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In the Netherlands, girls and young women are increasingly active in women-only kickboxing. The general assumption, in the Netherlands and in western Europe more broadly, is that women’s sport is a form of secular, feminist empowerment. Muslim women’s participation would then exemplify the incongruence of Islam with the modern, secular nation-state. Punching Back provides a detailed ethnographic study that contests this view by showing that young Muslim women who kickbox establish agentive selves by playing with gender norms, challenging expectations, and living out their religious subjectivities.
“[Punching Back!] contributes significantly to our understanding of intersectionality in sports and specifically how Muslim women challenge the image of sport as a secular practice. [I]n elevating the experiences of Muslim girls and women by centering their voices doesn’t just create cracks in the discourse – it shatters the monolithic perceptions, allowing for the emergence of more authentic and diverse narratives.” • Tijdsschrift voor Genderstudies
“The book makes a vital contribution to anthropology, broadening the scope of the anthropology of sports by demonstrating how combat sports intersect with issues of piety, gender, and integration, and enriching the anthropology of Islam by focusing on the embodied practices and secular-religious negotiations of Muslim women. In doing so, Rana effectively bridges these fields, illustrating the transformative potential of interdisciplinary scholarship in capturing the lived realities of marginalized communities.” • Anthropology Book Forum
“Jasmijn Rana has written an engaging, well-crafted and long-anticipated ethnography of the intersectionally gendered and racialized experience of Muslim Dutch women, drawn from her own apprenticeship in women-only kickboxing venues in the southern neighbourhoods of The Hague.” • Paul Silverstein, Reed College
“I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and feel that it makes a very important contribution to the fields of sport studies, martial arts studies, migration studies and the anthropology of Islam in Europe.” • Alex Channon, University of Brighton
Jasmijn Rana is Associate Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University.
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. A Place for Us: Neighbourhood and Nation in a Kickboxing Gym
Chapter 2. Punching, Kicking and Belonging through Learning Together
Chapter 3. Crafting Gendered Subjectivities in Kickboxing
Chapter 4. To Fight or not to fight: Religious Sensibilities in Sports
Chapter 5. Fighting your way in: Competitive Kickboxing Against the Odds
Conclusion
References
Index