Abstract
One of the strongest visual signifiers in contemporary geopolitics is the Muslim veil. Whether it is the burkha of an Afghan woman, the chador of the women of Iran and other ‘Middle Eastern’ states, or the headscarves of French schoolgirls, the Muslim veil has become, in political and wider public discourse, a readily recognisable and increasingly deployed marker of difference. This chapter looks at the way visual representations of Islam are being used to construct particular ideas about Muslims and their religion and how these representations are selectively consumed by those who are constructed as Muslim. Beyond the analysis of the form and impact of representations of Islam in a Western context, this chapter also explores how representations of religion are tied to national discourses of belonging and how this limits our understanding of racism1 towards Muslims. In terms of the geographies of Muslim identities, representations of Islam in the media typically construct discourses of belonging set at the scale of the nation producing dialectical tensions between religious nationals and informing a territorial relationship to religion, one that is felt in the nations of the West despite their avowed secularism.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging |
Editors | Cara Aitchison, Peter (Peter E.) Hopkins, Mei-Po Kwan |
Place of Publication | U.K. |
Publisher | Ashgate |
Pages | 29-56 |
Number of pages | 28 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780754685975 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780754648888 |
Publication status | Published - 2007 |
Keywords
- Iranian diaspora
- Muslims
- Baha'i
- transnationalism