(re)imagining aging lives: ethnographic narratives of muslim women in diaspora

Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology14: 245–272, 1999.© 1999Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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(Re)imagining aging lives: Ethnographic narratives of Muslimwomen in diaspora

PARIN A. DOSSADepartment of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Abstract. This article explores the potential of the narrative genre in (re)imagining aginglives of women in diaspora, spanning cultures as well as generations. Minimal attention givento combined constituencies of gender, age and minority status in feminist ethnography and theliterature on aging may be redressed by the realization that minority aging women negotiateculturally based and innovative strategies to overcome patriarchal, age-based and coloniz-ing and postcolonizing constraints. Ethnographic narratives of two Ismaili Muslim Canadianwomen, as part of a cohort of immigrants from East Africa, provide insights into the complexprocess of reimagining lives in-between spaces of home work and waged work as well as in-between action and repose (silence, and stillness that complement mundane action-orientedactivities) modes of the Ismaili tradition. The narratives are a living metaphor of lives engagedin recapturing meaning. As such, the creative endeavors of aging women in diaspora hasimplications for a feminist ethnography of aging – an area that to date remains substantivelyunexplored.

Keywords: Aging, Diaspora, Ismaili Muslims, Narratives, Women

Reconstructing lives: Gender and age in diasporic communities

Gender and age form the axis for the organization of social life. Unexception-ably, these constituencies are subject to continual manipulation and recon-struction, especially in diasporic communities (dispersed but interconnected)where the need to articulate with multiple and often dominant systems is everpresent. Faced with the challenge of reconstructing lives in settings wherethey differ in important ways from the host society, diasporic communitiestend to show remarkable capacity for adaptation. This aspect is salient withinthe Ismaili Muslim community, spread over 25 countries, with no particular“home” (territorial) base. The community’s historical landscape is diverse,revealing flexibility and resilience in response to the changing circumstances.Documentation of this characteristic feature, however, remains incomplete, asit has been confined to a homogenized male perspective. For example, FarhadDaftary’s (1990) massive work (803 pages)The Ismailis: Their History andDoctrinesmakes no reference to women, gender or age. The word “women”

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appears only two times in the index and those only within a reactive contextof “emancipation”. Considering that this work has been acclaimed as “animpressively thorough account and a major contribution to Ismaili studies”and a standard reference on the subject as a whole (ibid.: back cover) omis-sion of women is serious, as it renders them socially invisible. Overlookingage entails erasure of existential issues encapsulated in lived reality (Moore1978; Myerhoff 1980; Hazan 1983, 1994).

Daftary’s exclusion of women and age is not an isolated instance.Perspectives advanced in the literature on diasporic communities over-look internal dynamics and hegemonic structuration that exclude internallymarginalized groups (Myerhoff & Simic 1978; Camino & Krulfeld 1994).This stance translates into hegemonic definition of a community that artic-ulates its distinctive self-definition for outsiders at the expense of internaldifferences. Swedenburg (1990) provides the illustrative example of thePalestinian Peasant. The author notes that this figure’s construction into anational signifier, embedded in a timeless and unchanging folk culture, servesto erase his (her is omitted) lived reality. This form of discontinuity is alltoo common in the case of gender and age. Writers like Agnew (1996) haveobserved how specific interests of women have been subordinated undercollective interests of minority groups. Aging women have not emerged asactors in the body of literature on gender within diasporic communities; theycontinue to remain on the backstage with their scripts unwritten.

The question, then, is how do we go about examining gender and agecategories of social life in a manner that reveals local dialectics – orimagining, to use Arkoun’s (1994) phrase. (Re)imagining in the context ofgender and age captures two polarized dimensions: social constructs andsubjectivity. In the industrialized West, aging women are socially constructedas the Other (Lock 1993); but women are also active agents who tap intocultural resources and social relationships to incorporate, negotiate and resistsystems of domination. Insights into the latter may be derived from life narra-tives. This approach allows us to capture experience-based embodied knowl-edge formulated in relation to socially constructed categories. Recoveringalternative and unexamined knowledge not recognized in more conventionalapproaches forms the sine qua non of life narratives.

Narrative accounts of diasporic women pose an epistemological challengeto feminist anthropology, which has not been able to accommodate substan-tively the lived reality of women in diaspora. Its concern about giving voiceto marginalized women has not gone beyond recognizing “that cultures aredifferently practiced outside their original geographical homes” (Ong 1995:366). Nor does there exist an epistemological space for women in diasporato engage in dialogue with feminist thought (Agnew 1996; Behar & Gordon

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1995; Dossa 1997). Of special importance is the neglect of age and the agingprocess in feminist ethnography. It is in the context of the larger project,then, that life narratives should be viewed, and, more specifically, in terms ofimagined aging lives that have crossed territorial and social borders, bringingto light the not-quite-articulated spaces that exist in-between systems. Ong(1995) observes that anthropology needs to reflect on the postcolonial situ-ations whereby we increasingly live inside, outside and through the East-Westdivisions (ibid.: 368). As well, we must recognize that we also increasinglylive inside, outside and through age-based consciousness. Examined livesbred on the borderlands between cultures represent new imaginations aboutgender, age and self-knowledge. Ordinary aging women telling their ownstories inter-nationally, to use Ong’s phrase (ibid.: 368) – in the double senseof reimagining gender and age together with dissemination of narratives –should establish epistemological and methodological points of interventionin both feminist ethnographic and Western gerontological literature. Thenarratives are essentially about spanning cultures and generations. Takinga cue from the analytic process advanced by Gubrium and Sankar (1994)and Reinharz and Rowles (1987), I generated thematic categories in order tomove the data from description to conceptual. My reading of the transcriptswas informed by the following questions: How do aging immigrant womentalk about their experiences? How can I convey these experiences to evoke aconceptual understanding of their situations? In addition to these questions,I had determined gaps and broad areas of analysis from the literature, whichallowed me to examine the transcripts as dialogical texts. The challenge forme, then, was to explore the dynamic relationship between conceptual under-standing of the respondents’ life situations while remaining grounded in thenarrative texts. The following analysis is based on the principle that therecannot be a sense of closure to the narrative texts, and, thus, I have presentedthem as being open to multiple readings and interpretations.

For the narrators1 included in this study, life has consisted of growingup within patriarchal households in East Africa for a good part of the 20thcentury. Their socialization was ideally geared toward marriage, raising offamily, sustenance of kinship and social ties and nurturing of spiritual life.These conventional representations and practices are (re)constructed and(re)visioned by women in myriad ways, leading to embodied gender andage-based knowledge. Lives of these women are of special interest, as theirprocess of socialization has been subject to change and reformulation underthe impact of colonial capitalism and, more recently, postcolonial develop-ments. At the time of their migration in the 1970s, respondents were between35 and 48 years old. Over a period of 20 to 25 years of life in Canada, theyhave reached their early and late middle-age years as part of an immigrant

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community. Being placed in an in-between stage of being neither young orold, these women have become pioneers in articulating gendered and age-based identity. Middle age serves as a zone of (re)imagining of life in thenew country. Unlike elderly women, most of whom do not work outside thehome, the situational location of middle-aged Ismaili women has includedfamily and kin as well as the market sphere. Of interest is that their middleyears of life are defined according to Canadian standards, where over 50 yearsold is considered middle aged; in East Africa, middle aged is not a markedcategory, as the aging process is determined contextually through one’s abilityto remain active.

