Islamic Dawa, Domestic Work and Migrant South Asian Women in Kuwait by Attiya Ahmad ...

343 Pages·2009·0.97 MB·English

by  Attiya Ahmad

Limits of Conversion: Islamic Dawa, Domestic Work
and Migrant South Asian Women in Kuwait
by
Attiya Ahmad
Department of Cultural Anthropology
Duke University

Date: August 24, 2009

Approved:

___________________________
Katherine Ewing, Co-Advisor

___________________________
Diane Nelson, Co-Advisor

___________________________
Deborah Thomas

___________________________
Charles Piot

___________________________
John L. Jackson

___________________________
Ebrahim Moosa

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in the Department of
Cultural Anthropology in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2009

i
v
Limits of Conversion: Islamic Dawa, Domestic Work
And Migrant South Asian Women in Kuwait
by
Attiya Ahmad
Department of Cultural Anthropology
Duke University

Date: August 24, 2009

Approved:

___________________________
Katherine Ewing, Co-Advisor

___________________________
Diane Nelson, Co-Advisor

___________________________
Deborah Thomas

___________________________
Charles Piot

___________________________
John L. Jackson

___________________________
Ebrahim Moosa

An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of
Cultural Anthropology in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2009
i
v
Copyright by
Attiya Ahmad
2009
Abstract
Tens of thousands of migrant domestic workers, women working and residing
within Kuwaiti households, have taken shehadeh, the Islamic testament of faith over the
past decade. Drawing on 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Kuwait, and 2 months
of research in Nepal, this dissertation analyzes the processes through which South Asian
domestic workers develop newfound Islamic pieties, processes that underscore the
importance of the household as a site of intersection between transnational migration and
globalizing Islamic movements, and that point to the limitation of conventional
understandings of wage labour and religious conversion.

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To Rifat J. Ahmad, Syed I. Ahmad, S. Z. Ahmad, Salma A. Ahmad, and
Ebtehal Al-Khateeb and family

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Table of Contents
Abstract...........................................................................................................................................iv
Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................................ix
Preface...........................................................................................................................................xiii
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Moments..............................................................................................................................1
1.2 First Moment: Rosa Recites the Shehadeh; and, the Reworking of My Research Topic....2
1.3 Kuwait’s Complicated and Contradictory Cosmopolitanisms..........................................10
1.4 Second Moment: Noura and Sophia’s Discussion of Conversion to Islam versus
Becoming Muslim...................................................................................................................17
1.5 Moments Reprised.............................................................................................................23
1.6 Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Religion and Islam.............................................28
1.7 Two Limits of Conversion: Another Account of Domestic Workers’ Newfound Islamic
Practice and Pieties..................................................................................................................40
1.8 National versus Globalizing Forms of Muslim Belonging................................................44
1.9 National Formations in Spaces of Global Interrelations...................................................47
1.10 Fieldwork and Methods Adding a Table in Landscape Orientation................................53
1.11 Overview of the Dissertation...........................................................................................62

2. From Interregional to Transnational Relations; or, the Production of Foreign Residents and
Migrants in Kuwait........................................................................................................................66
2.1 Temporary Lawg...............................................................................................................66
2.2 The Cusp of Transnationalism: Mary/Maryam’s Journey to Kuwait................................69
2.3 Tandem Formations: National/Transnational and State/Global........................................74

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3. Global Productions of State and State-Like Institutions: Kuwait’s Domestic Work Sector......94
3.1 Pregnant Silences...............................................................................................................94
3.2 Household Governance and Vetting: Kafeel in Kuwait....................................................97
3.3 Notable Exceptions..........................................................................................................111
3.4 Domestic Work Sector: State-like in the Absence of States...........................................119
3.5 State-come-lately?...........................................................................................................142

4. Dawa and Dialogical Islam......................................................................................................145
4.1 Transnational Trajectories and Interrelations: Demography and Dawa..........................145
4.2 Kuwait’s Islamic Dawa Movement and Domestic Workers...........................................152
4.3 Halaqa: Circle of Diversity, Discussion and Deliberation..............................................155

