Malay Muslim women in Singapore cultivate piety by attending popular Islamic self-help classes. Nurhaizatul Jamils ethnographic study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of this phenomenon.
The Islamic self-help classes in this book exist at the nexus of sacred texts, aphorisms, and social media engagements, scaffolded by the neoliberal economy that shapes idealized Muslim subjectivities. Within a context whereby the Singapore state discursively frames Malayness in terms of cultural deficiency, Malay Muslim womens inward focus on transformative ethics rather than societal change underscores the appeal of gendered pious self-help discourses. At the same time, Jamils referencing of Black, Indigenous, and Ethnic studies offers a compelling analytical frame that places affective transformation within the context of racial capitalism, historical trauma, and embodied healing.
A provocative and rich ethnography, Faithful Transformations tells the stories of Malay Muslim women desiring piety and self-improvement as minoritized subjects in contemporary Singapore while exploring the limitations of self-care.
Acknowledgments
Introduction Hope Is a Discipline?: Introducing Islamic Self-Help
Whose Singapore Story?: Historicizing Malay-Muslim Subject-Formation
God Tests Us with Hardship and Ease: Self-Help Pedagogies
Eat, Pray, Love?: Racializing Affective Self-Help
Just Listen to Your Husband!: Gender, Religious Authority, Agency
Striving to Do Good Deeds Consistently: Everyday Islam, Discursive
Traditions
Coda Im Not Sure if I Still Want to Be a Feminist Killjoy: Thoughts on
Self-Help, Ventral Vagal Regulation, and Collectivizing Care
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Nurhaizatul Jamil is an assistant professor of global south studies at Pratt Institute.