Edwin Ardener’s (1975) concept of “muted groups” provides a pointof entry into understanding the narratives of marginalized women. Ardenersuggests that mutedness is the product of asymmetrical relations of powerwhere dominant groups control dominant modes of expression. His theoryimplies that those who are rendered inarticulate can express themselves onlyby resorting to dominant modes. In this work, I suggest a more complex scen-ario that cannot be categorized into analytical units. I show that narratives ofmuted women, in fact, express fundamental themes of human existence: lifetrajectories experienced in the form of joys and sufferings, as well as thedaily routine of life which encapsulates critical knowledge articulated in theform of reconstructed and reimagined experiences. It is in this context thatone encounters telling depths of passion and minor revelations. This form ofknowledge is not easily accessible as it is embedded in deceptively simplerhythms of routinized life (for example, Hazan 1987; Savishinsky 1991;Kerns & Brown 1992). What we read in the narratives is the (re)visioning oflives and social valuations, discursively constructed, that allow these womento say: “These are the stories of our lives and this is how women’s [inclusiveof aging] should be recorded.”

Documenting the aspect of being-in-the-world

I based the documentation of narratives on personal ethnographies of dailylife-in-progress. My intent was to focus on the element of being-in-the-world (Merleu-Ponty 1962) – struggle, accommodation, transformation –and explore principles of interconnection of events, places, people, andprogression of life cycle – core elements of life narratives.2 The formatused was encouraging women to talk about the flux of daily life, life-cycleevents (puberty, marriage, childbearing years and being middle aged) andthe process of migration and settlement in Canada. An added dimension wasto encourage each narrator to reflect on her own account. The idea was toengage the women to interpret and theorize about their experiences. Each


narrative involved two to three sittings (about two hours each) in the homesof the respondents and conversational participation in communal celebra-tions and events over a period of two years. Women related their lives inGujerati (their mother tongue) or bilingually in English and Gujerati. Someof the accounts were tape recorded and then transcribed; others took the formof note taking, written up in full immediately after the interview. Unstruc-tured conversations and participant observations complemented the narrativeaccounts. Out of seven life narratives chosen from a larger sample of inter-views with 15 women, two are included here. This choice is based on thecriteria of contrast and representation of strategic vantage points observed inthe larger sample. However, material is drawn from other life narratives inthe way of general observations incorporated within two frames: “imaginarymaps” (Spivak 1996) to establish points of connection, and “testimonial”(Beverley 1992), which represents the collective situation of the narrator.

What might aging Ismaili women tell us about life in their countries oforigin in East Africa? What words, images and devices do they use to narratetheir life experiences? What is it like to grow old in Canada? To frame thesequestions is to inquire not only about Ismaili women but also about aging andgender as constructs of social life. Ismaili women, like other women, oftenfind that changes effected in their social roles may not be reflected in theirown value system and that of the larger community. To have an immigrantwoman working as a professional in the Canadian (white) labor force is ananomaly (Ng 1988; Agnew 1996; Bannerji 1995). To have an older immigrantwoman doing so heightens the anomaly. For the Ismaili women, living inCanada and growing old entail negotiation on many fronts. Clearly, some ofthese changes are advantageous and enabling; others may be disruptive andconstraining. The following profiles serve to contextualize life narratives ofwomen.

The Ismaili community

Ismailis are Shia Muslims who believe that Prophet Muhammed designatedAli, his cousin and son-in-law, as his successor and that this line of succes-sion is continuous and held only by his male descendants. The successor isreferred to as the Imam, who, according to the Ismailis, guides his followersmaterially as well as spiritually, in accordance with changing times andcircumstances. The Ismailis are distinguished from other Shia Muslims bytheir belief in the living (Hadir) Imam. The Sunni Muslims represent theother school of thought within Islam, and the majority denomination of Islam.They claim that the Prophet left it to the community of believers (Umma) tonominate a successor from among themselves.

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The hallmark of the Ismaili community is an ingenious combination ofreligious and socioeconomic sectors, expressed dynamically through the twocomplementary modes of action and repose. The former, also referred to asmaterial, is associated with daytime. By contrast, the latter, or spiritual, isassociated with dawn and dusk. The demarcation between the two categoriesis reflected spatially.Jamat Khana, the Ismaili place of worship, and itsconcomitant, the community, express attributes of repose; kin and familyhave closer affinity with the action mode. Each category is energized in thepresence of the other. Repose mode in the form of spiritual life has meaningin relation to the multiplicity and activity of material life. The two modesof repose and action, then, are not separate abstractions but are connected inintricate ways (Dossa 1985, 1988).

The Imam’s role in the settlement of the Ismaili community in EastAfrica has been crucial. The migration of the Ismailis from the Indo-Pakistansubcontinent in the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuriestook place under the directive of the previous Imam, Aga Khan III (1885–1957). According to traditional practice, the Ismailis consolidated theirpresence through the establishment of Jamat Khanas. These centers formedthe hub around which the religious, social and cultural life of the communitywas organized toward indigenous modernization. At the time of the 48thImam’s death, a strong corporate community with a sound economic andeducational base supported by an infrastructure of modern institutions hadbeen established. When the present Imam assumed leadership in 1957, theEast African countries were in the process of becoming independent nations.While preparing the community for a competitive African and world market,the Imam directed the Ismailis to take up citizenship in the countries of theirsettlement.

Gendered profile of Ismaili migration to Canada4

The settlement of the Ismaili community in Canada is traced to the 1972incident when President Idi Amin of Uganda expelled three generations ofAsians (Hindus, Sunni Muslims of Indian origins, Sikhs and Ismaili Muslims,among others). This incident triggered large scale migration from the othertwo East African countries of Kenya and Tanzania. At present, the populationof Canadian Ismailis is about 50,000 (the precise number and breakdown interms of gender and age is not available). The community is primarily urbanand is recognized for its entrepreneurial, professional and organizationalskills, together with its ability to maintain its distinctive religious heritage(Fernando 1979; Nanji 1983; Ross-Sherif & Nanji 1991; Dossa 1985).


