龔鵬程對話海外學者第六十一期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

瑪麗亞·H·A·雅斯科教授（Professor Maria H.A. Jaschok）

牛津大學國際性別研究中心主任。

龔鵬程教授：您好。請問對女性主義在美國激化發展的酷兒（Queer）理論及其政治社會實踐，您有何看法？

瑪麗亞·H·A·雅斯科教授：龔教授，您好。學術研究告訴我們，酷兒理論并不是一個同質化或系統化的學派，而是各種研究的混合體，它們專注于對異性戀的批判，即那些支持異性戀作為統一、自然和包羅萬象的原始性活動的機構、結構、關系和行為。

在90年代酷兒理論的早期，學者和哲學家們在文本分析和對視覺文化和政治的解釋方面有一個共同的基礎，而且大多數人的出發點是女性研究、女權主義理論和女同性戀研究。

雖然酷兒理論、女同性戀研究之間的關系和互動已經變得緊張，相互支持有時會讓位于對學科身份劃分的指責，對性別研究忽視酷兒觀點的攻擊，以及目前對變性理論化與酷兒研究分界的指責，但是它們仍然有共同的研究領域，即對LGBTQI+社區的研究。這是同性戀研究的遺產。

一個深刻的例子說明了：在不斷變幻中的持續動態，這就是性研究的全景，可以從西方國家20世紀70年代婦女運動中的女同性戀的早期歷史中看到。

在早期，女同性戀只極少數人群見到，甚至被邊緣化；后來的發展使女同性戀成為女權主義批判異性戀的基石，成為理解支撐和塑造主流（異性戀）規范和實踐的規范和機構的構建性質的出發點。

在這方面，有必要指出，命名的政治，本質上是一種身份的政治，已經導致西方年輕一代的女同性戀者更傾向于用 "queer"而不是 "lesbian"作為她們性行為的標志。其內涵是一種更廣泛的政治化身份，與主流規范和價值觀的 "同性戀 "不一致，也更容易接受。

酷兒方法論已經超越了性活動的范疇，意味著研究者對所考慮的主題的 "酷兒"觀點。

在這方面，位于學術界的酷兒理論受到了批評，因為它忽視了行動主義和社會運動，而認同了后現代哲學、精神分析、后結構主義和文化研究。

批評者認為，如今的"酷兒"一詞越來越多地作為一個主流術語，而不是作為其起源的激進批評。如果這個過程繼續下去，就像性別理論一樣，這可能會大大削弱其批評內容和社會影響。

Scholarship tells us that queer theory is not a homogeneous or systematic school of thought, but a mixture of studies that focus critically on heteronormativity, i.e., those institutions, structures, relations, and acts that support heterosexuality as a uniform, natural and all-embracing primordial sexuality. In the early days of queer theory, in the 1990s, scholars and philosophers had a common base in textual analysis and interpretation of visual culture and politics, and most had their starting point in women’s studies, feminist theory and lesbian and gay studies. Whilst relations and interactions among queer theory, lesbian and gay studies have become tense, with mutual support at times giving way to accusations over demarcations of disciplinary identity, to attacks on gender studies for neglect of queer perspectives and more currently over lines of separation of transsexual theorizing from queer studies, there have however continued to be common areas of research, the study of the LGBTQI+ communities. This is a legacy from lesbian and gay studies.

An insightful illustration of the continued dynamics in the shifting mosaic that is the landscape of study of sexuality might be seen in the early history of lesbianism within the 1970s women’s movement in western countries. In its early days marginal and even marginalized, subsequent developments have made lesbian sexuality a cornerstone of feminist critiques of heteronormativity, a starting point for understanding the constructed nature of norms and institutions that undergird and mould mainstream (heterosexual) norms and practices.

In this connection, it is constructive to note that the politics of naming, essentially a politics of identity, has led to younger generations of lesbians in the west to prefer ‘queer’ as a marker of their sexuality rather than ‘lesbian’. The connotation being that of a wider politicized identity at odds and more comfortable with the ‘queering’ of mainstream norms and values.

