Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves

Abstract

Western anthropologists are typically concerned with interpreting thenon-western world’s unfamiliar cultures for western audiences. TheFrench law banning the hijab from public schools presents itself as just asbaffling as any non-western custom. Thus, it is fully understandable thatit would take anAmerican anthropologist to interpret this event, especiallyfor those in Anglo-Saxon cultures, where in spite of Islamophobia anddiscrimination against the hijab, concepts of religious tolerance and multiculturalismhave generally translated into legal protections for womenand girls who wish to wear it in public spaces. So with a catchy titledesigned to appeal to thiswidespread bafflement, the author seeks to explainthe intellectual underpinnings and political processes that led to this banningof “ostentatious” religious symbols in public schools on March 15,2004.Bowen, whose earlier work looked at religion and social change inIndonesia, focuses on the public deliberations about the issue of the hijab aswell as on wider issues related to Muslim integration in France. He interviewspoliticians, bureaucrats, academics, journalists, public intellectuals,Muslim leaders, Muslim women, and (importantly, since it was a missingdimension, as he points out, in the lead up to the law) Muslim high schoolgirls. He studies public texts and focuses especially on the crucial roleplayed by an often hysterical media in forming and firming up public opinionin support of the law ...