Abstract
Ethnographic case study conducted among female Muslim converts to Islam in France and in Quebec shows how dress codes help to ensure the external embodiment of discipline and thereby reinforce the process of internalizing disciplinary practices. By interpreting Islam in a context where Muslims are a minority religious group, converts construct alternative religious and social representations of Muslim identity that accord with their own interpretation of the Qu’ran while simultaneously incorporating the Western background within which they were socialized. I argue that the strategies that they develop for wearing the veil and for integrating into their environment (family, workplace, etc.) make it clear that fashion, religion, and politics are interacting in multiple, creative ways
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Recommended Readings
Jouilli, J. (2009). Negotiating secular boundaries: Pious micro-practices of Muslim women in French and German public sphere. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale, 17, 455–470.
Mossière, G. (2016). The intimate and the stranger: Approaching the Muslim question through the eyes of female converts to Islam, special review The Muslim question, ed. By Jennifer Selby & Lori Beaman. Critical Research on Religion, 4(1), 90–108.
Ozuyrek, E. (2014). Being German, becoming Muslim: Race, religion and conversion in Germany. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tarlo, E. (2007). Islamic cosmopolitanism: The sartorial biographies of three Muslim women in London. Fashion Theory, 11(2/3), 143–172.
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Mossière, G. (2018). Modesty and Style in Islamic Attire: Refashioning Muslim Garments in a Western Context. In: Woodward, M., Lukens-Bull, R. (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_75-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_75-2
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Islamic Dress as Identity Politics Among Converts in the West- Published:
- 04 October 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_75-3
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Modesty and Style in Islamic Attire: Refashioning Muslim Garments in a Western Context- Published:
- 02 March 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_75-2