Queer methodology has expanded beyond the domain of sexuality to connote a ‘queer’ perspective on the subject matter the researcher is considering. In this connection, queer theory, as situated in academe, has come under criticism for ignoring activism and social movements, instead identifying with postmodern philosophies, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and cultural studies. The term ‘queer’ these days, so critics hold, serves increasingly as a mainstream term and not as the radical critique of its origin. If this process continues, very much like gender theory, this could greatly diminish its critical content and social impact.

龔鵬程教授：您能描述一下“女性領導的伊斯蘭”嗎？

瑪麗亞·H·A·雅斯科教授：正是在對清真寺的認同中，作為他們社區獨特性和其他性的存在理由，伊斯蘭信仰和穆斯林傳統的連續性被制造出來，并被重新制造。用學者Kim Knott的話說，"......人們通過他們的想象力、記憶、行動和語言來構建這樣的場所或環境"——同時，他們周圍不斷變化的世界以父權制的反對和國家產生的世俗發展思想的全部重量壓在他們身上。

我們研究了回族穆斯林婦女在有組織的伊斯蘭教中的歷史存在，也考察了她們作為中國中部不同地方信仰傳統的女性成員身份。我們認為，這些由女性領導的宗教組織能夠利用她們的歷史社會空間，從而擴大宗教實踐對現代中國社會的要求的解放潛力。

婦女自己的禮拜和教育場所的存在，對穆斯林婦女來說是非常重要的，她們對自己幾百年來的傳統感到自豪，從而產生了尊嚴，而且由于有了合法占有的社會空間，她們有了法律和見證的權利感。

這一點在相對自由的國家政策時期變得很明顯，當時出現了女性的聲音，這些聲音在中國社會發展的性質和未來的世俗主流話語中加入了以前未曾聽到的宗教信徒的觀點。

我和來自中國中部回族穆斯林家庭的社會學家水鏡君一起，從1994年開始對中國伊斯蘭教女性領導的機構的起源和演變進行了研究：在一個缺乏書面資料的學術領域，使用民族志研究和口述歷史來進行研究。

我們發現女性信徒在歷史上對伊斯蘭教父權制的挑戰，這種挑戰已經制度化，成為補充性的，但有時也是挑戰性的實踐和傳統。

我們沒有發現對主流神學辯論的干預，也沒有發現"雙重解讀"，即伊斯蘭教世界其他地方所注意到的范式轉變。用Ursula King的話說，女性主義對世界宗教研究和實踐的影響帶來了 "基礎性的動搖，對我們的知識和學術前景的徹底重塑，以及與宗教有關的知識體系的重新定位"。

然而，在中國的背景下，到目前為止，在對經典文本的解釋中，或在關于伊斯蘭教的主流或邊緣話語中，幾乎找不到女性的印記。幸而，我們在地方上發現了重要的證據，表明女性宗教領袖和普通信徒是如何通過閱讀、布道、集會、場所、活動和儀式來表達生存的愿望，并對不斷變化的社會需求做出反應，以造福于她們的家庭和社區。

比較中國不同穆斯林社區的婦女生活，也就是比較那些擁有女性領導的宗教組織傳統的社區和那些傳統不為人知，或在1978年后宗教場所重新開放時沒有恢復的社區，可以得到一個重要的啟示：在清真女寺幸存下來并繼續發展的地方，在面臨來自伊斯蘭教內部、快速現代化和中央集權的中國以及與阿拉伯穆斯林國家重新聯系的挑戰時，它們是婦女的重要資源。

當這些女性被認同于一個在社會上有公認地位的機構，而且是合法注冊的機構時，她們挑戰歧視性做法的能力就會更強。通過占領像清真女寺這樣的社會空間，投入歷史、傳統和具有表現力的文化和教育遺產，通過這樣的空間資源，領導層可以調集政治和社會資本，以及黨/國家的支持，使她們在必要時能夠抵御對其獨特機構和婦女行使領導權的合法性的攻擊。

