Introduction: Veiled Constellations: The Veil, Critical Theory, Politics, and Contemporary Society

The following articles were presented at a 2010 conference organized by Melissa Finn and Arshavez Mozafari titled “Veiled Constellations: The Veil, Critical Theory, Politics, and Contemporary Society.” Hosted in Toronto, this conference offered a forum for academics and graduate students to problematize the prevailing discourses surrounding the veil while exploring its subversive potential. The extent to which the veil can erode, or even invert, power and oppression is, with the exception of a few cases, an overlooked and underexplored area of academic theorization. This event highlighted innovative and thought-provoking approaches to not only the Islamic veil but the veil itself.

Although there is a rich supply of documentation and research on the veil, its intricate nuances are underappreciated. The entrenched debate among competing mainstream understandings of the veil, along with its increased politicization—made most prominent by conservative and secular movements within the European Union and by a growing literature that paints the veil as a threat to human rights and security—has had an immeasurable effect on intercultural exchanges, especially in metropolitan centers. Participants of this conference were therefore encouraged to relate radical reinterpretations of the veil to the religion of Islam and the relationship(s) between Muslims and contemporary society. Our decision to propose these articles to Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East was based on the firm understanding that although most of the articles deal with the European context, each is inextricably linked to and informed and balanced by the regions outlined in the journal’s title.

Maria Stehle in “Gender, Performance, and the Politics of Space: Germany and the Veil in Popular Culture” conveys the precarious space occupied by immigrant mediators in Germany. With the cultural memories of Turkey and Palestine ever so present, the respective subjects at the center of this investigation have to constantly deal with their newly composed in-between spaces. Beyond this, they also have to contend with the fact that each of their gestures may be understood as a reproduction of an image they initially set out to dismantle. As Stehle points out, the delicacies of this space are handled in a number of ways. The mediator who occupies this space between two worlds is often relied on as a translator, who is thought to be capable of not only expressing his innermost desire to belong in vivid form but also communicating the heart of a past community that he simply cannot let go of.

The reaction to the translated message, whether the latter is intentionally transmitted at all, is also of importance. Beverly M. Weber’s article “Hijab Martyrdom, Headscarf Debates: Rethinking Violence, Secularism, and Islam in Germany” shows how the variegated reactions to the expulsion of Fereshta Ludin, an elementary school teacher, and the murder of Marwa el-Sherbini are connected, owing to the similarities between their modes of religious practice. While their circumstances clearly differ, their cases nevertheless bring to the fore the problematic status of the public realm and the way marginalized persons participate therein. By going beyond the limitations of Jürgen Habermas’s postsecular interest in identity and his endorsement of the pacifying effects of the public realm, Weber focuses on Talal Asad’s critique of secularism and its tendency to displace rather than eradicate violence. Through this displaced attention, many Germans, by finding solace in the claim that Ludin, el-Sherbini, and other veiled immigrants were subject to familial and thus foreign violence, ignored the violent acts of hate-induced murder and social expulsion.

When secularism is questioned in this manner, the veiled woman herself is brought into relief. However, the manner through which she describes her experience is another point of contention. This is the starting point of Ipek A. Celik’s analysis. In “Performing Veiled Women as Marketable Commodities: Representations of Muslim Minority Women in Germany,” Celik describes how the lives of early Turkish immigrants in Germany were narrativized under the prominent rubric of victimization. While later generations have gone beyond the simplistic terms through which the discourse of victimization is conveyed, contemporary liberal self-expression...