Cultural Challenges
Featured Who Owns the Money That She Earns?: Spousal Financial Abuse and the Contradictory Role of Religious Narratives among Bangladeshi Migrant Muslim Women in Australia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Farjana Mahbuba
This paper explores the phenomenon of spousal financial abuse among Bangladeshi migrant Muslim women in Australia, focusing on the contradictory role of religious narratives in shaping these experiences. According to Fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence, a wife's earnings belong exclusively to her, while simultaneously emphasizing the concept of ta’a or obedience to the husband as a marital right. This culture also reinforces the similar gender ideology of a wife’s obedience to her husband. This creates a dilemma when a husband demands control over his wife's income, as compliance would deprive her of her religious jurisprudential privilege to retain and manage her own money. Drawing on fieldwork, this study aims to analyse the concept of ta’a or obedience in the fiqh as a contributing factor to spousal financial abuse. By shedding light on the mechanisms that enable such abuse, particularly within the Bangladeshi Muslim community in Australia, this article seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of the complexities surrounding this issue. Ultimately, the findings emphasize the need for more empowering religious responses to support abused migrant women in breaking free from the cycle of abuse.
Mindfulness and Its Relation to Self-Transformation and Evolving Inspiration in Society
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shimo Sraman, Shimul Roy, Ratan Barua Sramon
Living in this modern and advanced technology time with selfishness, anger, hatred, temptation, distraction, and a busy lifestyle has been a common practice for people. In the rough, society or inhabitant is not concerned or yet convinced of how mindfulness can be conducive to transforming one’s character so one can safeguard oneself and save others. This paper aims to show being mindful is crucial in daily life as it leads to being self-controlled and self-transformed with the proper understanding. It is a qualitative analysis based on the Buddhist primary and secondary reflective sources, which comprises three objectives: First, to display how practising mindfulness is conducive to self-transforming with positive attitudes of compassion, kindness and integrity. Second, to illustrate the way of applying mindful breathing and the cultivation of loving-kindness through the foundation of mindfulness. And Third, to analyse the proper application of mindfulness to being self-transformed and an active inspirer in society.
Spiritual Spaces and the Politics of Social Exclusion : The Red Tent Case Study View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Polona Sitar
While religion spaces as public institutions (e.g., Christian churches, Buddhist temples) are subject to careful governance, spirituality in Western modernity appears as depoliticized. This paper derives from the post-secular turn in feminism and religious studies which denotes that also within religious traditions that are overwhelmingly patriarchal, women have created alternative spaces for developing their own religious practices. It is based on the case study of the Red Tent movement, established within Women’s spirituality movement in 2008 in North America, which exists as a physical red fabric space and as a virtual space (the form of blogs, Facebook groups). The Red Tent fills a contemporary need for sisterhood and women’s community and could be placed within the sphere of feminist-spiritual menstrual activism. It exists as a women-only space to claim safe and sacred space, but often “women-only” means “cis women only.” While deriving from intersectional feminist conceptual tools this paper explores the meaning and the role of the Red Tent as a menstrual movement in contemporary society by understanding if it is open to include diverse identities such as transgender and non-binary people. The paper argues that in this way the Red Tent would be a politically progressive spiritual movement with the potential to overcome the traditional conservative gender essentialisms present in many religions and spiritualities. Methodologically the papers is based on ethnographic fieldwork performed in Red Tent gatherings, semi-structured in-depth interviews and in-depth content analysis of interactions manifesting through digital communications.
