Resilience and Agency in Samra Habib's We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Abstract

The interconnection between vulnerability, resilience, and agency will be used as a critical framework for the study of Samra Habib’s We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir. More specifically, this chapter will examine the mechanisms developed by the author to subvert the social norms and oppressive traditional structures that force many women in Pakistan to behave according to prescribed social and cultural norms. In doing so, this chapter attempts to highlight the agency of many women who break silence and contest their roles in society in order to overcome their position as vulnerable victims, regain their agency and finally reconstruct their own identities. Finally, this chapter questions and denounces the normative framework that denies the existence of some gender identities categorized as non-normative.