Navigating Stigma through Refashioning Islamic Veiling: Muslim Women’s Sartorial De-Stigmatization Strategies in Contemporary United States

Abstract

This article examines Muslim women’s de-stigmatization strategies in everyday urban interactions in contemporary United States with a focus on their sartorial choices geared toward navigating stigmatization. It is particularly interested into how intersubjectivity, emotions and materiality work together in navigations of the quintessentially hybrid and unstable meanings of Islamic veiling. Within this frame, it demonstrates that Muslim women’s socio-spatial relations in the context of rising public hostility initiate socially creative processes of self-representation that are navigated through a broad range of sartorial practices. The article pays significant attention to the dialogic-material aspects of Muslim women’s self-presentations in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump. It concludes that experimentation with sartorial styles provides veiled Muslim women a productive site to navigate the tensions between self-identifications and hegemonic other-identifications imposed from outside and experienced as powerfully stigmatizing. Yet, at times of political crisis marked by a striking rise of anti-Muslim hostility, the productive aspects of their sartorial management become obscure and futile.