Middle-aged Ismaili women form an integral part of the professionalor occupational sector of the community. During the time of migration,the majority of these women knew English, had vocational or professionaltraining and were married. Data drawn from a larger sample of 180 womenindicate that 89% were married, 40% had vocational skills (secretarial,hairdressing, commerce, clerk), 35% had university education (teaching,nursing, accounting, law, medicine), 15% had been in business (trade,commerce) and 10% were homemakers with secretarial or business skills.The ability to speak English and previous career experiences, combined witha good economic climate in Canada, led to a relatively fast entry of Ismailiwomen into the Canadian labor force. However, their employment was not intheir areas of expertise. Most of the women found themselves in the gender-ized Canadian labor ghetto, working as bank clerks, bookkeepers, secretariesor administrative clerks, insurance clerks, sales clerks in department storesand cashiers in supermarkets. Where these women were able to find work intheir career fields, there has been a long struggle. One woman, determined tocontinue in her teaching profession, worked as a substitute teacher for threeyears. Because she did not have a car, she had to travel by bus to whicheverschool she was assigned. Her traveling time was one to one-and-half hourseach way, with a change of two to three buses. Eventually, she was hiredfor a permanent teaching position. Another woman could find teaching workonly by moving to Prince George. Unmarried, she lived there for three years,cut off from family and community. Failing to get a transfer to a school inVancouver, she finally opted to take up the position of an insurance broker.This meant undergoing a period of training and long hours of work. Otherwomen had to go back to school to upgrade their credentials, which were notrecognized in Canada. Many of the women have had to study extensively tomaintain their positions and upgrade their skills. Some of the women have setup their own businesses or joined in partnership with their husbands. A fewof the women work independently in real estate, as insurance brokers and asfinancial consultants.

In East Africa, these women belonged to a spatially concentrated, insti-tutionally complete and tight-knit community. As immigrants to Canada,middle-aged Ismaili women have been engaged in rebuilding their careers,while sustaining family and community lives in a spatially dispersed environ-ment. An added feature is the sharp demarcation between private and publicspheres, the latter having appropriated the former to the extent that the privatesphere has become constricted (Smith 1984). Narrators described the initial(five to seven years) period of their lives in the public market sphere aspressurized and stressful. As documented elsewhere (Dossa 1988), thesewomen had to deal with a convergence of factors: a new and foreign environ-

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ment, the rebuilding of careers and pressure to perform in a competitive jobmarket. The stressful work situation was not mitigated at home. The double-load reality facing career women in Canada applies to Ismaili women. (InEast Africa, these women had hired domestic help as well as an extendedkin network.) Their home life revolved around shopping, cooking, cleaning,raising children, maintaining ties with kin, caring for elderly parents or in-laws and preserving Ismaili values and cultural traditions. The profile ofimmigrant middle-aged Ismaili women is that of individuals who have gonethrough the stresses of juggling careers and family life. If their husbandscontribute to running the house, it is more in the form of assistance than fullresponsibility.

For Ismaili men, the element of struggle and rebuilding of lives has beenequally vigorous. In the first five years of settlement, most men took upwhatever jobs and opportunities available to them. Many of the men workedtheir way up toward higher-level positions through hard work combined withupgrading of qualifications. Husbands’ and wives’ engagement with the laborforce means renegotiation of gender roles within the domestic sphere. Byand large, the traditional division of labor has persisted among the presentcohort of middle-aged men (50 years and older). While some men assist withhousehold tasks such as vacuum cleaning, most men expect their wives totake full responsibility for the running of the home. The amount of work thata husband does in the house is determined by his willingness to help. In caseswhere wives have felt that the sharing of the workload is unequal, they haveresorted to other strategies, such as hired help, rather than risk conflicts withtheir husbands. In the words of one woman:

We cannot change our husbands. They grew up not doing anything athome, in East Africa. Here, they have adjusted somewhat. How muchwork a husband does in the house depends on how much he wants tohelp. Some husbands help more, some husbands help less, but we womenare responsible for running the house.

In the words of a husband:

It is appropriate for women to run the house. This is our culture. We dohelp and do whatever we can. But we cannot do women’s work.

Women’s accommodation of pressures of life in Canada has taken theform of efficient organization of household tasks, for example, cooking moresimple meals, making overnight preparation of food and resorting to extra-familial help (Dossa 1988). Men’s response has been to do with less ratherthan take on extra work at home. For example, instead of helping to preparethe traditional three-course meal, most men are content to eat a one-course


meal. Likewise, instead of expecting their wives to bake chapatis, a breadeaten daily in East Africa, they have leant to make do with store-bought breador pita bread. As women are responsible for running the house, women set therules of how and what meals will be prepared, together with other strategiesthat allow them to have some control over an essentially gendered space. Menhave adjusted to the time-management strategies that women have introducedin the home sphere. But aging poses another challenge for Ismaili womenother than on the home front.

As can be gleaned from the literature on women and aging in Canada,older women are confronted with a significant amount of prejudice in theworkplace. With age, their opportunities for upward mobility diminish andeven holding onto jobs can become problematic. The casual stereotype ofmiddle-aged (menopausal) women in Canada is that of sad and forlorn beingswho have experienced a multiplicity of losses (Kaufert & Lock 1992: 207).While aging Ismaili women (like other women in Canada) are the target ofmedicalized discourse on middle age, they utilize this discourse to engage inthe social construction of an alternative (not oppositional) reality to expresstheir own concerns as women, with a hybrid status of being Canadians aswell as Ismaili Muslims. The narratives that follow reveal intricate dimen-sions of negotiation of gendered and aging lives foregrounding agency andsubjectivity, always in the context of larger concerns. This profile providesan entry into the lives of two women, Amina (late middle age) and Khadija(early middle age) who came to Vancouver, Canada, in 1972 and 1978,respectively.5 The challenge for aging Ismaili women is to reconfigure theprocess of aging to create spaces where their work is recognized and valued.

Reading early life accounts: Imaginary maps

Accident of Birth: Amina’s Narrative

I was born in Nairobi [Kenya], the second child in a family of sixdaughters. My father was a postmaster, who worked long hours for apoor wage. As a child, I remember going to school. After school, I wasexpected to go straight home. My world was home, school and JamatKhana. Home is where I learnt everything about domestic work: darningsocks, mending clothes, cooking and cleaning. School is one place whichI enjoyed the most. Ever since I was young, I wanted to become a teacheror a nurse. When I went to Jamat Khana, I prayed that my wish wouldbecome true. I knew that this would be difficult, as we were poor.

While I was studying, my elder sister did something that was notacceptable – she fell in love with a boy and started meeting him secretly.

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When my mother found this out, she quickly got them married. My sisterwas only 14 years old; she was not pregnant or anything.

The outcome of this was that my mother put greater restrictions on allof us. I wished very much to become a nurse or a teacher. My motherrefused and said, “You do not want to cut your nose” (meaning that youwill lose yourabru, honor).

This account reveals life situations of Ismaili women growing up in the1930s. We learn that struggle for survival was a major issue at a timewhen Asians were beginning to settle in colonial East Africa. Asians’ rolein the development of East Africa is documented exclusively from a maleperspective (Gregory 1971), silencing women’s complex lives. In Amina’scase, the possibility of studying further was ruled out for moral and financialreasons. Amina’s mother wished to marry the daughters as soon as possible.Her intent was intensified by the apparent violation of the honor-shame norm(women should not be seen with men) by the eldest daughter. She, however,was not a passive enforcer of patriarchy. She was well aware of material reali-ties of life. The mother’s strategy of finding marital homes for her daughterswas designed to get them out of poverty. As Amina explains it: “My motherdid not directly talk about us not being rich. She just said, ‘You will be happierin your husband’s home.’ ” Although Amina was socialized to become a goodhousewife (“Home is where I learnt everything about domestic work”), hervision extended into the wider world of education and work. Recognizingthat her wish to become a teacher or a nurse would not come to fruition in hernatal home, she entered into arranged marriage in Uganda at the age of 17.

