Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves

Abstract

Western anthropologists are typically concerned with interpreting the non-western world’s unfamiliar cultures for western audiences. The French law banning the hijab from public schools presents itself as just as baffling as any non-western custom. Thus, it is fully understandable that it would take anAmerican anthropologist to interpret this event, especially for those in Anglo-Saxon cultures, where in spite of Islamophobia and discrimination against the hijab, concepts of religious tolerance and multiculturalism have generally translated into legal protections for women and girls who wish to wear it in public spaces. So with a catchy title designed to appeal to thiswidespread bafflement, the author seeks to explain the intellectual underpinnings and political processes that led to this banning of “ostentatious” religious symbols in public schools on March 15, 2004. Bowen, whose earlier work looked at religion and social change in Indonesia, focuses on the public deliberations about the issue of the hijab as well as on wider issues related to Muslim integration in France. He interviews politicians, bureaucrats, academics, journalists, public intellectuals, Muslim leaders, Muslim women, and (importantly, since it was a missing dimension, as he points out, in the lead up to the law) Muslim high school girls. He studies public texts and focuses especially on the crucial role played by an often hysterical media in forming and firming up public opinion in support of the law ...