Feminist mediations: The sacred and the secular in the work of three Pakistani female singers

This article is situated within cultural, performance, political and feminist theory. It looks at the place of women singers in Pakistan and assesses their mediation of secular and sacred spaces, providing some understanding of the impact of women in Pakistani culture. A secondary aim of this article is to help dislodge some pervasive stereotypes in the West about the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, its culture and its women, while encouraging a self-critical move on the part of the Pakistani state and its citizenry to help halt the dangerous turn towards a regressive Islamist national politics.