CLIC Colloquium with Sarah Hillewaert
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus
“Being a Respectful Urbanite. Everyday Negotiations Of Virtue Ethics Among Muslim Women In Coastal Kenya.”
This talk discusses the different ways in which Muslim women in Lamu (Kenya) anticipate possible evaluations of their public presence. Specifically, it considers how subtle shifts in women’s comportment are informed by multiple, often conflicting, possibilities for interpretation that inhabit imagined bodies, social positions, and locations within Lamu town. By discussing how such reflexivity informs everyday behaviors, the talk considers the connections between the moral ordinary, virtue ethics, and semiotic value.