Both Amina and her mother subvert the system of marriage in ways thatwork for them. For the mother, her daughters’ marriages were a way out ofpoverty for them; for Amina, marriage was one avenue to further her careergoal. The latter was realized to its fullest extent: Amina became a teacher andtaught for 17 years.

In the early years of marriage, Amina was confined to the home sphere,since her in-laws did not consider it appropriate for her to work. In Amina’swords:

I was expected to look after the extended family. My husband was earningvery little, and I really wanted to work – we needed money. Throughwork, I wanted to explore the wider world. My in-laws would not hearof this. Every time I brought it up, they said, “What would be our abru(honor). In my heart, I knew that I would be working outside the homeone day.

This day came with the birth of my second child. He became disabledafter one-and-a-half years. We had to take him to Nairobi for treatment.


The cost was high. The only way out was to work. When I made thedecision to work, I did not inform anyone. I thought of opening up asmall shop [duka]. They (my in-laws) would not say no, as there weremany women helping their husbands indukas. In my case, I would run itmyself.

I had to put in long hours and was getting exhausted. I told my husband,“I can’t do this anymore.” We closed the shop. I looked for other opportu-nities. I went through newspaper advertisements and discovered that therewas a position for a cashier at a European supermarket. This was arespectable position. I could convince my in-laws – I knew this couldbe done. I was right. They agreed, with one condition. I was not to wearmakeup and [had to] wear simple clothes. I did not care about dressing ornot dressing. All that I wanted to do was work. I earned more money thanmy husband.

There was a European customer (headmaster of a school) who usedto come to the store. He said, “How about considering the possibility ofteaching?” I was delighted. This person was sent by God. This is what Ialways wanted to do. I trained as a teacher, and my dream was fulfilled.

Amina’s narrative contains two scripts. The first one reveals her deter-mination to work outside the home. Running the duka did not work outas this enterprise turned out to be stressful. Amina’s second position at thesupermarket requires further comment. First, the supermarket was set up by aBritish firm and carried imported products from the West. It was a symbol ofUganda’s linkage to the global market in an asymmetrical relationship. Thecolonizing West took raw products (coffee, tea and cotton) from the countryat a low price made possible through the cheap labor of Africans. In turn, theWest imported manufactured goods into the country to create a market forits capitalistic economy. The Asians acted as brokers facilitating this trade inthe context of development of East Africa. The supermarket encapsulated thestratified hierarchical system with whites at the top, Asians in the middle andAfricans at the bottom. It was no coincidence that the market was owned bya European and managed by an Asian. Also, it is striking that the customerswere Europeans and wealthy Asians; Africans were excluded because theyhad no means to purchase imported items. Amina’s recruitment as a cashierconstituted part of the middle-level slotting of Asians, except that this lower-paying position was reserved for the womenfolk. Ethnicity and gender formedthe basis for the establishment of a stratified colonial system to the extent thatthis form of stratification has become global and constitutes the reality ofpeoples lives today (for example, Mohanty 1991).

Although societal norms and institutions govern people’s lives, it is nota linear process. Dynamics of human interactions work around and outside

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“what the society expects of us” (Amina). In Amina’s case, interaction witha male European – a symbol of colonial patriarchy – led to an opportunityin the field of her choice. The European headmaster was empathetic andworked toward advancing Amina’s interests. For example, he ensured thatshe received the maximum salary of 800 shillings and gave her and her twochildren a ride to school everyday until she could get her own car. Theseactions took place outside the system, foregrounding human interactionswhich in some ways circumscribe and subvert the system. Amina considersthe principle of human interaction to be vital to life as a whole. She attributesher success in teaching to the human resources she could draw on both athome and in the workplace. In her words:

When I was training to become a teacher, I had the whole house involved.My children, my mother-in-law and my student borders helped me toprepare letters of the alphabet, cut up stickers for my classes and preparemy notes.

Agency and subjectivity underline the second script in Amina’s narrative.Amina glosses over the hurdles she had to face; for example, her in-lawsinsistence that she not wear makeup at work. Amina’s attention is directedtoward relating her progress and her success as a teacher.

By the time I left Uganda, I was teaching grade four. I started with gradeone. I taught for 17 years.

By not dwelling on the patriarchal script in her account, she marginalizes itto the extent that it is not given much space in (re)imagining her life narrative.Amina emerges as a protagonist who enacts her own script. She does notremain behind the scenes. Her account reveals a powerful construction oflife, one in which her presence is felt, as, for instance, in this passionaterecounting:

Once in a while, someone would come up to me and say, “Do youremember, you taught me in school? This was 20 years ago.” This givesme a great sense of satisfaction. I have told my daughter, “When I die, Iwant to be remembered as a teacher. When news of my death reach people(other Ismailis), make sure you state that I am from Kampala (Uganda).This way, people will know me as a teacher.”

The metaphor of imaginary maps has served to establish a location forAmina’s life narrative. She has some leeway to draw her own social andsymbolic landscape by retelling, as the protagonist, her life. At the same time,the map foregrounds commonalties with other lives in terms of women’sstruggle on the domestic front as well as in the market economy. Further-


more, the narrators’ navigation of the map lead to positions pregnant withpossibilities but which do not materialize at one particular time; some remainlatent and emerge as circumstances provide the context for their realization.Amina’s life is a testimony of this development. Khadija’s life reveals anotherpart of the map’s landscape.

Locating Khadija’s life

Khadija’s early years of life are anchored primarily on the home scene. Herconcern is to legitimize and valorize the latter to the extent that it allows her to(re)construct it. To begin with, Khadija draws on the pioneering experiencesof her mother. These experiences do not form part of Khadija’s life in EastAfrica but are evoked in the form of reimaginings.

As a child, I remember my mother as an active and a strong woman. Shewas always working. When I was very young, I remember my mothersetting up a business at home. She wanted to help my father, as we werepoor. She made soap in our backyard. I used to watch her. She inhaled alot of smoke from the fire. She would actually stir the soap with a largespoon. She had so much strength. She was always by my father’s side,helping him in different ways. My father would lose courage. She wouldboost him up and give him hope. Once my father started doing well, shegave up “outside” work. Even within the house, she did a lot of things –how shall I explain? Little things that made a difference.

By the time Khadija got married, at the age of 16, her socialization wastoward the running of a house, central to which was the activity of cooking.

My mother did not have to teach me how to do things in the house. Iwatched her, and I learnt. As I grew older, my mother would ask me todo little things, like cut vegetables, knead the dough for chapatis. Then,when I was ready, my mother would ask me to roll the dough. I rememberhow I used to make odd shapes, but eventually I learnt how to make roundchapatis.