對穆斯林女性來說，全球化也帶來了來自阿拉伯-穆斯林世界的影響——通過對清真寺學校的資助，通過有學識的教師的訪問，通過朝圣和旅游，盡管程度比清真男寺要小。

這種影響在地方上如何發揮作用？更廣泛地說，婦女在與國家當局或男性同行討價還價時能獲得多大的力量，這取決于特定的清真女寺的地緣政治和物質條件，但重要的是，取決于清真寺的女阿訇的能力，以及她不僅能帶來令人信服的宗教學識，還能帶來相當的政治和社會關系技能。

中國穆斯林組織傳統、儀式實踐和政治地位的多樣性反映在不同的地緣政治格局和與中央政府的關系，以及與精神家園和中東朝圣地的不同程度的重新聯系（在20世紀80年代邊境開放后）。正是在這種情況下，"穆斯林女性"作為伊斯蘭教、種族和政治分界的 "邊界主體"，發揮著集體身份載體的有力作用。

It is here, in the identification with the mosque as defining raison d’être of their communal distinctiveness, and otherness, that continuities of Islamic faith and Muslim traditions are made, and remade. In the words of the scholar Kim Knott, ‘… people construct such sites or environments through their imaginations, memories, actions, and speech’ – as simultaneously the changing world around them presses on them with the full weight of patriarchal disapproval and state engendered secular development ideology. In our study of the historical presence of Hui Muslim women in organized Islam and of women as members of diverse local faith traditions in central China, we (that is, Jaschok and Shui, 2000) argue that these female-led religious organizations were able to use their historical social space to capitalize on, and thus widen, the emancipatory potential of religious practices for requirements of modern Chinese society.

The presence of women’s own places of worship and education makes all the difference to Muslim women whose pride in their centuries-old tradition engenders dignity and, because of a legitimately occupied social space, a sense of legal and testimonial rights. This became evident during the years of relatively liberal state policies, when female voices emerged which were adding to secular mainstream discourses over the nature and future of societal developments in China previously unheard perspectives of religious believers.

Together with the sociologist Shui Jingjun, who comes from a Hui Muslim family in central China, I have since 1994 conducted research into the genesis and evolution of Islamic female-led institutions in China, using ethnographic research and oral history in an area of scholarship where written sources are scarce. We discovered the historical challenge to Islamic patriarchy by female believers which has become institutionalized into complementary, but sometimes also challenging, practises and traditions. We did not uncover interventions in mainstream theological debates, nor the ‘double readings’ involving the sort of paradigm shifts that has been noted elsewhere in Islamic circles where, to quote Ursula King, the impact of feminism on the study of, and practices in, world religions, has brought about the ‘shaking of foundations, a radical remapping of our intellectual and academic landscape, and a repositioning of bodies of knowledge that relate to religion.’ In the Chinese context, however, so far little trace of women’s imprint may be found in interpretations of canonical texts, or in mainstream or marginal discourses on Islam. However, we uncovered at the local level significant evidence of how women religious leaders and ordinary believers have en-gendered readings, sermons, assemblies, places, events, and rituals to express existential aspirations and to respond to changing social needs, for the benefit of their families and communities.

