Breaking the Silence

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Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520246217
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Breaking the Silence by : Fadela Amara

Download or read book Breaking the Silence written by Fadela Amara and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-04-28 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The translation of Breaking the Silence allows us, finally, to listen directly to the voices of Muslim women in France. Fadela Amara's book is at once autobiography, an analysis of the degradation of male-female relations in France's working-class suburbs, and an engrossing chronicle of a political movement. Helen Chenut's deft translation and comprehensive introduction shows us complex universe inhabited by young women of North African descent in contemporary France."—Susanna Barrows, author of Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History "This book delivers a timely and evocative corrective to stereotypes of Muslim women. Amara discusses with sensitivity the complex gender position of Muslim women in a Western European country in which the conflict between liberal republican ideals and cultural norms has had particularly violent consequences for women. Chenut's fine translation brings Amara's words to life and her excellent introduction places the Muslim women's movement in the context of the racial and cultural tensions that plague France's banlieues today."—Laura Levine Frader, co-editor, Gender and Class in Modern Europe

The Niqab in France

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Author :
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 1531504663
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis The Niqab in France by : Agnès De Féo

Download or read book The Niqab in France written by Agnès De Féo and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original new work is the fascinating result of sociologist and documentary filmmaker Agnès De Féo’s ten-year exploration of the phenomenon of niqab wearing. It is at once a groundbreaking study and a series of compelling first-person accounts from French and Francophone women who wear or have worn the niqab in France’s Salafi communities. With the backdrop of the French government’s 2010 ban on full facial veiling in public spaces, which itself has shaped the phenomenon, De Féo draws on her subjects’ own words to show their agency, working against the clichés that often underlie public views of the niqab—that it is purely the result of masculine pressure, for example, or extreme religiosity or nationalism, or the submissive desire to disappear. Instead, she shows, the niqab is multivalent: women wear it for reasons that range from religious piety to the desire to rebel against mainstream society, family, or the rule of law. The reasons are complex, overdetermined, contradictory, or even inconsistent, but they are the women’s own. Despite being worn only by a small minority of Muslim women, the Islamic garment has nonetheless been a major source of intense political, religious, and cultural debate in France. Searching to understand, rather than speculate, De Féo chose to approach the people who wear the niqab, and to make them, rather the veil itself, the subject of her research. Her unprecedented study, based on more than 200 interviews, reveals the many factors—social, political, geopolitical, and psychological—underpinning a personal choice that is not always as religious as it seems. The book ends with sixteen captivating interviews giving voice to stories rarely heard. With finesse and discernment, the author debunks the myths surrounding the wearing of the niqab, and sheds light on a practice subject to misunderstanding and prejudice, offering the reader unique insight. Challenging our preconceived notions and stereotypes about women who wear any form of Islamic apparel, but particularly the niqab, The Niqab in France introduces a group of women each with her own life story, her own share of personal struggles, aspirations, and desires, and her own claim to a certain place in society. This work received support for excellence in publication and translation from Albertine Translation, a program created by Villa Albertine.

The Republic, Secularism and Security

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Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 303094669X
Total Pages : 74 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (39 download)

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Book Synopsis The Republic, Secularism and Security by : Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Download or read book The Republic, Secularism and Security written by Raphael Cohen-Almagor and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses French cultural policies in the face of what the French government perceives as a challenge to its Republican secular raison d'être. It makes general arguments about France’s changing identity and specific arguments about the burqa and niqab ban. The book further explains how French history shaped the ideology of secularism and of public civil religion, and how colonial legacy, immigration, fear of terrorism, and security needs have led France to adopt the trinity of indivisibilité, sécurité, laïcité while paying homage to the traditional trinity of liberté, égalité, fraternité. The book argues that while this motto of the French Revolution is still symbolically and politically important, its practical significance as it has been translated to policy implementation has been eroded. It shows how the emergence of the new trinity at the expense of the old one is evident when analyzing the debates concerning cultural policies in France in the face of the Islamic garb, the burqa, and the niqab, which are perceived as a challenge to France’s national secular raison d'être. Subsequently, the book raises various important questions, such as: Is the burqa and niqab ban socially just? Does it reasonably balance the preservation of societal values and freedom of conscience? What are the true motives behind the ban? Has the discourse changed in the age of COVID-19, when all people are required to wear a mask in the public space? Therefore, this book is a must-read for students, scholars, and researchers of political science, as well as a general audience interested in a better understanding of French politics, elections, cultural policy, secularism, and identity.