I also learnt sewing and embroidery. My mother convinced my fatherto send me to Nairobi for a six-month course. She believed that girlsmust havehunur, a career that can become handy any time of her life.Sewing is one of those basic things. We can save money by stitching ourown clothes, and if we need to earn, we can stitch other people’s clothes.When I got married at the age of 16, I thought I had learnt all the basicskills. My aunt used to say, “The family where you will go as abahu[daughter in-law] should consider itself to be fortunate to have you in theirhouse.”

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I married out of pity. My husband was an orphan. He had four youngerbrothers and no one to cook for them, as the two older sisters weremarried. In the early part of my marriage, I was cooking large meals –huge pots – to feed all the brothers. My husband went bankrupt; he wasin the export-import business. I was forced to work. I was forced to takeup an office job in some European firm. My boss was nice. But I hatedthe work – filing, typing, answering phone calls. There was no choice.I had to keep working even after I had two children. I missed home life:cooking, family and daily interactions. Working outside translated my lifeinto mere “work” – I was just a pair of hands, nothing more. My husbandsaid, “Once I start doing well, you will not have to work.” That neverhappened. By the time we left East Africa (first Kenya and then Uganda),we did not even have our own house.

I survived. I had faith and, like other Ismailis, I went to Jamat Khanaevery evening. This gave me peace and strength.

Khadija’s account of her work in the house requires further commentowing to the lack of vocabulary to describe what women do when they arehome. This aspect has formed the focus of Devault’s (1990) work. Devaultobserves that the misfit between women’s experiences and their translationinto limited and conventional academic categories can lead to overlookingwomen’s realities. Alternative strategies put forward by Devault include theopening up of spaces for respondents to talk about their lives, paying moreattention to strategies embedded in daily routines, eliciting accounts thatinclude the thinking process embedded in the organization of mundane tasksand establishing commonalties of shared experiences between the researcherand the respondents. We need to acknowledge that tentative observationsand talk may “signal the realm of not-quite-articulated experience” (Devault1990: 103) where the researcher has the responsibility to, with sensitivity, fillin the gaps. The reading of Khadija’s account takes into consideration thesemultiple strategies.

Khadija’s observation “I watched and learned” constitutes the foundationstone of Ismaili women’s domestic lives. Watching – that is observing andabsorbing – lends itself to integration of knowledge in an unhurried and rela-tively unstructured context. This aspect is embedded in the activity of cookingwhich is central to Khadija’s life. Her account reveals the structuring oftime and space around food preparation, with some linkage to the activity ofattending Jamat Khana. Of special interest is the lack of emphasis on a linearprogression of events. Time and space form an integral part of multiple tasksbuilt into the rhythm of daily life. Time is not wasted or lost. A meal is cookedfor as long as it takes. Visitors may drop in, and conversations are not confinedto cooking and food. Any topic can be introduced – the neighbors have gone


for a holiday, so and so is not well or is having some problem. Other items ofdiscussion include the rising cost of living and changing lifestyles. Conversa-tions may move toward topical issues of education, health and social changes.By the time the cooking is done, a considerable amount of listening, absorp-tion and interaction has taken place. The women are left with a repertoireof bits and pieces of information to be built on and reconstructed when timepermits. There is no one beginning and ending, no complete and totalizingform. In the process, new words and images have been couched, and theseare passed on to others. This form of knowledge becomes an integral part ofoneself. Its embodiment leads to “writing with one’s bodies” (Minh-ha 1989),where thoughts and feelings, minds and hearts constitute a whole (ibid.: 36).Khadija’s observation that working outside turned her life into mere work (apair of hands) can be understood in this context. Her “wholeness” was subjectto fragmentation brought about by a capitalistic market system which drawsheavily on women as “pair[s] of hands”. Khadija explains:

I found this kind of work meaningless. I wanted to do something else.I wanted to become a hairdresser. This work involves social interactions.My husband did not have the money for me to go to a hairdressing school.What he did not tell me was that it was not just money. He was opposedto my cutting other people’s hair. I found this out later on.

The women in the narratives present their lives as having certain locationson the map. These locations are not fixed but shift in relation to dynamics ofstructure and subjectivity. Their womanhood, defined within a patriarchal andcolonial system, is not an aspect that they accept as the totality of their lives.For these women, adoption of a traditional and nontraditional identity duringcritical times – marriage, occupying in-between spaces of home and wagedwork life, full fledged work in the public sphere – constitute imaginingsthat are partially realized. By the time of their departure from Uganda, eachof the narrators had engaged in (re)construction of identities, necessitated,to a large extent, by the development of East Africa. With the migrationand subsequent resettlement of Ismaili women in Canada, we witness theunfolding of gendered lives that attempt to deal with the social axis of age.Within a span of a decade, the research cohort of Canadian Ismaili womenentered into middle age. As revealed in their life narratives, these womenpresent themselves as able to overcome hurdles, articulating their subjectivityin various ways.

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Testimonial narratives: Departure from Uganda

Testimonial narratives (Beverley 1992) best describe the narrators imaginingsin a new country. The focus here is on “a problematic collective social situ-ation in which the narrator lives” (ibid.: 94). The affirmation of the individualself in a collective mode captures social predicaments and “evokes an absentpolyphony of other voices, other possible lives and experiences” (ibid.: 96).Amina’s and Khadija’s accounts form part of the collective experiences ofIsmaili migrants. Amina’s Testimonial Narrative

In 1972, Idi Amin decided to throw out the Asians. We were Ugandancitizens. We did not think that anything would happen to us. One day, myhusband went to work, and there he found military men. They told himthat his boss had escaped with the money and if he did not tell them wherehe was and the place where he kept his money, they would kill him. Myhusband came home shaking. This was the time when we realized that wehad to leave.

We went to the Canadian embassy. The line was as big as eight blocks.We went there for three days with my disabled son, and we did not getanywhere. Then I approached an officer in the embassy. I told him that Ihad a disabled son. He said come tomorrow through a special entrance.They gave us the papers, but I did not make it through my medical. X-raysshowed that I had an expanded heart, and sugar was found in my urine.I was told that we would not be accepted in Canada. I cried and pleadedwith the officer. “They will kill my husband”, I said. The officer felt sorryfor us and gave us the visas.

The special plane that was taking the refugees was full. We had to takethe regular plane. We were advised to go to Vancouver and not to Toronto,because of my son’s disability. People said that the climate is milder overthere. When we arrived at the airport, a person from the Manpower officemet us and took us to a motel. He said, “Go to the office tomorrow, andManpower will give you some money.” We had no money, – not even tobuy a cup of tea.

We did not know what Manpower was or how to get there. We had acontact number of one of our community members. We called him, and hesaid, “I am busy. Why don’t you take a cab?” We had never taken a cab inour lives, and we had no money. We asked the motel staff, and someoneshowed us the bus route. We reached the Manpower office at half pasttwo. It closed exactly at this time. We had to go back to the motel withno money. My youngest son was crying, “Mummy, I am hungry.” We toldhim, “Drink lots of water and you will not be hungry.”


