Islam and Gender in Post-War Bosnia-Herzegovina: Competing Discourses and Everyday Practices of Muslim Women

Abstract

At the end of 2012, Bosnia-Herzegovina¹ made global news headlines once again. This time it was not a bloody war nor the highly problematic post-war reconstruction process that attracted public attention, but a single veiled woman. Amra Babić is one of only five female mayors elected in Bosnia in October’s municipal elections and, as media reports claim, she might be the only hijab-wearing mayor in Europe. While the local news producers have not been particularly preoccupied with the new political head of the small town (Visoko), many Muslim countries celebrated Babic’s electoral triumph and regarded it as a small but important victory for Islam and for Muslim women in Europe. On the other hand, Western international interest in Visoko’s mayor, a member of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which was a crucial actor in redefining the place of Islam in Bosniak identity,² clearly exposes some of the implications and generalized assumptions about Islam and gender relations.