From Opposition to Creativity: Saba Mahmood's Decolonial Critique of Teleological Feminist Futures

Abstract Saba Mahmood's anthropological work studies the gain in skills, agency, and capacity building by the women's dawa movement in Egypt. These women increase their virtue toward the goal of piety by following dominant, often patriarchal norms. Mahmood argues that “teleological feminism” ignores this gain in agency because this kind of feminism only focuses on opposition or resistance to these norms. In this paper I defend Mahmood's “anti-teleological” feminist work from criticisms that her project valorizes oppression and has no vision for a nonoppressive feminist future. I argue the futu... Mehr ...