Debating the Burqa in France: the Antipolitics of Islamic Revival

Abstract

In 2009 a French national commission was created to issue recommendations against "the burqa" and raise the possibility of a ban on the practice in certain public settings. This paper explores the different normative stakes of politicizing the burqa and the form of Islamic Revival with which it is associated. Recent scholarship has sought to overturn orientalist depictions of Islamic movements but has insisted that bodily ethical practices, such as Muslim women's veiling, constitute forms of politics. Based on ethnographic research in a women's mosque community in a poor suburb of Lyon, France, I argue that these women are not engaged in a form of politics but rather, antipolitics, a movement originally conceptualized in the 1970s and 80s as a rejection of politics and a valorization of private life. Three components define their antipolitics: a reconfiguration of the private sphere against an intrusive state, a retreat into a moral community, and emphasis on spiritual conditions and achievement of serenity. In interrogating different meanings of politics and antipolitics, this paper suggests a rethinking of the relationship between "political Islam" and piety movements.Keywords Islam . France . Gender . Politics Few expressions of faith today cause as much fear and loathing in plural democracies as the "burqa."1 The pity and disdain many feel for these women is a nearly automatic reaction Qual Sociol (2011) 34:287-312 DOI 10.1007/s11133-011-9192-21 The term "burqa" is not employed by those in the Muslim community who are familiar with women's veiling practices. The word is currently used in France to refer to both the full body covering including the face, except the eyes, as well as a mesh-fabric covering over the eyes. These are the specific practices being debated in the French Assembly and that among adherents, are known as a "niqab" or "sitar" (which covers the eyes). The sitar is an exceptionally rare practice in France. Most of the women among whom I conducted fieldwork wore "the djelbab," which refers to a long hair and body covering that leaves the face exposed. Some of them also wore the niqab. In this paper, I switch back and forth between the terms djelbab and burqa. Most of the discourses and phenomena I describe refer to these groups of women more generally, regardless of which ones wear only a djelbab and which choose to also wear a niqab. There was little distinction made in the Assembly hearings between these practices.

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