Based on first-hand ethnographic insights into Shi'i religious groups in the Middle East and Europe , this book examines women's resistance to state as well as communal and gender power structures.It offers a new transnational approach to understanding gender agency within contemporary Islamic movements expressed through language, ritual practices, dramatic performances , posters and banners.By looking at the aesthetic performance of the political on the female body through Shi'i ritual practices – an aspect that has previously been ignored in studies on women's acts of resistance -, Yafa Shanneik shows how women play a central role in redefining sectarian and gender power relations both in the Middle East and in the European diaspora.