Feminism in Translation: Reframing the Discourse of Human Rights in the Work of Transnational Islamic Feminist Networks

The production of unequal relations of gender power, and the marginalisation of women’s rights and interests by the standards and conceptions of the human rights regime, have long been a cause for concern for feminist human rights advocates. At the same time, the discourse of rights offers important opportunities for contestation and change. This chapter focuses on attempts by human rights activists, victims, policy makers, and lawyers to translate human rights ‘on the ground’ in order to counter the (re)production of gender inequality and open up its emancipatory potential. Specifically, it examines the work of the activists of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) and Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) groups. An analysis of these groups reveals the ways in which activists seek to translate women’s rights into Muslim contexts without either reinforcing gender and cultural stereotypes or falling back into well-worn and unhelpful binaries of us and them, here and there, universality and cultural relativism.