Comparison of women’s lives in the diverse Muslim communities in China, that is, comparison of communities boasting of a tradition of female-led religious organizations with those where this tradition is unknown or was not revived when religious sites re-opened after 1978, allow for an important insight. Where women’s mosques have survived and continue to grow, they constitute an important resource for women at times of challenges from within Islam, from a rapidly modernizing, and centralizing Chinese state and from reconnected links with Arab-Muslim countries. Women’s capacity to challenge discriminatory practices proves itself to be stronger when these women are identified with an institution, moreover legally registered, which has a recognized place in society. Through occupation of a social space such as the women’s mosque, invested with history, tradition, and expressive cultural and educational legacies, through such spatial resource, leaderships may marshal political and social capital, as well as the support of the Party/State, enabling them to withstand, if necessary, attacks on their unique institution and on the legitimacy of women to exercise leadership. Globalization for Muslim women has entailed also, if to a lesser extent than has been the case for men’s mosques, influences from the Arab-Muslim world – through help with funding of mosque schools, through the visits of learned teachers, through pilgrimages and tourism. How this influence plays itself at local level, more generally, how much strength women can garner to bargain with state authorities or their male counterparts, depends on the geo-political and material conditions of a given women’s mosque but also, importantly, on the calibre of the mosque’s presiding female ahong and her ability to bring to representation not only convincing religious erudition but also considerable political and social networking skills.

The diversity of Chinese Muslim organizational traditions, ritual practices and political standing is reflected in varied geo-political constellations and relations with the central state as well as different degrees of reconnections (following the opening of borders during the 1980s) with the spiritual homeland and its sacred sites of pilgrimage in the Middle East. It is in this context that ‘the Muslim woman’, a ‘boundary subject’ of Islamic, ethnic, and political demarcations, performs a potent role as carrier of collective identity.

龔鵬程教授：能不能介紹中國中部地區女性宗教成員對當地公民身份和公民社會的影響問題？

瑪麗亞·H·A·雅斯科教授：在中國的中原地區，婦女清真寺作為她們在中國社會中的歷史地位的可見的、多方面的象征，在記錄婦女的集體的、積極的能力方面形成了一條重要的線索。這些能力不僅對她們自己，也對她們周圍的社會產生了影響，而且為獨特的性別化的過去和充滿希望的未來提供了聲音。

正是在這個地區，婦女清真寺的傳統起源于300多年前，激勵著當代穆斯林婦女和她們的宗教領袖重新/發現、記錄并找到保護其獨特遺產和文化傳統的方法。

基于清真寺的教育機會使文盲婦女能夠按照規定的祈禱和儀式進行禮拜，將《古蘭經》和圣訓中的命令應用于穆斯林的道德和行為，并為在非穆斯林國家作為穆斯林生活找到重要的心理和情感支持。

對婦女來說，禮拜和祈禱的儀式是在（女性）家務和宗教職責之間的日常緊張關系中進行的，這就構成了清真女寺存在的意義背景，它由一位女性阿訇領導，能夠維持婦女在思考后世時對其靈魂的拯救的希望。

婦女清真寺提供的安全感、保障和精神以及社會支持，對婦女與當地社區以及與更廣泛的世界的互動產生了不同的重要影響。在一個以性別隔離為主的社會中，明末清初博學的女教師，后來在中國中部的回族穆斯林社區也被稱為女阿訇，在有限的婦女世界和救贖的前景之間發揮著中介作用。在女性宗教機構300多年的歷史中，通過教學、咨詢、指導以及代表普通穆斯林婦女進行更直接的干預。可以說這些女阿訇對公共空間進行了重大的入侵，使穆斯林的女兒、妻子和母親在這些地方變得"安全"，以擴大獲得教育和文化以及宗教資源的機會。

許多最有能力和最受尊敬的清真女寺領導人在為感恩的教眾服務時，已經實現了職責的多樣化，可以說是為教眾以外的女孩和婦女的各種需求服務。

這些服務包括為有需要的家庭提供慈善，為農村地區教育條件差的婦女和女孩（也經常為非穆斯林女孩）提供教育，最近還為失業或需要額外技能的婦女提供職業課程。有鑒于此，宗教可以被視為活動和機構的來源，它注入并促進了與現代化社會密切相關的發展和進步的概念。

過去幾年，清真女寺的領導人毫不猶豫地批評了他們認為伊斯蘭生活的純潔性被越來越多的商業化以及對地位和收入的重視超過了宗教原則所污染的情況。在中國中部的穆斯林社區中，一些最獨立的女阿訇已經成為運動的先鋒，她們呼吁更干凈、更精神的生活。

