Search results for ""author erin e. stiles""

In the mountains of beautiful, bucolic northern Utah, many Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are visited by spirits. Local folklore is filled with stories of uncanny encounters of all kinds, and Latter-day Saint scripture and prophetic teachings emphasize the reality and the importance of the spirit world. Spirit encounters are common in this community. People report visits from the benevolent spirits of kin offering aid and also from evil spirits who tempt and harass. Combining folklore research with ethnography, the book examines many types of spirit encounters and shows that such experiences must be understood as particularly Latter-day Saint phenomena.Spirit encounters take place within a larger cultural and religious framework that emphasizes the important relationships between living and non-living beings. For Mormons in northern Utah, spirit lore and experiences are interpreted and understood with reference to Latter-day Saint cosmology and particularly Mormon conceptions of the natur

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Islamic Divorce in the 21st Century shows the wide range of Muslim experiences in marital disputes and in seeking Islamic divorces. For Muslims, having the ability to divorce in accordance with Islamic law is of paramount importance. However, Muslim experiences of divorce practice differ tremendously. The chapters in this volume discuss Islamic divorce from West Africa to Southeast Asia, and each story explores aspects of the everyday realities of disputing and divorcing Muslim couples face in the twenty-first century. The book’s cross-cultural and comparative look at Islamic divorce indicates that Muslim divorces are impacted by global religious discourses on Islamic authority, authenticity, and gender; by global patterns of and approaches to secularity; and by global economic inequalities and attendant patterns of urbanization and migration. Studying divorce as a mode of Islamic law in practice shows us that the Islamic legal tradition is flexible, malleable, and context-dependent.

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Islamic Divorce in the 21st Century shows the wide range of Muslim experiences in marital disputes and in seeking Islamic divorces. For Muslims, having the ability to divorce in accordance with Islamic law is of paramount importance. However, Muslim experiences of divorce practice differ tremendously. The chapters in this volume discuss Islamic divorce from West Africa to Southeast Asia, and each story explores aspects of the everyday realities of disputing and divorcing Muslim couples face in the twenty-first century. The book’s cross-cultural and comparative look at Islamic divorce indicates that Muslim divorces are impacted by global religious discourses on Islamic authority, authenticity, and gender; by global patterns of and approaches to secularity; and by global economic inequalities and attendant patterns of urbanization and migration. Studying divorce as a mode of Islamic law in practice shows us that the Islamic legal tradition is flexible, malleable, and context-dependent.

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Muslim communities throughout the Indian Ocean have long questioned what it means to be a “good Muslim.” Much recent scholarship on Islam in the Indian Ocean considers debates among Muslims about authenticity, authority, and propriety. Despite the centrality of this topic within studies of Indian Ocean, African, and other Muslim communities, little of the existing scholarship has addressed such debates in relation to women, gender, or sexuality. Yet women are deeply involved with ideas about what it means to be a “good Muslim.” In Gendered Lives in the Western Indian Ocean, anthropologists, historians, linguists, and gender studies scholars examine Islam, sexuality, gender, and marriage on the Swahili coast and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. The book examines diverse sites of empowerment, contradiction, and resistance affecting cultural norms, Islam and ideas of Islamic authenticity, gender expectations, ideologies of modernity, and British education. The book’s attention to both masculinity and femininity, broad examination of the transnational space of the Swahili coast, and inclusion of research on non-Swahili groups on the East African coast makes it a unique and indispensable resource. Contributors: Nadine Beckmann, Pat Caplan, Corrie Decker, Rebecca Gearhart, Linda Giles, Meghan Halley, Susan Hirsch, Susi Keefe, Kjersti Larsen, Elisabeth McMahon, Erin Stiles, and Katrina Daly Thompson

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Muslim communities throughout the Indian Ocean have long questioned what it means to be a “good Muslim.” Much recent scholarship on Islam in the Indian Ocean considers debates among Muslims about authenticity, authority, and propriety. Despite the centrality of this topic within studies of Indian Ocean, African, and other Muslim communities, little of the existing scholarship has addressed such debates in relation to women, gender, or sexuality. Yet women are deeply involved with ideas about what it means to be a “good Muslim.” In Gendered Lives in the Western Indian Ocean, anthropologists, historians, linguists, and gender studies scholars examine Islam, sexuality, gender, and marriage on the Swahili coast and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. The book examines diverse sites of empowerment, contradiction, and resistance affecting cultural norms, Islam and ideas of Islamic authenticity, gender expectations, ideologies of modernity, and British education. The book’s attention to both masculinity and femininity, broad examination of the transnational space of the Swahili coast, and inclusion of research on non-Swahili groups on the East African coast makes it a unique and indispensable resource. Contributors: Nadine Beckmann, Pat Caplan, Corrie Decker, Rebecca Gearhart, Linda Giles, Meghan Halley, Susan Hirsch, Susi Keefe, Kjersti Larsen, Elisabeth McMahon, Erin Stiles, and Katrina Daly Thompson

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