Mahmood and Spivak

I begin with the disclaimer again that I find Spivak borderline incomprehensible. Although, this piece was much better than 'Can Spivak write'?

When Mahmood discusses the issue of using frameworks developed within the Western tradition, I'm mostly on board with her argument that these issues need to be analyzed and discussed not from an 'alien' perspective. However, while I agree that the language and categories developed in the 'West' are sometimes incapable of dealing with or understanding issues of a specific context, I wonder how far this can be taken. Can we completely let go of the notion that in certain contexts, people do buy into instruments of their own oppression? A comparison with issues of class might be helpful here. For example, we saw during Chakrabarty's piece that certain members of the working class would give homage to people who were essentially, using them as cheap labors. Given this, what sort of position can we occupy between the two extremes of disregarding it as false consciousness and explaining it in some terms of cultural relativity?

To my mind, while I understood where Mahmood was coming from, I did not see what her solution to the problem was. In fact, it seemed as if she was deliberately side stepping the issue. I understand the fact that conceptions of female agency are culturally constituted and have to be read as such but does that mean that no broad based solidarity on an issue such as feminism is possible? Can there be no dialogue between the members of her Mosque Movement and those working towards equality elsewhere? In fact, on some level, if Saba Mahmood's argument is taken seriously, there can be no conversation between the 'Liberal Muslim' in her own work and a member of the 'Mosque Movement'. In many ways, while she emphasizes that agency should not be seen only in a political action paradigm, I don't see how any project of emancipation can be undertaken if we use her approach. If each person exercises agency in their own cultural formation, there can be no argument that pushes for political action.

All this is again in direct conversation with Spivak. In fact, having read Spivak's piece, I can situate the anxiety that animates Mahmood far better. But just as before, while I can understand the need to ask the fundamental question of "who is the other woman" and the accompanying need to condemn high handed, often US-Aid driven projects to 'liberate the poor brown women', how far do we push this? Is there any goal that the feminist movement across the globe, regardless of cultural specificity, agree to? Central to this question has to be the question of how much value we are willing to accord to individual's choice. For example, while we might be willing to accept, as we should, if a women of her own will wears the veil, would be willing to accept if a women of her own 'will', chooses to undergo FGM? In other words, how seriously do we take the argument that certain people can be indoctrinated to buy into their own oppression.

Lastly, I find value in the point that Spivak brings up and is something I've personally struggled with a lot. In many ways, all our arguments for education, and female autonomy seem to be about pushing women into the workforce. Is that not perpetuating capital? And as Spivak points out, more often than not, women, when pushed into the workforce work as cheap labors. How then do we solve this problem? What form then should a project of emancipation for women take? I understand the broader arguments about workplace equality etc, but even then, how do we connect the two struggles; of class politics and feminism?