Wearing the Niqab

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350166049
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Wearing the Niqab by : Anna Piela

Download or read book Wearing the Niqab written by Anna Piela and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing niqab wearers' voices to the fore, discussing their narratives on religious agency, identity, social interaction, community, and urban spaces, Anna Piela situates women's accounts firmly within UK and US socio-political contexts as well as within media discourses on Islam. The niqab has recently emerged as one of the most ubiquitous symbols of everything that is perceived to be wrong with Islam: barbarity, backwardness, exploitation of women, and political radicalization. Yet all these notions are assigned to women who wear the niqab without their consultation; “niqab debates” are held without their voices being heard, and, when they do speak, their views are dismissed. However, the picture painted by the stories told here demonstrates that, for these women, religious symbols such as the niqab are deeply personal, freely chosen, multilayered, and socially situated. Wearing the Niqab gives voice to these women and their stories, and sets the record straight, enhancing understanding of the complex picture around niqab and religious identity and agency.

North African Women in France

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Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804754217
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (542 download)

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Book Synopsis North African Women in France by : Caitlin Killian

Download or read book North African Women in France written by Caitlin Killian and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sociological study of the cultural choices and identity negotiation of North African women immigrants in France.

The Republic, Secularism and Security

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9783030946708
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (467 download)

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Book Synopsis The Republic, Secularism and Security by : Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Download or read book The Republic, Secularism and Security written by Raphael Cohen-Almagor and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses French cultural policies in the face of what the French government perceives as a challenge to its Republican secular raison d'être. It makes general arguments about France's changing identity and specific arguments about the burqa and niqab ban. The book further explains how French history shaped the ideology of secularism and of public civil religion, and how colonial legacy, immigration, fear of terrorism, and security needs have led France to adopt the trinity of indivisibilité, sécurité, laïcité while paying homage to the traditional trinity of liberté, égalité, fraternité. The book argues that while this motto of the French Revolution is still symbolically and politically important, its practical significance as it has been translated to policy implementation has been eroded. It shows how the emergence of the new trinity at the expense of the old one is evident when analyzing the debates concerning cultural policies in France in the face of the Islamic garb, the burqa, and the niqab, which are perceived as a challenge to France's national secular raison d'être. Subsequently, the book raises various important questions, such as: Is the burqa and niqab ban socially just? Does it reasonably balance the preservation of societal values and freedom of conscience? What are the true motives behind the ban? Has the discourse changed in the age of COVID-19, when all people are required to wear a mask in the public space? Therefore, this book is a must-read for students, scholars, and researchers of political science, as well as a general audience interested in a better understanding of French politics, elections, cultural policy, secularism, and identity. .

Muslims in the European Union

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9789291920181
Total Pages : 115 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis Muslims in the European Union by :

Download or read book Muslims in the European Union written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report presents available data on discrimination affecting Muslims in employment, education and housing. Manifestations of Islamophobia range from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property. The report stresses that the extent and nature of discrimination and Islamophobic incidents against European Muslims remain under-documented and under-reported.