因此，可以說，女性正在以身作則。這得益于將民主管理委員會有效地納入清真女寺文化（自1957年開始實施），以及堅持透明的選拔程序和社區內部對候選人能力的全面協商。被任命的女阿訇只有在表現令人滿意的情況下才能續簽合同。

中國國家對其宗教少數群體的政策和更廣泛的性別制度，正在塑造穆斯林婦女的機會，使她們能夠商討出更多有抱負的角色組合。觀念的改變和對她們在當地公共生活中所發聲音的日益承認，雖然受到更廣泛力量的影響，但同時也受到與她們自己的本土傳統的重新聯系的滋養，以及對她們作為穆斯林和中國婦女身份的獨特成就的日益自豪。

It is in the central plains of China that the enduring presence of women’s mosques as visible, multi-facetted symbols of their historical place in Chinese society, forms an important thread in documenting women’s collective, agential capacities. These are capacities which make a difference not only to themselves but also to society around them, giving moreover voice to a uniquely gendered past and possibility of a hopeful future.

It is in this region that the tradition of women’s mosques had its origins over 300 years ago, motivating contemporary Muslim women and their religious leaders to re/discover, record, and find ways to preserve their unique heritage and cultural tradition. Opportunities for mosque-based education enabled illiterate women to worship in line with prescribed prayers and rites, to apply commands from the Qur’an and from Hadiths to Muslim morality and conduct, and to find important psychological and emotional support for living as a Muslim in non-Muslim nation. For women, rites of worship and prayer are performed in daily tensions between (female) domestic and religious duties, and this forms the context for the significance of the presence of a women’s mosque, led by a woman ahong, able to sustains women’s hope for salvation of their soul as they ponder Afterlife.

The sense of safety, security and spiritual as well as social support women’s mosques provided have had varied and important consequences for women’s interaction with the local community but also with the wider world. In a predominantly gender-segregated society, the learned women teachers of the late Ming/early Qing dynastic eras, subsequently known in central China’s Hui Muslim communities also as ahong, functioned as mediators between the limited world of women and prospects of salvation. During a more than 300-year long history of female religious institutions, through teaching, counselling, guidance, and more direct intervention on behalf of ordinary Muslim women, it can be argued that these ahong came to make significant incursions into public space, making these ‘safe’ for Muslim daughters, wives, and mothers to widen access to educational and cultural as well as religious resources.

Many of the most capable and respected women’s mosque leaders have come to diversify duties and responsibilities in the service of a grateful congregation, arguably serving varied needs of girls and women often beyond their congregation. Such services can include delivering charity for families in need, providing education to women and girls (and not infrequently to non-Muslim girls) in rural areas where schooling is poor and, in recent times, vocational courses are offered to women unemployed or in need of additional skills. In this light, religion could be seen as a source of activity and agency which infuses and facilitates notions of development and progress of close relevance to a modernizing society.

Women’s mosque leaders have these last years not hesitated to critique what they regard as contamination of the purity of Islamic life by increased commercialisation and regard to status and income over more religious principles. Some of the most independent voices among female ahong in central China’s Muslim communities have made themselves the vanguard of a movement calling for cleaner, and more spiritual, life. Arguably therefore, women are seeking to lead by example. This has been helped by means of effective incorporation into women’s mosque culture of democratic management committees (in place since 1957) and insistence on transparent selection procedures and thorough intra-community consultations over the calibre of candidates. Contracts are renewable for appointed ahong only after satisfactory performance.

Chinese state policies towards its religious minorities and the wider gender regime are shaping Muslim women’s opportunities for negotiating an expanded repertoire of aspirational roles. Changing conceptions and growing realizations of the strength of their voices in local public life, whilst influenced by wider forces, are at the same time nourished by reconnection with their own indigenous traditions, and a growing pride in the uniqueness of their achievements as women in both their Muslim and Chinese identities.

