The “Naked Face” of Secular Exclusion: Bill 94 and the Privatization of Belief

The will to religion: Obligatory religious citizenship

“…A good illustration of the kinds of subtle and eye opening realizations one may glean from a solid knowledge of Christian text is to be found in a recent (unpublished) article by Robert Leckey (2012) in which he analyses the proposed Bill 94 in Quebec. That bill requires those seeking public services to present themselves with a 'naked face' (Fournier and See, 2012), and is an obvious attempt to ban niqab and burqa wearing women from the public sphere.…”

Religious Diversity in the Public Sphere: The Canadian Case

“…This bill called for the ban on the wearing of the niqab and emphasized "un visage découvert" or "naked face" when public service was provided or received in Québec. See Fournier and See (2014) for their argument that the bill effectively extended the public sphere and disproportionately impacted Muslim women. 21 The full title of Bill 60, introduced by the Parti Québecois government, was the "Charter affirming the values of State secularism and religious neutrality and of equality between women and men, and providing a framework for accommodation requests."…”

“Muslimness” and multiplicity in qualitative research and in government reports in Canada

“…Yet, the mosque and conservative women's comportment and garments remain the axes of investigation and reference. Mahmood's work linking the body and ethics precedes (and has inspired) a great deal of scholarship treating full-face-covering niqabs and burqas (see Amiraux, 2007; Beaman, 2011; Bouzar and Bouzar, 2010; Fournier and See, 2012; Sauer, 2009; Selby, 2014). Strikingly, the abundance of this literature does not match the minuteness of the practice of full-face veiling.…”