The next day, we went to Manpower at seven o’clock in the morning.As soon as we got some money, we bought bread, butter and eggs. Wewent to the motel and had three eggs each, we were so hungry. Then weslept for 12 hours.

An aspect evident in the above passage is the experience of uprootment.Amina’s well-articulated account is compelling, and its parameters encom-passes experiences of other Ugandan refugees. Of special interest is theemergence of the narrator as a protagonist. Amina emerges as a woman whotook control over the destiny of her family to the extent possible. It is thereimagining of a life that captures our attention, an important aspect to notegiven the fact that accounts of emigration have overlooked women’s rolesand abilities to negotiate with bureaucratic systems and new environments.The vocabulary of panic, disorientation and anxiety, integral to experiencesof resettlement, is reworked to reflect new beginnings. Not knowing who orwhat Manpower was, not having money for a cup of tea, going to bed hungryare mundane and sensual experiences that evoke survival strategies; at thesame time, they are symbolic of having to start life afresh from scratch. Thisis the time when boundaries are crossed and spheres merge in unexpectedways. An illustrative example comes from Amina’s life in the market sphere.

Amina’s work life reveals a scenario of major struggles. Her teachingcareer, built over 20 years, became null and void overnight. It came as a shockto her that she would not be able to teach unless she undertook additionalCanadian training. She took up work in a nursing home, washing clothes andbed pans. After that:

As we began to settle down, I changed my job and joined another nursinghome. Then I had to go for heart surgery. I got to know the nurses and thedoctor at the hospital quite well. While I was there, I saw an applicationfor a position in sterilization of equipment. I applied, and they said, “Wedo not take patients with a heart condition.” My doctor put in a wordfor me: “She is a healthy patient.” I also had very good references fromUganda.

I got the position. I found out afterward that they took me because Iwas older and [thought I] would stay for a longer period. Before I joined,several young girls had worked for a short time and left. Another reasonwhy they took me was because I was willing to do the graveyard shift. Iworked in the hospital for ten years.

My work was hard. I had to sterilize each [piece of] equipment, payingattention to the fact that it was the right one. I had to sterilize a certainnumber as specified by the supervisor. If I became slow, my supervisorwould shout at me.

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Amina’s conceptualization of this reality is imaged as:

Only a few doors open at a time. I have chosen the one that offers me themost I can expect at this time. I have to learn to wait, and one day someother doors will open for me. I know one thing: Allah’s door is alwaysopen for me and others who head in that direction.

This passage reveals a complex combination of accepting the reality of agiven point in time and continuously searching for betterment of life and faiththat includes others. Within a broader context, it debunks the stereotypicalimage of immigrant women as being passive and dependent.

Amina’s work of ten years at the hospital gave her security and a life ofcomfort; she was able to save money and had the benefits of medical coverageand a pension. Her arthritic condition made it difficult for her to continue herwork, which involved standing for eight hours. There was also her age.

My employer offered me a package and encouraged me to leave. He said,“You only have a couple of years of working life. Why don’t you take thisbonus and leave?” That was it – a handshake.

Amina became a widow soon after she left work. She is closely connectedto her married children and Jamat Khana, which she attends regularly. Aminakeeps busy talking to her children over the telephone every day, cooking,watching T.V., shopping, going for medical appointments and taking careof her mother, who lives nearby. Through Jamat Khana attendance, she hasestablished her own circle of friends. Having resided in one place for morethan ten years, she has also made friends with some of her non-Ismailineighbors. Amina is financially comfortable. Her pension income and herhusband’s insurance enable her to live well.

Within a traditional frame, Amina’s life is typical of her age cohort. Sheis a pillar of strength to her family. Her children appreciate her accomplish-ments in the face of insurmountable difficulties. They count on her for advice,good food and moral support. Within the community, Amina is engaged involuntary work, assisting elderly people with shopping and attending medicalappointments. Being a good listener, she has helped some women throughdepression. During my last meeting with her, she recalled an incident withgreat passion. In one of the community gatherings, a man came up to her andsaid, “You remember me, you were my teacher in Kampala. I learnt a lot fromyou.” She gave me a gracious smile and added, “So many children have gonethrough my hands, I can’t remember them all. I wish to be remembered as ateacher.”


Khadija’s testimonial narrative

Khadija’s experience of migration was informed by the health condition ofher husband.

During the Ugandan crisis in 1972, my husband was not feeling well.He had a kidney problem, and we had gone to Kenya for his treatment.When Idi Amin made us (Asians) leave the country, we were stuck. Goingback to Uganda became a problem. But if we did not go back to Uganda,we would not get refugee status. We did not know what to do. As myhusband was not well, I did not want to put any strain on him. My parentssuggested that we live with them for a while in Kenya.

Eight months went by. Meanwhile, we had applied to the Canadianembassy. There was no response. My husband’s brother-in-law sponsoredus. Within six months, we got the visas. We were fortunate, but I think itwas timing. It was the time when Canada was still accepting Ugandanrefugees. When we came to Canada, we had nothing, and we had no helpfrom the government, as we were sponsored. I had to work, as my husbandwas under medical treatment.

My work was hard. I found life very hard. I got up early in the morning,cooked, had a shower and then went to work. I did office work with aninsurance company. It was very boring. I prepared files for each client,typed addresses, photocopied a lot of stuff and attended to desk work. Idid not like my job. I had no choice. I worked hard in the office and Iworked hard at home. That was my life for six years.

Then my husband felt better – he had a kidney transplant. His brother-in-law hired him in his store. He paid him very little money. Our strugglefor money continued. There were times when we did not have enoughmoney to buy stuff like orange juice or margarine. We pulled on. Thingsgot better as my husband established his own small business.

I switched my job and joined a government firm. I was paid little, butI did not expect much more. I worked for another ten years, but I couldnot advance much. There were younger girls coming straight from theuniversity. They had full knowledge of computers. I could see that mywork was not that crucial. As I was at the bottom doing clerical work, theytook advantage of me. They made me do all the dirty work that on oneelse wanted to do. I am not bitter about this; this is part of the experienceof moving into a new country.

I was not too happy, and they [the government] offered me a packageto retire: one year’s salary and a life-time pension. The pension was notmuch, but I took it. My husband said, “It is better to take this rather thenbeing fired.” That was the end of my working life. I am happy to be home.

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We have our own house, and I am now trying to build a “home”, a chanceI never had before.

I went through difficult times, but in my heart I knew that things haveto get better. If I felt that they did not get better, I try to make them better.I believe time, like a tree, bears fruits. We have to be patient and continueto hope. I continued to go to Jamat Khana every day. If I go, my childrengo, too. This is how I survived.