The Politics of the Veil

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691147981
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of the Veil by : Joan Wallach Scott

Download or read book The Politics of the Veil written by Joan Wallach Scott and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-22 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2004, the French government instituted a ban on the wearing of "conspicuous signs" of religious affiliation in public schools. Though the ban applies to everyone, it is aimed at Muslim girls wearing headscarves. Proponents of the law insist it upholds France's values of secular liberalism and regard the headscarf as symbolic of Islam's resistance to modernity. The Politics of the Veil is an explosive refutation of this view, one that bears important implications for us all. Joan Wallach Scott, the renowned pioneer of gender studies, argues that the law is symptomatic of France's failure to integrate its former colonial subjects as full citizens. She examines the long history of racism behind the law as well as the ideological barriers thrown up against Muslim assimilation. She emphasizes the conflicting approaches to sexuality that lie at the heart of the debate--how French supporters of the ban view sexual openness as the standard for normalcy, emancipation, and individuality, and the sexual modesty implicit in the headscarf as proof that Muslims can never become fully French. Scott maintains that the law, far from reconciling religious and ethnic differences, only exacerbates them. She shows how the insistence on homogeneity is no longer feasible for France--or the West in general--and how it creates the very "clash of civilizations" said to be at the root of these tensions. The Politics of the Veil calls for a new vision of community where common ground is found amid our differences, and where the embracing of diversity--not its suppression--is recognized as the best path to social harmony.

The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691144222
Total Pages : 394 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims by : Jonathan Laurence

Download or read book The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims written by Jonathan Laurence and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims traces how governments across Western Europe have responded to the growing presence of Muslim immigrants in their countries over the past fifty years. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews with government officials and religious leaders in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Morocco, and Turkey, Jonathan Laurence challenges the widespread notion that Europe’s Muslim minorities represent a threat to liberal democracy. He documents how European governments in the 1970s and 1980s excluded Islam from domestic institutions, instead inviting foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Turkey to oversee the practice of Islam among immigrants in European host societies. But since the 1990s, amid rising integration problems and fears about terrorism, governments have aggressively stepped up efforts to reach out to their Muslim communities and incorporate them into the institutional, political, and cultural fabrics of European democracy. The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims places these efforts--particularly the government-led creation of Islamic councils--within a broader theoretical context and gleans insights from government interactions with groups such as trade unions and Jewish communities at previous critical junctures in European state-building. By examining how state-mosque relations in Europe are linked to the ongoing struggle for religious and political authority in the Muslim-majority world, Laurence sheds light on the geopolitical implications of a religious minority’s transition from outsiders to citizens. This book offers a much-needed reassessment that foresees the continuing integration of Muslims into European civil society and politics in the coming decades.

For the Muslims

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Publisher : Verso Books
ISBN 13 : 1784784885
Total Pages : 112 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (847 download)

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Book Synopsis For the Muslims by : Edwy Plenel

Download or read book For the Muslims written by Edwy Plenel and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A piercing denunciation of Islamophobia in France, in the tradition of Emile Zola At the beginning of the twenty-first century, leading intellectuals are claiming “There is a problem with Islam in France,” thus legitimising the discourse of the racist National Front. Such claims have been strengthened by the backlash since the terrorist attacks in Paris in January and November 2015, coming to represent a new ‘common sense’ in the political landscape, and we have seen a similar logic play out in the United States and Europe. Edwy Plenel, former editorial director of Le Monde, essayist and founder of the investigative journalism website Mediapart tackles these claims head-on, taking the side of his compatriots of Muslim origin, culture or belief, against those who make them into scapegoats. He demonstrates how a form of “Republican and secularist fundamentalism” has become a mask to hide a new form of virulent Islamophobia. At stake for Plenel is not just solidarity but fidelity to the memory and heritage of emancipatory struggles and he writes in defence of the Muslims, just as Zola wrote in defence of the Jews and Sartre wrote in defence of the blacks. For if we are to be for the oppressed then we must be for the Muslims.

