Purity, Piety, and Power: Caste and Gender Politics in South Asian Muslim Communities

For her capstone project, Aya Daisey participated in the course ANTHRO 195W- "Gender and Politics in the Muslim World" where she wrote a paper exploring the intersection of caste and gender in South Asian contexts, further examining how social hierarchies are both reinforced and resisted through gendered practices, spatial arrangements, and moral reform. Drawing on Joel Lee’s “Deceptive Majority”, Laura Ring’s “Zenana: Everyday Peace in a Karachi Apartment Building”, and Saad Lakhani’s “Quest for Dignity”, Aya notes how lower-caste and working-class women are subjected to disciplinary efforts that seek to reshape their behavior and roles in the name of purity, piety, or domestic order. Yet, these same women often push back—through public defiance, subtle negotiation, or strategic silence—revealing their agency within systems designed to marginalize them. Lastly, Aya argues that caste and gender must be read together as co-constitutive systems that structure power, social life, and the limits of reform in South Asia.