Einladung - Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Einladung/ Invitation
zum Gastvortrag an der/ to the Guest Lecture at the
Forschungsstelle Sozialanthropologie/ Social Anthropology Research Unit,
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften/ Austrian Academy of Sciences
10. Juni/June 10th 2008, 14.00 (s.t.)/ 2 p.m.
Seminarraum/ Seminar Room
Zentrum Asienwissenschaften und Sozialanthropologie
Center for Studies in Asian Cultures and Social Anthropology
A-1040 Wien, Prinz-Eugenstraße 8-10 / 1. Stock- 1st floor
Saadia Abid (MA, Ph.D. candidate):
"Purdah: The All Concealing Dress.
A Case Study of the Black Brigade of the Red Mosque"
This paper explains through a theoretical perspective one form of purdah called burqa, and
illustrates this through an ethnographic case study of an Islamic women’s school in Pakistan.
Purdah may be defined as a cultural term for the English word “veil”. Due to its socio-politicoreligious aspects, this topic has attracted a plethora of intriguing studies in the social
sciences. The Egyptian anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi, who did extensive research on this
topic, observes that veiling has been and still is an interesting topic to investigate. Its many
dimensions are often misunderstood. The present paper establishes the hypothesis that
purdah is symbolic of a form of religiosity that claims modesty. The argument is structured
along three parts. Starting with the significance of clothing and definition of the term purdah,
it moves on to the final part, i.e. the detailed explanation of this dynamic form of clothing.
Saadia Abid completed her Master degree in Anthropology at Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad (Pakistan). Her MA thesis focused on how material exhibits in a museum help to
construct identities. She subsequently became one of the first Pakistani female
anthropologists to be granted a doctoral scholarship of excellence by the Pakistani Ministry
of Higher Education. On that basis, she currently is a PhD student at Vienna University’s
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. She mainly is interested in material culture and
its functional value in a society with an emphasis on identity construction.