龔鵬程教授：在亞洲印度教或佛教背景下，從書寫或聽覺研究婦女史，可以有什么進展嗎？

瑪麗亞·H·A·雅斯科教授：在以全球南方和后殖民研究為基礎的女權主義勢頭的推動下，在被Rosi Braidotti稱為 "后世俗 "女權主義階段的時代，新的宗教女權主義流派對婦女的宗教經驗的多樣性給予了越來越多的批判性關注，作為多樣化的嵌入式女權主義的替代形式。

越來越多有影響力的學者在寫宗教機構的性別性質時，利用了性別與宗教跨文化研究學者Ursula King在其1995年的出版物中所說的"消極批評 "和 "積極批評 "的方法來研究宗教。她對國家政權、民族和宗教政策以及地方突發事件交織在一起的宗教傳統的文字和實踐的研究影響了后來幾代女權主義學者的解釋。

她指出，需要繼續關注和批判作為宗教任務的父權制在全球的復蘇，同時對聲稱宗教是一種解放力量的婦女的力量給予應有的承認。合謀的世俗/宗教父權制與女性自信的、通常是直接的異議機構之間的緊張關系，也構成了我自己關于20世紀90年代以來歷史上和當代中國社會中女性領導的宗教組織的寫作的主線，是亞洲學術界新興的后世俗女權主義的例證。

宗教研究的第一次 "性別轉向 "是在20世紀90年代，將批判性的性別理論更廣泛地應用于宗教的傳統和研究中，標志著宗教研究的 "范式轉變"。

然而，在一本描述性別與宗教領域新興學術的開創性書籍中，其編輯Ursula King警告說，持久的"宗教盲 "偏見仍然彌漫在許多女性主義思想中。

不過，我們注意到，從后宗教到后世俗的女權主義學術研究，有一條清晰的軌跡，盡管是不均衡的。

在全球南方后殖民研究中的女權主義聲音的推動下，呼吁采取更全面的方法來接受婦女的生活經驗和選擇，在后世俗女權主義階段的宗教女權主義新流派開始密切關注宗教婦女生活的多樣性。他們詢問如何將婦女的經驗、價值、選擇和實踐理解為經過不同談判的自我建構的權利。

這些聲音認為，只有尊重當地的文化特點，承認本土知識的重要意義，研究結果才能實現有效和有意義的發展。

此外，"性別批判的轉向 "催生了一個新的跨學科/多學科研究領域，但也引發了對性別研究和宗教研究中主流學術文獻的批判性重讀。說明這一發展的，是越來越多的學術會議、期刊特刊、一般出版物、學生項目和學術參考書，它們帶來了性別和宗教研究的豐富收獲。

與國際婦女/性別研究學者討論中提到的對 "宗教女性主義 "概念的抵制一樣，中國婦女和性別研究領域的學者在談到宗教在社會中的作用及其對婦女解放之路的影響時，也表現出同樣的、最深刻的矛盾心理。然而，批判性的理論和方法論工作的發展需要更廣泛地參與到國際話語中，并進入到探究知識生產、性別變化和國家性別政治之間的聯系以及它們對跨國女權運動的影響的對話中。

我們對婦女生活和女性領導的伊斯蘭的研究，在很大程度上是關于宗教原教旨主義的新興話語的一部分，即關于本土化的伊斯蘭習俗及其與女權主義性別政治的不同和對比關系。

可以說，以前在伊斯蘭教和不同的穆斯林文化背景下，關于婦女機構、平等和賦權的辯論之所以如此困難，不僅與宗教日益工具化的外部環境有關，而且與女權主義在歷史上對宗教的敵意排斥有關，認為它不利于婦女的進步。

當我們在20世紀90年代進行實地調查時，情況就是如此，直到今天也是如此——即使在理解婦女協商和主張選擇的一系列嵌入式機構方面取得了進展。

女性主義/性別研究和新的宗教機構概念之間的關系仍然是一種非常令人困惑的關系。然而，對于國際女權主義學者來說，這也是一種持久的魅力，因為他們面臨著機構、性別、賦權和信仰等不同交叉點的難題。