Unveiling the French Republic: National Identity, Secularism, and Islam in Contemporary France

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004356037
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Unveiling the French Republic: National Identity, Secularism, and Islam in Contemporary France by : Per-Erik Nilsson

Download or read book Unveiling the French Republic: National Identity, Secularism, and Islam in Contemporary France written by Per-Erik Nilsson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Unveiling the French Republic, Per-Erik Nilsson engages in a critical analysis of national identity, secularism, and Islam in France. He argues that secular ideology has been used to justify religious intolerance, mask ethnic prejudice, and reify French national identity.

A Quiet Revolution

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Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300175051
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis A Quiet Revolution by : Leila Ahmed

Download or read book A Quiet Revolution written by Leila Ahmed and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-29 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A probing study of the veil's recent return—from one of the world's foremost authorities on Muslim women—that reaches surprising conclusions about contemporary Islam's place in the West todayIn Cairo in the 1940s, Leila Ahmed was raised by a generation of women who never dressed in the veils and headscarves their mothers and grandmothers had worn. To them, these coverings seemed irrelevant to both modern life and Islamic piety. Today, however, the majority of Muslim women throughout the Islamic world again wear the veil. Why, Ahmed asks, did this change take root so swiftly, and what does this shift mean for women, Islam, and the West?When she began her study, Ahmed assumed that the veil's return indicated a backward step for Muslim women worldwide. What she discovered, however, in the stories of British colonial officials, young Muslim feminists, Arab nationalists, pious Islamic daughters, American Muslim immigrants, violent jihadists, and peaceful Islamic activists, confounded her expectations. Ahmed observed that Islamism, with its commitments to activism in the service of the poor and in pursuit of social justice, is the strain of Islam most easily and naturally merging with western democracies' own tradition of activism in the cause of justice and social change. It is often Islamists, even more than secular Muslims, who are at the forefront of such contemporary activist struggles as civil rights and women's rights. Ahmed's surprising conclusions represent a near reversal of her thinking on this topic.Richly insightful, intricately drawn, and passionately argued, this absorbing story of the veil's resurgence, from Egypt through Saudi Arabia and into the West, suggests a dramatically new portrait of contemporary Islam.

The Burqa Affair Across Europe

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Author :
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN 13 : 1409470679
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis The Burqa Affair Across Europe by : Dr Alessandro Ferrari

Download or read book The Burqa Affair Across Europe written by Dr Alessandro Ferrari and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-09-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the wearing of the full-face veil or burqa/niqab has proved a controversial issue in many multi-cultural European societies. Focussing on the socio-legal and human rights angle, this volume provides a useful comparative perspective on how the issue has been dealt with across a range of European states as well as at European institutional level. In so doing, the work draws a theoretical framework for the place of religion between public and private space. With contributions from leading experts from law, sociology and politics, the book presents a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to one of the most contentious and symbolic issues of recent times.

Terror in France

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691174849
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Terror in France by : Gilles Kepel

Download or read book Terror in France written by Gilles Kepel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The virulent new brand of Islamic extremism threatening the West In November 2015, ISIS terrorists massacred scores of people in Paris with coordinated attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, cafés and restaurants, and the national sports stadium. On Bastille Day in 2016, an ISIS sympathizer drove a truck into crowds of vacationers at the beaches of Nice, and two weeks later an elderly French priest was murdered during morning Mass by two ISIS militants. Here is Gilles Kepel's explosive account of the radicalization of a segment of Muslim youth that led to those attacks—and of the failure of governments in France and across Europe to address it. It is a book everyone in the West must read. Terror in France shows how these atrocities represent a paroxysm of violence that has long been building. The turning point was in 2005, when the worst riots in modern French history erupted in the poor, largely Muslim suburbs of Paris after the accidental deaths of two boys who had been running from the police. The unrest—or "French intifada"—crystallized a new consciousness among young French Muslims. Some have fallen prey to the allure of "war of civilizations" rhetoric in ways never imagined by their parents and grandparents. This is the highly anticipated English edition of Kepel's sensational French bestseller, first published shortly after the Paris attacks. Now fully updated to reflect the latest developments and featuring a new introduction by the author, Terror in France reveals the truth about a virulent new wave of jihadism that has Europe as its main target. Its aim is to divide European societies from within by instilling fear, provoking backlash, and achieving the ISIS dream—shared by Europe's Far Right—of separating Europe's growing Muslim minority community from the rest of its citizens.