Khadija’s early life in Canada centers around family needs – not unexcep-tional in the lives of the other narrators. What is of interest is that Khadijaspeaks in many voices. Her repeated reiteration of her hard life is also a formof protest, revealing a keen awareness of her situation and her ability to dealwith it. Khadija’s material life of work is juxtaposed with her spiritual life.Khadija does not give much space to the latter in terms of articulating itsmeaning for her. She is content to talk about it in terms of images:

It is like the air we breathe in. We do not talk about it, but it is there, everpresent – a source of vitality.

Images, such as the tree and the air, constitute in-between spaces forreconstruction and reimagining of life in relation to material conditions. Inthe same vein, differences between cultures of the homeland and that of thecountry of adoption are displayed rather than resolved through creative useof images. The latter are used as gems studding the reality of hard life.

In remembering their lives, Amina and Khadija have established positionsfrom which they can speak. They heighten and foreground aspects that aremeaningful to them. For Amina, it has been her teaching career together withhaving raised a family and recapturing meaning in her country of adoption.Khadija’s testimony of life is on a par with Amina’s and speaks about the lifesituations of other women of her cohort. Khadija sums up her life in terms ofbalances, revealing her strategy for survival:

You give one thing and take another. The best way to deal with such asituation is to make sure that you do not get trapped in one area for long.Change your bargaining position as often as you can.

Constraints of patriarchal, colonizing and postcolonizing systems havecircumscribed Amina’s and Khadija’s lives. Their life narratives reveal theirown awareness and negotiation of these constraints in a manner that allowsthem to overcome or negotiate them, materially as well as conceptually. Thelatter, expressed in the form of images and words, is critically significant, asit is through this base that lives are imagined and reconstructed. This aspectis brought into greater relief through one’s experience of aging.


Postmigration aging

Amina’s account

Amina’s arthritic condition made it difficult for her to continue working hergraveyard shift. Her request for standard working hours was declined on thegrounds that she had become slow in her work. Amina’s plea that she was notill and that she performed her work honestly and with diligence was not takenseriously. She wanted to work part time but she knew that the labor force didnot accommodate this kind of shift work. Not having any other choice, sheopted for retirement. Hence, in her middle-age years, Amina found herself athome.

Amina describes her experiences as follows:

In the beginning, it was really hard. I had worked all my life. To findmyself at home was like being in the middle of a desert. I saw vaststretches of sand but nothing else. One day, I was just sitting and I realizedthat one can make castles of sand, too. My first step was to tell myselfthat what I was doing at home was real and it was important. Other thingswould follow. I have a busy life. My mother is now 89 and lives on herown. I told her to move in with me. She does not want to. She is a verystrong woman. She wants to live on her own. I do her shopping and takeher for all her medical appointments. I visit her two to three times a week.I also take food for her.

I still cook a lot. When my children visit me, I give them lots of food.I go to Jamat Khana quite regularly. I also go to morning Khane. I missmy work. I can’t go back. My arthritis is pretty bad. Besides, I am gettingold. They will not hire me now. After coming back from morning JamatKhana, I go back to sleep. I get up at half past nine or ten o’clock and thenhave breakfast. I then phone my mother, my daughter – another hour goesby. Then I go food shopping. There is always something to buy. I visitmy mother or take her out sometimes. I often have to go to the doctormyself. After lunch, I take a little rest in the afternoon; then I cook andprepare dinner. I go to Jamat Khana, and then at night, I watch T.V. andread newspapers. Days go by. All my children respect me and often visitme. This is my family story.

Amina spends time and resources in ways she considers to be meaningful.She makes donations to third-world projects under the auspices of the AgaKhan Foundation; at one period of her life, she supported the education oftwo children in India. Amina is fond of traveling and has been to UnitedStates, England and other parts of Canada. These travels are not leisurelytrips, since they are combined with familial or communal events. The trips

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are planned around weddings and anniversaries of siblings or a close memberof the extended family. Amina considers modern travel and media technologyenriching. In her words, “Those who travel and keep in touch with otherparts of the world are the winners of life. Although I live in Vancouver, Ifeel connected to my kin in so many different parts of the world.” Throughpersonal travel and exposure to a global community, Amina’s reimaginedhome is an expanded terrain with no distinct boundaries. She feels at homeamong kin and friends who, though originally from East Africa, now live indifferent parts of the world. A cursory glance around her living room and ather photo albums reveals visits to or family in a number of places around theworld. It is also brought up in conversation:

My sister’s daughter lives in San Francisco. Her son lives in England; hiswife’s family has gone to Dubai for some business. Her daughter lives inToronto, and her husband is in Uganda on contractual work.

This is a typical account (with variations of cities and countries) given byother narrators in order to convey their awareness of a world that does notrecognize territorial boundaries.

Khadija’s account

Khadija’s account reveals a life similar to Amina’s in its broad contours.Khadija felt belittled at her workplace because she was not able to upgrade hercomputer skills. She related her experience of young university kids givingher orders – an attitude that Khadija attributed to her being colored. Given allthe menial tasks of filing, photocopying and affixing labels, her work becameintolerable. Khadija decided to take the retirement package offered to her. Tothe question of how she spends her time, she responds:

In a way, each day is different for me. I do voluntary work for an organi-zation just down the block. This work is done two days a week. Oneday, usually Saturday, I do food shopping. During the week, I leave sometime to do my own shopping. I love looking for bargains and shoppingfor myself. I like dressing up. It gives me a lot of pleasure. Then, on otherdays, I help my husband. I do demos for his product at the shopping mallstwo or three times a month; on other days, I help him label his products. Ihave my grandchildren. I adore them. I look after them once or two timesa week. Other days, I visit family and friends. I go to Jamat Khana everysingle day. It gives me peace and happiness.

Khadija’s life cannot be reduced to a linear account under the rubric of atypical day or week. Reaching middle age amounts to a focus on meaningfulactivities, observed in the way in which home is reimagined:


Since leaving work, I have established my own circle of kin, Ismaili anda few non-Ismaili friends. I keep in touch with a lot of people. Otherthan physical contacts, I have telephone conversations with people on adaily basis. I spend about two hours on the phone [each day]. It does leadto exchange of ideas about a lot of things: health, community activities,fashions, hair dressing (a topic of great interest to Khadija), births anddeaths among Ismaili families in different parts of the world and alsoissues facing women in Canada.

Maintaining contact with friends who all bring news from different partsof the world broadens the imagined world of Khadija. Not being part of thelabor force has meant that more of her time is spent in the mode of repose,understood traditionally as unstructured time not subject to the dictates of aclock. In the East African context, the repose mode complemented the actionmode, while in Canada, the two modes are compartmentalized (Dossa 1988).