Carried by the momentum of feminism anchored in the Global South and postcolonial studies, new schools of religious feminisms in an era characterized by Rosi Braidotti (2008) as a ‘postsecular’ feminist phase are paying ever more critical attention to the diversity of women’s religious experiences as alternative forms of diversely embedded feminisms. A growing number of influential scholars writing on the gendered nature of religious institutions are utilizing what Ursula King, the scholar of cross-cultural studies of gender and religion, in her publication of 1995, characterizes as ‘negative-critical’ and ‘positive-critical’ approaches in the study of religion. Her study of words and practices of religious traditions in the intersections of state regime, ethnic and religious policies and local contingencies influenced interpretations of subsequent generations of feminist scholars. King points to the need for continued attention to, and critique of, the global resurgence of patriarchy as a religious mandate whilst giving due recognition to the power of women who claim religion as a liberating force. The tension between a complicit secular/religious patriarchy and female assertive, often outright dissenting agency forms the main thread also in my own writing on female-led religious organizations in historical and contemporary Chinese society since the 1990s, an illustration of emerging postsecular feminism in Asian-based scholarship.

The first ‘gender turn’ in the study of religion came during the 1990s with a more wide-ranging application of critical gender theory to the traditions and study of religion, signalling no less than a ‘paradigm shift’ in religious studies. Still, in a seminal volume, profiling a burgeoning scholarship in the field of gender and religion, its editor Ursula King (2005) warned of the enduring ‘religion-blind’ prejudice that still permeates so much of feminist thought.

Yet we note a discernible, if unevenly drawn, trajectory from post-religious to post-secular feminist scholarship. Carried by the momentum of feminist voices in postcolonial studies from the global south, calling for more holistic approaches receptive to women’s life experiences and choices, new schools of religious feminisms in the post-secular feminist phase began to pay close scholarly attention to the diversity of religious women’s lives. They asked how women’s experiences, values, choices, and practices could be understood as diversely negotiated rights of self-constitution. It is only by respecting cultural specificities of local contexts, and by acknowledging the vital significance of indigenous knowledge, these voices maintain, that research findings make for effective and meaningful development.

Moreover, the ‘gender-critical turn’ spawned a new field of inter/multi-disciplinary studies but also engendered critical re-readings of mainstream canons of scholarly literature, both in gender studies and in the study of religion. Illustrative of this development are the ever-growing number of academic conferences, special journal issues, general publications, student projects and academic reference works that bring to the fore a rich harvest of gender and religion studies.

Not unlike the resistance to the very notion of ‘religious feminism’ noted in discussions of international women/gender studies scholars, Chinese scholars in the field of women’s and gender studies express an equal and most profound ambivalence when it comes to the role of religion in society and its impact on women’s pathway to liberation. However, development of critical theoretical and methodological work needs to engage more widely in international discourse and to enter in conversations that probe linkages between knowledge production, gender change, and national gender politics as well as their impact on transnational feminist movements.

Our study of women’s lives and female-led Islamic organizations has been very much part of an emerging discourse on religious fundamentalism, i.e., on indigenized Islamic practices and their varied and contrastive relationship with feminist gender politics. Arguably, what had previously made the debates over women’s agency, equality, and empowerment in a context of Islam and diverse Muslim cultures so difficult related not only to an external environment of an increased instrumentalization of religion, but also to feminism’s historically hostile rejection of religion as detrimental to women’s progress. This was so when we conducted fieldwork in the 1990s, and it remains to this day – even given the developments made in understanding the spectrum of embedded agencies by which women negotiate and assert choices. The relationship between feminist/gender studies and newer concepts of religious agency remains a relationship of great perplexity. Yet it is of abiding fascination for international feminist scholars challenged by the conundrum over diverse intersections of agency, gender, empowerment, and faith.

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、美國龔鵬程基金會主席。