5. Domestic Work and Deferred Lives........................................................................................166
5.1 Absence of Presence........................................................................................................166
5.2 Overview.........................................................................................................................170
5.3 Santa/Sophai: The Difficulty of Domestic Work............................................................173
5.4 Rethinking Markets, Solidarity and Family: Household Workers’ Interrelations, Gifting,
and Patron-client Relations, Families through Commodities................................................185
5.5 Mary/Maryam: A Part, Yet Apart....................................................................................199
5.6 Deferred Livings: In-Deference to Propriety and Family...............................................220
5.7 Post-Script and Anticipatory Preamble: Islam in Domestic Suffusion...........................239

6. Explanation is not the Point: House-Talk and Muslim Becomings.........................................241
6.1 House-Talk......................................................................................................................241
6.2 Dwelling Awhile..............................................................................................................243

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6.3 Everyday Routines and Possibilities................................................................................249
6.4 Quickened Learnings: The Dawa Center.........................................................................251
6.5 Everyday Becomings.......................................................................................................259

7. A Moment of Muslim Belongings and Becomings..................................................................262
7.1 A Moment........................................................................................................................262
7.2 Unfurling the Moment.....................................................................................................268
7.3 Sister Zaynab Explains Fitra and Muslim Being.............................................................271
7.4 Sister Tahira’s Speech and the Plurality, Play and Proliferation of Muslim Belonging.276
7.5 Karima and Sonia’s Transnational Travels, Travails, and Newfound Routings.............283
7.6 Muslim Being, Becomings and Belongings....................................................................292

Bibliography.................................................................................................................................298
Biography.....................................................................................................................................321

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Acknowledgements
Words cannot express how grateful I am to the many people who not only made
this dissertation possible, but who also made the process of its formation and crafting an
incredibly enriching and transformative experience. Dissertations bear individual stamps
in ways belying the myriad collaborative forms that make them possible. This is surely
the case with this dissertation. I would, however, like to add one caveat: the inspiration
and interesting bits of this dissertation come from others; the awkward and still-turgid
sections are all mine.

First, I would like to thank the many people in Kuwait and Nepal—domestic
workers, employers, Islamic dawa and reform movement members, individuals affiliated
with the domestic work sector --who gifted me generously of their time and energy.
Most especially I would like to thank the many women who shared with me so much—
including their stories, companionship, friendship, challenging conversations and
comments, and much much more—in ways I will remain forever in their debt. Their
utterances and experiences are rich and textured in ways that far outstrip any rendering,
something I was--and remain--acutely aware of, and in the coming years, something I
hope will help me to further improve, deepen, and enrichen subsequent renderings. The
women I spent most of my time with asked to remain anonymous, and although I use
numerous categories and abstract terms to refer to them (women, interlocutors,

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transnational migrants, South Asian, domestic workers, newly practicing Muslims,
residents of Kuwait), and although I have assigned some of them individualized names—
two practices I remain uneasy and uncertain about—I ask that you, the reader, please bear
in mind that these terms and names only gesture and hint at people of extraordinary
complexity and richness of experience.

In Kuwait, I would also like to thank Ebtehal A. Al-Khateeb, Muhmmad
Muzaffar, Sakina Al-Kout, Abdel Aziz Al-Khateeb, the extended Muzaffar, Al-Kout and
Al-Khateeb families; Abeer, Aliya and Nail Tebawi; Fatouma and Zahra Ali; Farzana,
Mona, Sadia, Tahira, Jamilla, Shersha, and numerous other friends and contacts who
wish to remain anonymous. I would also like to acknowledge the support provided by
Kuwait University, most notably the College of Social Studies for hosting me in Kuwait,
and the generous assistance provided by Prof. Zahra Ali, Anfal Al-Awadhi, Dr. Nasra
Shah, Dr. Lubna Al-Kazi, and Dean Yaqoub Al-Qandari.

At Duke, I would like to thank Katherine Ewing and Diane Nelson, two co-
advisors, mentors and friends who have pushed, pulled, and supported my work and
thinking in ways too numerous and subtle to describe. Both exemplify lived and
embodied forms of leaning that move me to no end. Deborah Thomas, Charlie Piot, John
Jackson, and Ebrahim Moosa, have mentored me with generosity and acuity, and
continually open up new trajectories of thought in ways both humbling and enabling. I

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