Veiling and unveiling: Identity formation in young Muslim women living in Germany

Abstract

This qualitative study addresses the question of how a background of migration, nationalization, and globalization influences young Muslim women residing in Germany who form their identity and position themselves successfully in modern society. It includes 25 interviews with young Muslim women in the age group 18–25 years whose parents or grandparents migrated to Germany from Turkey. In terms of how their identity has evolved, the participants recount a mostly positive integration into German society, especially on a professional level, contrary to the negativity and devaluation often experienced within their Turkish family. This is a symptom of how Turkish and German society place different expectations on women, with an effect on the development of their identity as well as causing conflicting emotions, especially, for example, when it comes to religious matters such as deciding whether to wear a headscarf. The different personal and subjective motivations behind this are the result of Turkish-Islamic ideas clashing with Western secular thinking. These findings are psychoanalytically explained by suras on veiling in the Quran and the Lacanian dialectic of the symbolic and imaginary phallus.