Dr Nazia Hussein joined LSE Sociology as a Teaching Fellow in Race and Ethnicity in September 2015. She completed her doctoral degree from the Department of Sociology at University of Warwick. She also holds degrees from LSE Gender Institute (MSc) and York University, Canada (BA Honors with double major).
Nazia’s teaching and research interests are in the intersections of gender, class, race, ethnicity and religion.
Doctoral Research: Boundaries of Respectability: New Women of Bangladesh
Colonial, post-colonial and nationalist ideologies of middle class respectable femininity in South Asia construct women’s religious and cultural roles within the home and the family as normative conceptions against which respectability is measured. Western literature identify it as working class women’s struggle for value in relation to femininity, appearance, sexuality, caring, cleaning and hygiene. In this research, I identify urban, highly educated, professional, affluent middle class women of Bangladesh as new women who introduce alternative forms of respectable femininities through their encounter with neoliberal economy. Using qualitative research methods, combining audio-visual materials, focus group discussion and multiple in depth interviews, I examine the complex and heterogeneous constructions of new womenhoods in the country. My conceptual framework derived of Bourdieu’s understanding of social class and West and Zimmerman’s framework of redoing gender and class, facilitates analysis of the everyday interactional negotiations of new women in relation to their gendered and classed practices of respectable femininity, and the potential for this boundary work to enhance their agency. My analysis illuminates three aspects: first, new women are part of the neoliberal affluent middle class and they construct their class identity as a status group, claiming inter-class and intra-class distinction from other women. Their claims to distinction rest on their levels of higher education, types of paid employment and exposure to transnational lifestyles, alongside their gendered, classed and culturally attuned selfhood performed through their ‘smart’ aesthetic practices, 50-50 work home life balance and female individualism. Secondly, new womanhood is legitimized by alternative and multiple practices of respectability, varying according to women’s age, stage of life, profession, household setting and experience of living in western countries. Finally, as new women forge alternative forms of respectability theirs is not a straightforward abandonment of old structures of respectability; rather they conform to, negotiate and potentially transgress normative conceptions of middle-class respectable femininity, substituting, concealing, or legitimizing particular practices in particular fields. Nonetheless, these processes enable them to practice increased autonomy and agency, and while their gains are vested in the self, rather than a wider feminist politics, they have the potential to positively influence the terrain of possibilities for other Bangladeshi women. Overall, my thesis shifts the focus of respectability research in South Asia from exploring the binary of respectable and unrespectable practices to evaluating how women make and remake their respectable status and class privilege in neoliberal Bangladesh, and the implications for gender relations.
Selected Publications
Hussein, Nazia (2016), ‘Bangladeshi New Women’s ‘Smart Dressing’: Conforming, negotiating and resisting organizational aesthetic standards’. Gender, Work and Organization, 23 (4) [Forthcoming]
Hussein, Nazia. and Hussain, Saba. (2015) ‘Interrogating Practices of Gender, Religion and Nationalism in the Representation of Muslim Women in Bollywood: Contexts of Change Sites of Continuity’. Exchanges: Warwick Research Journal, 2: 2, pp 284-304 http://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/article/view/60/172
Raju, Z. H. and N. Hussein (2014) ‘Cultural Consumption and Identity Formation’, in Culture, Media & Identities, Open University Malaysia (textbook for the course Culture, Media and Identities)
Hussein, N. (2010) ‘Colour of Life Achievements: Historical and Media Influence of Identity Formation Based on Skin Colour in South Asia’.Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31: 4, pp 403 — 424.
Online Publications
Hussein, N. (2015) Tough Girls in a Rough Game: Normalizing public discussion of the ‘She things’ in Bangladesh. Kafila http://kafila.org/2015/07/30/tough-girls-in-a-rough-game-normalizing-public-discussion-of-she-things-in-bangladesh-nazia-hussein/
Hussein, N. (2013) Book Review: Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea. Feminist & Women's Studies Association Blog. http://fwsablog.org.uk/2013/08/30/multiculturalism-a-civic-idea/
Hussein, N. (2013) Brains, Time, Money: Part-Time & Self-Funded Postgraduate Study at The New Academic http://www.nadinemuller.org.uk/brains-time-money/nazia-hussein/
Hussein, N. (2013) Honour Killing: Blame the System not the Faith. Feminist & Women's Studies Association Blog. http://fwsablog.org.uk/2013/07/01/honor-killing-blame-the-system-not-the-faith/
Hussein, N. (2013) When Old Tricks Fail: The Women Protesters at the Generation Square in Bangladesh. Feminist & Women's Studies Association Blog. http://fwsablog.org.uk/2013/03/21/when-old-tricks-fail-the-women-protesters-at-the-generation-square-in-bangladesh/
Recent Conference Papers
Chair of the panel ‘The New Woman Question in the Wake of Neo-liberal Times in South Asia: State, Class, Culture, Religion and Kinship’ 24th European Conference on South Asian Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland, 27-30th July 2016.
‘Encountering the Structural Violence of Neoliberal Nationalism: Beauty Queens and Hindu Militants in India’ FWSA Biennial Conference: Everyday encounters with violence: Critical Feminist Perspectives, University of Leeds, 9-12th September 2015.
‘Bangladeshi New Women (Re)doing Boundaries of Respectable Femininity: Self-fulfillment, motherhood and marriage normativity’9th European PhD Workshop in South Asia Studies, at Lund University, Sweden, May 2015.
‘Complex Boundaries: Organisational Visibility vs Social Respectability in National and International Organizations in Bangladesh’, Gender, Work and Organization: 8th Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference, Keele University, June 2014.
Narratives of Gender, Class and Respectability: The New Women of Bangladesh, Troubling Narratives: Identity Matters Conference, University of Huddersfield, June 2014.
‘Enactment of ‘New Womenness’: Urban, Middle class, Professional Women of Bangladesh’ Gendered Knowledges: An interdisciplinary workshop, University of Warwick, June, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1iqj2tnolo
‘Complexities of the Representation of Urban Women in Bangladeshi Media’,Images of Women & Sexism in the Media Seminar at the Centre for the Study of Women & Gender at University of Warwick, May, 2013.