective extended self through familial pressure to (un)veil and the strategies used by women to reject engaging with the collective extended self, including contextualizing, substituting and sexualizing the veil.
Originality/value
Existing studies related to the notion of the extended self are primarily conducted in Western contexts, and as such, are oriented toward personal accountability related to identity constructions. To complement this perspective and address the call for research on the extended self in collectivist societies, this study highlights the importance of recognizing the role of other people in influencing identity constructions in Eastern contexts.
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The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in Sweden offered through the sacred‐secular lens of the Islamic Dawoodi Bohra community…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in Sweden offered through the sacred‐secular lens of the Islamic Dawoodi Bohra community, with the purpose of exploring the relationship of spirituality to entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a case study, this paper spotlights the entrepreneurship of immigrant women from the Dawoodi Bohra Islamic community in Sweden. Utilizing the literature from spirituality, ethnography and ethnic minority entrepreneurship, this paper seeks to foreground the importance of a transcendent dimension in entrepreneurship which is woven into and sustains the day‐to‐day beliefs and practices of ethnic minority women entrepreneurs.
Findings
The women seem to be able to negotiate their spirituality within their role as ethnic minority women entrepreneurs, which gives meaning to their daily existence and increases their izzat (honour) in their community.
Research limitations/implications
This is a specific case study and represents a particular Islamic community, hence cannot realistically reflect all Islamic women in entrepreneurship. Future research can uncover the role of migrant Islamic women from various communities and countries.
Practical implications
The paper presents the interweaving and leavening effect of spirituality and entrepreneurship for Islamic women entrepreneurs and is a valuable insight on how such women negotiate their lives.
Originality/value
The paper presents a close look at Islamic women from the Dawoodi Bohra community whose lived experience represents a negotiation between their spirituality, patriarchy, migration, ethnicity and minority.
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Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post-revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor…
Abstract
Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post-revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Social media has helped to tease apart government statecraft that continually touts and reemphasizes Islamic values, at the same time providing a platform for a feminist consciousness that more recently has passionately supported individual rights, especially the right to privacy. This chapter delves into this move toward a more individualized form of dissent, surveying the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women’s activists following popular uprisings that have been happening domestically since 2009.
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In this chapter, the relations between Muslim migrant women's bodily appearances at Western workplaces, their work choices and career development are examined through the lens of…
Abstract
In this chapter, the relations between Muslim migrant women's bodily appearances at Western workplaces, their work choices and career development are examined through the lens of embodied intersectionality. This chapter draws on exiting research reports and empirical research to also reflect on the scope of Muslim female migrants' labour market integration in the United Kingdom.
For Muslim women, wearing ethnic or religious dresses such as headscarf/‘hijab’, ‘niqaab’ or ‘burqa’ represents the quintessential identity of women belonging to their particular ethnic group or religion. These highly visible social and cultural markers are also inherently gendered. This chapter delves into understanding how Muslim migrant women wearing ethnic/religious dresses experience/encounter Western workplaces and how their embodied intersectional identities through creating barriers at the workplaces impede the process of their labour market integration, in turn, limit their work choices and further restrict their career progression/development in the long run. The discussion also shows that attention to the Muslim migrant women's workplace experiences funnelled through the process of embodied intersectionality can expose the overall racialised and gendered practices of the society, different forms of social exclusion while simultaneously indicate resistance from and agency of these Muslim women through bodily appearances in transnational contexts. This chapter also sheds lights on how these women's career and workplace experiences need to be understood outside the stereotypical Western description of gendered workplaces and how the discussion needs to be broadened in scope and encompass the spatial dynamics of migration, religion, gender and ethnicity to be able to make sense of Muslim migrant women's work choices and career in the West.
This chapter has a twofold structure – first, it looks at the relationship between self-regulating agency and voice and understanding of the embodiment of intersectional identities by the women themselves in the host country's society and labour market, and, second, how the changing time, space and contexts interact to play a role in terms of the host society and its labour market's acceptance and level of tolerance shown towards this group's embodied intersectional presence.
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