Experience and Re-articulation of Identity in Spanish Women Converted to Islam

Abstract

This article analyses the capacity for re-articulation and redefi nition of
identity developed by women converted to Islam. The adoption of a
theoretical perspective committed to current feminisms allows us to go
beyond the conceptual limits of other studies on conversion. These
studies, following the functionalist tradition, focus the analysis on a
generic «object» woman of academic construction, relegating their
subjectively developed interpretative capacities to a mere epiphenomenon.
However, focusing on some «subject» women converted to Islam
allows us to describe the performativity and originality deployed in the
construction of their new religious identities. The conversion is thereby
a complex, multiple and continuous process which implies a gradual
construction of meaning in a sociocultural context, pertaining to Europe,
where a particular view of what it means to be a Muslim woman does
not yet exist.