New Thesis by Oriol Poveda

2017-04-27

According to whose will: The entanglements of gender & religion in the lives of transgender Jews with an Orthodox background

This study, the first in its scope of transgender religiosity, explores the entanglements of gender and religion in the lives of 13 transgender participants with a Jewish Orthodox background (formerly and currently Orthodox). To that end, this study presents a series of themes distributed among three central periods in the participants’ lives: pre-transition, transition and post-transition. The findings detail the ways in which gender and religion were negotiated by the participants through what is described as dislocations and reversal stories. Gendered religious practices, a key feature of Orthodox Judaism, figure prominently in the analysis.

This dissertation also attempts to make a theoretical contribution by arguing for the need to move beyond the binary resistance/subordination that feminist scholars have developed to account for the agency of women in traditionalist religions. In order to do so, the author deploys the body of theoretical work developed by Karen Barad known as agential realism. Last but not least, the study concludes with a metatheoretical reflection on the merits of social constructionism and the desirability of other frameworks more attuned to a world of vigorous materiality.

The public defence will take place Saturday the 6th of May, 14.00-16.00 in Aula Minus, Gustavianum, Uppsala

News from 2017

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