2 - Theorizing Muslim Family Life

Summary

This chapter lays the theoretical and conceptual foundations for the rest of the book. It provides an overview of major debates in family and relationship studies and explores their relevance for theorizing Muslim family life. It begins by summarizing traditional theories of family before moving on to consider theories of individualization and the accompanying decline of the family. It shows how these theories have simultaneously overlooked Muslim family life while contributing to problematizing accounts of it. Drawing on influential decolonizing arguments, the chapter highlights how Eurocentric understandings of family result in Muslim family life being either ignored or misunderstood and, in doing so, makes important connections with Orientalist perspectives of Islam and Muslims. Most importantly, this includes how dominant ideas about extended family formations contribute to positioning Muslim families as problematic. The chapter moves on to critically explore core ideas from the cultural turn in the sociology of family life. It considers if and how our understanding of Muslim family life can be enhanced by focusing on family practices and personal life (Smart, 2007; Morgan, 2011). The chapter highlights how paying closer attention to the relational, emotional and intimate dimensions of family life aids understanding of Muslim families and helps to challenge partial, limited accounts which regard Muslim family life as problematic and a site of conflict. However, the chapter also raises important questions about the limitations arising from the individualizing imperative of the concept of personal life, specifically in terms of capturing family life informed by principles of collectivism and familism. Lastly, it considers why, in rethinking Muslim family life, it is important to engage with debates centred on whether, or not, the family should be retained as a concept in the social sciences.

Traditional theories and the decline of extended family

Major debates in family studies emerged from so-called grand theories exploring the advance of capitalism, industrialization, liberal democracy and urbanism in the specific context of European and North American societies. These centred on making sense of how the unprecedented transformation of social life known as modernity impacted on the family as an institution, structural arrangement and complex of relationships.