Resumo

MEZA TORRES, Andrea. Secularization as a “mission” discourse: a view from critical feminism and decolonial feminisms. Inter disciplina [online]. 2021, vol.9, n.24, pp.145-171.  Epub 25-Jun-2021. ISSN 2448-5705.  https://doi.org/10.22201/ceiich.24485705e.2021.23.7846.

This article starts by exposing a sharp critique of the secularization discourse through the main arguments of Joan Wallach Scott’s book Sex and Secularism. Here, the feminist author criticizes this process as a power discourse which does not correspond to historical facts; moreover, Scott argues that the equality of the sexes was never at the heart of the process of secularization. The author shows that this discourse is based on a dichotomical thinking which, nowadays, has generated the dichotomy “(western) gender equality and sexual freedom” versus “Islam”. This dichotomy, based on the image superiority/inferiority, supports geopolitical aims which are associated with the colonization of the peripheries. Therefore, it can be associated to the discourse of the colonial “mission” and its continuity. In the second part of this article, I present three decolonial thinkers: Arzu Merali, Houria Bouteldja and Sirin Adlbi Sibai who, from Muslim and/or Arab societies within the Global North, express a critique toward western (white) feminism and the secularization process associated with it. The aim of this article is to show points of convergence between a feminist, critical voice which emerged within the western academic field -and which gave an important turn- and women’s voices who have been systematically silenced in western academia. Moreover, beyond the critique of secularization from within the western academia, this article aims to show alternative proposals from the global peripheries which do not see the discourse of secularization as a way out of oppression. The points of convergence between critical feminism and the voices of Muslim women thinkers show that the historicity and ideological force of the secularization process must be thoroughly questioned and analyzed to propose new dialogue alternatives beyond the missions of imperial Christendom and / or its secularized theological version.

Palavras-chave : Secularism; Feminism; Decolonial Thought; Islam.

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