Burning the Veil

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Author :
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780719087547
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Burning the Veil by : Neil McMaster

Download or read book Burning the Veil written by Neil McMaster and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burning the Veil draws upon sources from newly-opened archives, exploring the "emancipation" of Muslim women from the veil, seclusion and perceived male oppression during the Algerian War of decolonization. The claimed French liberation was contradicted by the violence inflicted on women through rape, torture, and destruction of villages. This book examines the roots of this contradiction in the theory of "revolutionary warfare", and the attempt to defeat the National Liberation Front by penetrating the Muslim family, seen as a bastion of resistance. Striking parallels with contemporary Afghanistan and Iraq, French "emancipation" produced a backlash that led to deterioration in the social and political position of Muslim women. This analysis of how and why attempts to Westernize Muslim women ended in catastrophe has contemporary relevance and will be important to students and academics engaged in the study of French and colonial history, feminism, and contemporary Islam.

The Headscarf Debates

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Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804791163
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis The Headscarf Debates by : Anna C. Korteweg

Download or read book The Headscarf Debates written by Anna C. Korteweg and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The headscarf is an increasingly contentious symbol in countries across the world. Those who don the headscarf in Germany are referred to as "integration-refusers." In Turkey, support by and for headscarf-wearing women allowed a religious party to gain political power in a strictly secular state. A niqab-wearing Muslim woman was denied French citizenship for not conforming to national values. And in the Netherlands, Muslim women responded to the hatred of popular ultra-right politicians with public appeals that mixed headscarves with in-your-face humor. In a surprising way, the headscarf—a garment that conceals—has also come to reveal the changing nature of what it means to belong to a particular nation. All countries promote national narratives that turn historical diversities into imagined commonalities, appealing to shared language, religion, history, or political practice. The Headscarf Debates explores how the headscarf has become a symbol used to reaffirm or transform these stories of belonging. Anna Korteweg and Gökçe Yurdakul focus on France, Germany, and the Netherlands—countries with significant Muslim-immigrant populations—and Turkey, a secular Muslim state with a persistent legacy of cultural ambivalence. The authors discuss recent cultural and political events and the debates they engender, enlivening the issues with interviews with social activists, and recreating the fervor which erupts near the core of each national identity when threats are perceived and changes are proposed. The Headscarf Debates pays unique attention to how Muslim women speak for themselves, how their actions and statements reverberate throughout national debates. Ultimately, The Headscarf Debates brilliantly illuminates how belonging and nationhood is imagined and reimagined in an increasingly global world.

The Headscarf Controversy

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199367930
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis The Headscarf Controversy by : Hilal Elver

Download or read book The Headscarf Controversy written by Hilal Elver and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hilal Elver offers an in-depth study of the escalating controversy over the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves. Examining legal and political debates in Turkey, several European countries including France and Germany, and the United States, Elver shows the troubling exclusion of pious Muslim women from the public sphere in the name of secularism, democracy, liberalism, and women's rights. After evaluating political actions and court decisions from the national level of individual governments to the international sphere of the European Court of Human Rights, Elver concludes that judges and legislators are increasingly influenced by social pressures concerning immigration and multiculturalism, and by issues such as Islamophobia, the "war on terror," and security concerns. She shows how these influences have resulted in a failure on the part of many Western governments to recognize and protect essential individual freedoms. Employing a critical legal theory perspective to the headscarf controversy, Elver argues that law can be used to change underlying social conditions shaping the role of religion, and also the position of women in modern society. The Headscarf Controversy demonstrates how changes in law across nations can be used to restore state commitments to human rights.