Western travelers move throughout the world—especially to places in ‘the East’—believing themselves to be harbingers of modernity, spreading capitalism, socioeconomic development, Western culture, and other promises of modernization to places they assume are existing in states of pristine Otherness. In this paper I look at interactions between travelers and locals that reveal differing spatial imaginaries of ‘modernity’, and at how these reflect and produce different narratives of who is modern and where modernity exists. By using ethnographic material, I examine discursive and material interactions surrounding modernity through the examples of travelers' practices of photography, dress, and knowledge of Muslim women's veiling. In this paper I look to a located, gendered, and particular expression of an Islamic modernity, one that embraces improvements in quality of life that modern technologies of health care, agricultural production, and sanitation may bring, and which simultaneously embraces nonsecular ways of being in the world.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abu-LughodL, 1998, “Feminist longings and postcolonial conditions”, in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East Ed. Abu-LughodL (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ) pp 3–32.
2.
AhmedL, 1999A Border Passage (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York).
3.
Azar-HewittF, 1999, “Women of the high pastures and the global economy: Reflections on the impacts of modernization in the Hushey Valley of the Karakoram, Northern Pakistan”Mountain Research and Development19141–151.
BernaiV, 1994, “Gender, culture and capitalism: Women and the remaking of Islamic ‘tradition’ in a Sudanese village”Comparative Studies in Society and History36 (1) 36–67.
6.
BesioK, 2003, “Steppin' in it: Postcoloniality in Northern Pakistan”Area35 (1) 24–33.
7.
BesioKButzD, 2004, “Autoethnography: A limited endorsement”The Professional Geographer56432–438.
8.
BezruchkaS, 1991Trekking in Nepal: A Traveler's Guide (The Mountaineers, Seattle, WA).
9.
BhabhaH, 1984, “Of mimicry and man: The ambivalence of colonial discourse”October28125–133.
10.
ButzDBesioK, 2004, “The value of autoethnography for field research in a transcultural setting”The Professional Geographer56350–360.
11.
ChakrabartyD, 2000, “Witness to suffering: Domestic cruelty and the birth of the modern subject in Bengal”, in Questions of Modernity Ed. MitchellT (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) pp 49–86.
12.
CliffordJ, 1988The Predicament of Culture (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
13.
CookN, 2001, “The discursive constitution of Pakistani women: The articulation of gender, nation and Islam”Atlantis: A Women's Study Journal25(2) 31–41.
14.
CrangM, 1997, “Picturing practices: Research through the tourist gaze”Progress in Human Geography21359–373.
15.
DriverF, 2001Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration in the Age of Empire (Blackwell, Oxford).
16.
el GuindiF, 2000Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance (Berg, Oxford).
17.
EspositoJ, 2002What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam (Oxford University Press, New York).
18.
FabianJ, 1983Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (Columbia University Press, New York).
19.
FalahGNagelC (Eds), 2005Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space (Guilford Press, New York).
20.
Garcia-RamonM, 2003, “Gender and the colonial encounter in the Arab world: Examining women's experiences and narratives”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space21653–672.
21.
GökarikselB, forthcoming, “Feminist geographies of religion: The making of secular/religious spaces and subjects in Istanbul”, in Women, Religion and Space Eds MorinKGuelkeJ (Syracuse University Press, New York).
22.
GöleN, 2000, “Snapshots of Islamic modernities”Daedalus (Winter) 91–117.
23.
GOP, 1996Trekking Rules and RegulationsSports and Tourism Division, Islamabad.
24.
GratzK, 1998, “Walking on women's paths in Gilgit: Gendered space, boundaries and boundary crossing”, in Karakoram–Hindukush–Himalaya: Dynamics of Change Ed. StellrechtI (Rüdger Koppe, Köln) pp 489–507.
25.
HaddadYEspositoJ (Eds), 1998Islam, Gender and Social Change (Oxford University Press, New York).
26.
JalalA, 1991, “The convenience of subservience: Women and the state of Pakistan”, in Women, Islam and the State Ed. KandiyotiD (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA) pp 77–114.
27.
JohnstonL, 2001, “(Other) bodies and tourism studies”Annals of Tourism Research: A Social Science Journal28 (1) 180–201.
28.
JohnstonL, 2005Queering Tourism: Paradoxical Performances at Gay Pride Parades (Routledge, London).
29.
KahfM, 1999Western Representations of the Muslim Woman from Termagant to Odalisque (University of Texas Press, Austin, TX).
30.
KandiyotiD, 1991Women, Islam and the State (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA).
31.
KhanS, 1998, “Muslim women: Negotiations in the third space”Signs23463–494.
32.
KingJMayhewB, 1998Pakistan: A Travel Survival Kit (Lonely Planet, Australia).
33.
MacCannellD, 1999The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
34.
MacDonaldK, 1994The Mediation of Risk: Ecology, Society and Authority in a Karakoram Mountain Community unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario.
35.
MacDonaldK, 1998, “Push and shove: Spatial history and the construction of a portering economy in northern Pakistan”Comparative Studies in Society and History40287–317.
36.
MacDonaldKButzD, 1998, “Investigating portering relations as a locus for transcultural interaction in the Karakoram region of Northern Pakistan”Mountain Research and Development18333–343.
37.
ManiL, 1989, “Contentious traditions: The debate on sati in colonial India”, in Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History Eds SangariKVaidS (Kali for Women, New Delhi) pp 88–126.
38.
MitchellT, 2000Questions of Modernity (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN).
39.
MitchellT, 2002Rule of Experts (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
40.
MitchellTAbu-LughodL, 1993, “Questions of modernity”Items47 (4) 79–83.
41.
MockJO'NeilK, 1996aSurvey of Ecotourism Potential in the Biodiversity Project Area (International Union for the Conservation of Pakistan).
42.
MockJO'NeilK, 1996bTrekking in the Karakoram and Hindu-Kush (Lonely Planet, Berkeley, CA).
43.
RouseS, 1988, “Women, religion and the state”South Asia Bulletin854–58.
44.
SecorA, 2002, “The veil and urban space in Istanbul: Women's dress, mobility and Islamic knowledge”Gender, Place and Culture9 (1) 5–22.
45.
SecorA, forthcoming, “Afterword”, in Women, Religion and Space Eds MorinKGuelkeJ (Syracuse University Press, New York).
46.
ShehadehL, 2003The Idea of Women Under Fundamentalist Islam (University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL).
47.
SonnT, 2001, “Modernity, Islam, and the West”, in Muslims and the West: Encounter and Dialogue Eds AnsariZEspositoJ (Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad) pp 216–231.
48.
SontagS, 1978On Photography (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York).
49.
SpivakG, 1988, “Can the subaltern speak?”, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture Eds NelsonCGrossbergL (University of Illinois Press, Chicago, IL) pp 271–313.
50.
SwiftH, 1982Trekking in Pakistan and India (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA).
51.
TsingA1993In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-way Place (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).
52.
TurnerLAshJ, 1975The Golden Hordes (Constable, London).
53.
UrryJ, 2002The Tourist Gaze (Sage, London); first published in 1989.
54.
VeijolaSJokinenE, 1994, “The body in tourism”Theory, Culture and Society11125–151.
55.
Yuval-DavisN, 1997Gender and Nation (Sage, London).
