The role of difference in feminist transnational solidarity: secular Muslim feminists in the United Kingdom and France

Abstract

At the center of this article are two organizations–one in the United Kingdom and one in France–led by secular Muslim feminists involved in challenging religious fundamentalism, questioning existing gender norms, and contesting inequalities within their societies while also confronting the excesses of cultural relativism, Islamic exceptionalism, and Islamophobia. The contexts in which these women are working entail complexities, tensions, and conflicts that lock them within frameworks of identity politics and make it difficult for them to collaborate with Muslim feminists working from faith-based positions. The motivating question in this article is how these forms of feminist organizing can accommodate differences and absorb conflict while allowing for the solidarity necessary for collective action. Drawing on interviews with Sara Khan and Nadia Remadna (the leaders of Inspire and Brigade des Mères, respectively) and building on Clare Hemmings’ conceptualization of “affective dissonance”–the discrepancy between one’s sense of self and how one is perceived by diverse groups–I call for a nuanced understanding of the ways in which Muslim feminists engage both critically and affectively with the discourses that they encounter in their everyday lives. Building on the political potential of affective dissonance may offer the possibility of an ethics of solidarity necessary for political transformation.