A01=Jasmijn Rana
adulthood
aesthetics
anthropology
Author_Jasmijn Rana
autonomy
belonging
Career
Category=JBSF1
Category=JHBS
Category=JHMC
competition
embodiment
empowerment
enskilment
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
fighting
gender
Gender norms
gender-grouping
habitus
halal spatialization
heteronormativity
identity
integration
intersectionality
Islam
Kickboxing
lifestory
Martial Arts
Muslim women
neighbourhoods
Netherlands
pain
piety
policy
Racialization
Secularity
self-improvement
self-realization
slacking
sociability
sports
style
subjectivity
temporalization
The Hague
Product details
- ISBN 9781836955771
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 May 2026
- Publisher: Berghahn Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Jasmijn Rana is Associate Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University.
