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As part of the South Asia Hub of the Pathways to Women's Empowerment Research Programme, 'Changing Narratives of Sexuality: Trajectories of Desire and the Mediation of Socio-Cultural Spaces' this action research project was designed to examine discursive changes and their impact on women's lives/identities in areas related to (i) religion specifically the global upsurge of religious fundamentalisms and resurgent patriarchies with reference to the rise of Wahabi Islam as a hegemonic discourse, new religious practices and women in Pakistan and (ii) the media, predominantly satellite television, in the wider context of technologies, consumerism and globalization. The project aimed to identify and uncover new pathways and sites of change in the two areas mentioned above by using different methodological techniques. The project was expanded by the Simorgh Lahore Partnership to include traditional religious practices and rituals in the religious component so as to deepen understanding of the processes of change that are underway to see how far they are conducive to women's empowerment and to what extent they merely reformulate and reinforce existing norms regarding women's status and position in society. In the process, it examines the ways in which these factors shape women’s identities and self perception. …

This presentation given by Neelam Hussain to the South Asia Hub Conference held from 26-28 July 2011 in Dhaka, was on research conducted by the Simorgh Women's Resource and Publication Centre, Lahore. The aim of the research on the impact of the media and women's religious gatherings on women's lives in Pakistan was to examine the impact of two seemingly disparate yet interlinked modern day phenomena, namely: the dars (women's religious gatherings) and new technologies, specifically satellite television and the mobile phone. …

This chapter explores the impact that the Wahabi dars or teaching practice had on women’s lives in Pakistan. It draws on a study, undertaken simultaneously in Lahore and Dhaka, that sought to examine both discursive and spatial arrangements of the dars in order to understand what was drawing large numbers of women to these meetings, track the process of change from traditional practice and eclecticism of popular Islam to the certitudes and rigidities of the dars discourse and to mark the moments that initiated the move, if any, from acceptance of the status quo towards the possibility of choice and exercise of agency as a result of this engagement. …

We examine the discursive changes that are taking place in areas related to the media, predominantly satellite television and religion, viz the global upsurge of religious fundamentalisms and resurgent patriarchies in Pakistan, in the wider context of new technologies, consumerism and globalisation. We have identified and attempt to grant visibility to new pathways and sites of change in the area of media and religion and women’s empowerment. …

This collection of eleven short stories by both young and established writers drew on the research of the Pathways programme for inspiration in creating a fictional narrative. The idea to transform some of the stories which the researchers uncovered during the research process into fiction grew out of a desire to reach a wider audience in demonstrating the change and conflict women encounter within their lives. The stories were developed through creative writing workshops in which different aspects of writing were debated, life stories from the research shared, and draft fictional stories were presented and discussed. The hope is that by producing this volume, these stories of ordinary women and their daily struggles, which often languish as research documents, will reach a much more diverse public. …

This project explored how Bangladeshi women engage with television and the meanings, choices and subjectivities they derive from it. Researchers examined changing representations of women and female sexuality and explored how women in different sites and classes engage with television and attach meaning to the images that are represented on screen. They enquired whether and where there are possibilities of empowerment that open up through women's engagement, pleasure, and learning from the media. …

This research looked at resurgent Islam and its influence on the formation of female identities and sexualities in Bangladesh. The aim was to see whether the new forms of Islam in fact open up new spaces thereby ‘permitting’ women greater sexual rights than has been popularly perceived, and what might be learnt by the secular women’s movement from women’s organising in these new spaces. …