Sociology of the Veil in Saudi Arabia: Dress Code,Individual Choices,and Questions on Women's Empowerment

Veiling is commonly practiced in many Muslim societies, but its prevalence, and enforcement in Saudi Arabia is extraordinary. With changing status, Saudi women have started to defy the practice; and it is suggested that its enforcement has also become less frequent. In contemporary Saudi Arabia, many women, following the dress code of the abaya (black cloak) and hijab (head cover), have started to discard the naqab (face veil). Does this indicate a widening of the margins so far as veiling is concerned? Or is it an indication that Saudi society is becoming amenable to individual choices? To conclude that veiling has become a matter of individual choice would stretch the point beyond fact, but suggesting diversity in veiling practice would not be wrong. Saudi women continue to face structural constraints and systemic discrimination, but their improving socioeconomic conditions have provided them the ability to choose the way they want to be dressed in public so far as the use of naqab is concerned. Though a minor development, contextualized in the larger discourse on women's empowerment, this is no small achievement and is indicative of ruptures in the established social norm of veiling.     

Iqbal’s and Hassan’s Complaints: A Study of “To the Holy Prophet” and “SMS to Sir Muhammad Iqbal”

Muhammad Iqbal and Mohd. Kamal Hassan respectively wrote “To the Holy Prophet” and “SMS to Sir Muhammad Iqbal” in the 1930s and in the 2000s – two extremely challenging times, as in the former most Muslim-majority countries were under European colonial rule and in the latter, Western global powers wove an all-pervasive web of domination and exploitation of them. They focus on the internal weaknesses of subjugated Muslims and lament that, since the attitude of many of them is characterized by inaction and reliance on others, domination by foreign powers became an inevitable corollary. A culture of self-indulgence, stagnation, and complacency precipitated their decline and facilitated their exploitation by powerful outside interests. In their pursuit to understand the reasons for Western domination over Muslim societies, they studied the “moral paralysis” of colonized Muslims in order to reform them. Accordingly, their analysis of the subordinate position of Muslim peoples and countries can clearly be viewed through the lens of Bennabi’s notion of “colonizability,” as Iqbal’s and Hassan’s complaints in the poems mostly involve exposing several of their weaknesses that prevented them from playing their actual role, and hindered them from realising their potential, in the world.     

The Effects of a Campaign on Awareness and Participation Among Local Youth at the Lenggong Valley World Heritage Site,Malaysia

The capacity of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site (WHS) to sustain its designated criteria into the future is a function of how valuable local residents perceive the WHS to be, and how motivated they are to contribute toward efforts to maintain its status. In June 2012, Malaysia’s Lenggong Valley became a WHS. We investigate the effectiveness of a campaign targeting young local residents to increase their awareness of the importance of preserving the heritage of Lenggong. We undertook a questionnaire — designed to assess participants’ awareness of the value of the WHS and their willingness to participate in efforts to maintain the WHS — aimed at students from all three secondary schools in Lenggong before and after the campaign. In all, 175 completed questionnaires were analysed: the data revealed that the campaign had a significant effect on improving participants’ awareness of the value of the WHS and on improving their willingness to participate in WHS conservation activities.     

Malay women as discerning viewers: Asian soap operas,consumer culture and negotiating modernity

This article examines how Malay women in remote Malaysian villages engage with images of transnational modernity shown in popular soap operas imported from other Asian countries. While the government promoted these Asian soap operas at first as appropriate vehicles for the cultural project of modernising the mindsets and attitudes of the masses, authorities have now expressed some discomfort and ambivalence about the excessive representation of consumer culture in these soaps, which they fear will compromise the cultural values of Malay women. However, I argue that Malay women are discerning viewers who are able to critically negotiate the images of consumer culture in these soaps without necessarily ignoring their cultural values or social responsibilities. This debate about whether these soaps broaden the mindsets of Malay women viewers or teach them degenerate values of consumerist culture is part of an ongoing contestation over the cultural ramifications of modernity in Malaysia. This television genre of Asian soaps can be conceptualised as a site for negotiating modernity, where Malay women derive pleasure from the consumerist modernity depicted in the Asian soap operas while remaining mindful of the strictures posed by local culture.     

Knowledge-based development dynamics in less favoured regions: insights from Australian and Icelandic university towns

Knowledge-based development (KBD) is a widely practiced policy and is signified as an effective development approach particularly for the metropolitan city-region context. Even though, increasing recognition of this policy resulted in some initiatives in less favoured regions – such as regional university towns – its appropriateness for this context has not been investigated adequately. This paper explores the concept thoroughly in regional university town settings from the lens of the triple-helix model – a critical element for success in KBD. The study aims to broaden our understanding on the challenges of implementing a successful triple-helix model in regional university towns by providing evidence from different country contexts – Australia and Iceland. The methodology of the comparative case investigation incorporates policy and stakeholder perception analyses. Results reveal the journey of the investigated cases, their limited accomplishments and failure factors. Findings shed light on the developmental challenges of regional university towns by highlighting critical issues relating to suitability, appropriate implementation and effectiveness of the KBD policy.     

Generating Alternative Land‐use Allocation for Mixed Use Areas: Multi‐Objective Optimization Approach

Current research is carried out with an intention to present an optimization approach for the urban land‐use allocation problem by generating Pareto optimum solutions considering two objectives—maximizing compatibility among adjacent space uses of a study area without compromising the area’s total land price and maximizing the price of plot of each individual owner. Considering the non‐linear characteristics of the objective functions, a multi‐objective evolutionary algorithm approach called Non‐Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm‐II (NSGA‐II) is applied to obtain Pareto optimal land‐use allocation subject to different set of constraints. The objective functions are tested over a case study area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The resulting NSGA‐II model produces 24 Pareto optimal solutions of land‐use allocation, allowing tradeoff between maximizing compatibility and land price from one solution to other. This research also expresses the potential of the model to aid the policymakers and city planners of development authorities by providing alternative land‐use plans, and thereby predicting the consequences of any plan before practical application.