RT Article
T1 Wearing the Niqab in the UK: Exploring the Embodied "Shape a Moral Action Can Take"
JF Journal of the American Academy of Religion
VO 87
IS 2
SP 512
OP 542
A1 Piela, Anna
LA English
PB Oxford University Press
YR 2019
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1670172104
AB The niqab (Islamic face veil) frequently features in political controversies in the United Kingdom, where negative opinions of the niqab are reforged into political currency (such as the “burka ban” proposals) by conservative and liberal actors alike. Drawing from Saba Mahmood’s conceptualizations of agency and moral action, I analyze twelve interviews I conducted with niqab wearers in the UK. This article centers insider perspectives on the niqab, highlighting in particular the notion of choice to wear the niqab as well as discursive and physical navigation of social spaces. In distinguishing between mainstream discourses about niqab wearers and their own accounts, I argue that niqab wearers’ voices must be included in the public debate.
DO 10.1093/jaarel/lfz002