Members of the immediate family, kin, members of the community, aswell as friends count on Amina and Khadija (and other middle-aged women)to give them information on a wide variety of issues. Amina related how herchildren keep in touch with extended family members in different parts ofthe world as well as in Canada through her, since she gets more news abouthappenings and events in their lives than anyone else. This is because she hasmore time to keep in touch and because she brings cultural nuances to herinteractions that facilitate conversations. The information Amina conveys toher children, kin and circle of friends is gathered from what she learns andhears in her interactions with others. Health is one example of such infor-mation that she cited many times. While most Ismailis have been exposedto orthodox biomedical practices, there exists substantial but dispersed infor-mation on traditional and alternative medicine. It is women like Amina andKhadija who collect this information through their interactions and transmitit to others. Likewise, the women and their cohort play a major role inspreading news about a death and reconstructing the event in a manner thatleads to the foregrounding of salient elements of a well-lived life. This kind ofinformation has a salutary effect and directly affects the action mode, as thelatter is revisited in terms of reflexivity on how and to what end life is lived.Reimagining of life in the repose mode also includes Canadian elements sincethe information gathered in individuated activities is shared with Canadianfriends (walking in the case of Khadija and going to restaurants in the caseof Amina) and becomes part of the repertoire of knowledge of middle-agedwomen.

In sum, for Amina and Khadija, leaving the labor force meant beingdeprived of work, a vital area of life and of special importance when homeis spatially constricted. Both women regard their position of not being able

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to work as a harsh reality. But they also recognize the need to make the bestof the situation, and this explains their engagement in redefining and reima-gining culturally defined time of repose. Amina and Khadija have created aniche where they are productively engaged in transmitting information. Thisform of intangible information is hard to tap and has its complexities in termsof how time is appropriated to advance other goals. It is in this context thataging Ismaili women’s contribution must be acknowledged. Furthermore,both women also provide tangible information. Amina and Khadija gaveseveral examples of how they save money for their families by identifying,through their networks and resourcefulness, bargains for consumer items.The items range from everyday food purchases to appliances: from applesto stoves. Amina once helped an elderly Ismaili immigrant find subsidizedhousing. This meant that the immigrant saved $350 in monthly rent – paying$250 rather than $600 a month.

Postmigration aging for Amina and Khadija (and their cohort) has meantperforming countless tasks that are of value. An intriguing feature is thesewomen’s resourcefulness in converting culturally based repose time intoaction-oriented time as and when circumstances require it. Amina’s andKhadija’s embodied knowledge of life acquired in a mosaic of settings(Indian, African, Muslim, Canadian), their experiences of migration andsettlement, their ability to impart insights on life (through culturally baseddynamics of repose and action-oriented time) and their resourcefulness inreimagining home need to be acknowledged, tangibly as well as epistemo-logically. The narrators in the study may be constrained in numerous ways.Being ethnic, women and old means that they are disadvantaged, but this doesnot mean that there is no space for constitution of subjectivity.

Conclusion

On the last day of my interviewing, Amina related that she was happy that sheshared her narrative with me, “otherwise, how will other people know whatwe [women] have gone through?” This observation is contrary to her initialreaction: “My story – what will you learn from my story?” Through tellingthe story of her life, Amina recognizes that narrative is one way throughwhich a marginalized life can be rendered socially visible. Khadija, on theother hand, explained that “life narratives are important because we no longerlive in a homeland”. She sees life stories as the embodiment of a homelandthat can be (re)imagined only in her new country. These extended meaningsgiven to the narrative genre incorporate a transnational dimension by virtueof the fact that both women have crossed territorial and sociocultural borders.Movement from one country to another involves negotiation of multiple


roles: mothers, waged workers, as well as those imposed by age. Readingtheir lives in different locales reveals experiences of subjugation, negotiationand subversion of hegemonic powers but also culture-specific and newfoundstrategies that cut across sociocultural borders.

By presenting the narratives of early life, migration, aging and self-transformation of women in diaspora, I provide some insights on Westernimages of immigrant women as oppressed and passive, and dependent inold age. While feminist ethnography has attempted to redress these images(Agnew 1996; Ng 1988; Ong 1995), there is a marked exclusion of age. Ihave argued that inclusion of multiple identities of women must attend to thedifferential location of aging women in diasporic settings. Older immigrantwomen are global subjects engaged in (re)imagining their lives. The narra-tives presented here suggest the cultivation of a diasporic consciousness thatgoes beyond the essentialist assumptions about aging immigrant women. It iswithin this space that a more equitable relationship can be developed betweenspeaking immigrant women and feminist ethnography, with its tendency togive a privileged status to Western women. Feminist ethnography of agingneeds to respond to a world where “people living outside contexts of formersocieties, cultures, and self-understandings may become the norm in thechanging geopolitical conditions of hegemony” (Ong 1995: 368). Amina’sand Khadija’s narratives form part of this scenario.

The life narratives told by the two women contribute to issues that havebeen subject to debate and discussion within the literature on gender andaging: the extent to which stories can enlarge our understudying of agingamong immigrant women. A first step is to recognize that immigrant agingwomen express the constraints and also the creativity and (re)imagining ofworlds engendered in their new homeland that include multiple sites. Thechallenge of settling in a postcolonial world cause women to reflect on theirlives; this reflection intensifies with age, as they begin to question morethe meaning of life. Such examined lives, as Myerhoff (1980) has noted,represent fresh imaginations about self, others and the world. Narratives canserve as a channel for the voices of postcolonial aging women, highlightingthe need for a transnational understanding of gender and age. The study ofAmina’s and Khadija’s narratives suggest a shift away from a homogenizedview of third-world women toward recognition of cross-cultural variabilityof gender and age experienced as a process. As part of a postcolonial world,their lives represent a parable in process, a living metaphor of a life in flux.As Bateson (1989: 241) expresses it:

Each of us constructs a life that is her own central metaphor for thinkingabout the world. But of course these lives do not look like parables or

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allegories. Mostly they look like ongoing improvisations, quite sequenceof day-to-day events. They continue to unfold.

As I write this article, new visions are still emerging in the form ofreimaginings, pointing toward alternative ways of being.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to President’s Research Grant, SimonFraser University, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada: Metropolis Project: Immigration and Integration 31-677110-6615.

Notes

1. Names have been changed to maintain the confidentiality of the narrators. Life narrativesare related in the ethnographic present.

2. For useful insights on narrative genre, refer to Okely and Callaway (1992), PersonalNarratives Group (1989), Myerhoff (1980), Hazan (1987) and Savishinsky (1991). Worksof Gubrium and Sankar (1994), Lofland (1971) and Reinharz and Rowles (1987) havebeen especially useful for analytical content of the narratives.

3. For an extended review, see Dossa (1994).4. For background information on Ismaili Canadians, refer to Nanji (1983), Ross-Sherif and

Nanji (1991), Fernando (1979) and Dossa (1988, 1994). Historical background on Asiansin East Africa is found in the works of Bharati (1972), Ghai and Ghai (1970) and Gregory(1971), among others.

5. The categories early middle age and late middle age are defined by the narrators accordingto the Canadianized categories: early middle age is understood to be soon after the onsetof menopause, around the age of 50; late middle age is defined as around the age of 60.In East Africa, the broad term budha (not young) would have been used.

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Address for correspondence:Parin A. Dossa, Department of Anthropology, Simon FraserUniversity, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6Phone: (604) 291-3778; Fax: (604) 291-5779; E-mail: [email protected]

(re)imagining aging lives: ethnographic narratives of muslim women in diaspora

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