Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College International Studies Honors Projects International Studies Department 2017 Desconocido: Conversion to Islam in México Ashley E. Dunn Macalester College,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/intlstudies_honors Part of the Islamic Studies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, and the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons Recommended Citation Dunn, Ashley E., "Desconocido: Conversion to Islam in México" (2017). International Studies Honors Projects. 24. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/intlstudies_honors/24 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by the International Studies Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in International Studies Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Desconocido: Conversion to Islam in México Ashley Dunn Honors project in International Studies James Laine, Religious Studies April 13, 2017 1 Table of Contents Introduction 2 Authenticity 23 Creation 40 Desire 65 Conclusion 87 Bibliography 94 Acknowledgements 103 2 In articulations of the subaltern, the subject is assumed to lack agency, unless proven otherwise. This interpretation partially stems from the idea that she is subject to powers—of overlapping, congruent, and uneven forces of political, social, and economic rule. This assumption underlies scholarship from a number of disciplines and areas of focus in postcolonial study. Anthropologists like Saba Mahmood have upended conventional understandings of agency by demonstrating how subjects assert agency through ways that potentially appear as if they are buying into their own oppression.1 Her claim that submission and piety are forms of agency strikes at the very heart of the perennial question of whether Muslim women “need saving.”2 It still relies, however, on this idea that agency must be proved.