Emotional geographies of veiling: the meanings of the ...

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Emotional geographies of veiling: the meanings of the hijab for five Palestinian American Muslim women Anna Mansson McGinty

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Department of Geography, Women's Studies Program , University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee , P.O. Box 413, Bolton Hall 478, Milwaukee , WI , 53211 , USA Published online: 03 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Gender, Place & Culture (2013): Emotional geographies of veiling: the meanings of the hijab for five Palestinian American Muslim women, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2013.810601 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.810601

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Emotional geographies of veiling: the meanings of the hijab for five Palestinian American Muslim women Anna Mansson McGinty* Department of Geography, Women’s Studies Program, University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Bolton Hall 478, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA (Received 7 October 2011; final version received 19 February 2013) This article explores experiential and emotional dimensions of veiling practices, the ‘emotional geographies of veiling,’ in relation to Muslim women’s community activism. By approaching the hijab as a symbol with both discursive effects and personal meaning – a psycho-social space – this article offers important insights into the intertwined, complex processes of internal embodiments and public manifestations of Muslim female identities. Based on the analysis of life narratives of five Palestinian American Muslim women in Milwaukee, a medium-sized city in the American Midwest, this article comes to the conclusion that public visibility through veiling entails both socio-spatial and emotional/internal processes. The analysis of these women’s narratives explores how veiling practices can guide personal piety and selftransformation, and contributes to the solidification of a politically and religiously identifiable community. Keywords: American Muslim women; hijab; visibility; Islamic activism; Islam in the USA, emotional geographies of veiling

Introduction The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed a wave of activism among American Muslim women in the USA. Interestingly, the social and political climate post9/11 seems to have opened up a space for socio-religious and political activism, and as a result, reinforced a sense of religious commitment and belonging (Ahmed 2011; Haddad, Smith, and Moore 2006; Mansson McGinty 2012a). In response to racialization, discrimination, and exclusion, Arab and South Asian Americans and Muslim Americans in general have become more visible participants in anti-war movements as well as in public discourses on civil and racial justice, immigrant rights, and integration. Or, differently put, previously ‘invisible citizens’ have become ‘visible subjects’ (Naber 2008, 2; see also Cainkar 2009; Nagel and Staeheli 2008). In the aftermath of 9/11, the hijab, Islamic headscarf, has become ‘a signifier of an identity that defies Western demonization of Islam and the debasement of its women’ (Haddad 2007, 254). It has become a symbol of resistance and solidarity, and in many cases an expression and affirmation of an American Muslim identity. An easily discernible marker of Muslim identity and belonging, for Muslims and non-Muslims, the hijab serves as a means to assert visibility of a growing Muslim community. In this article, I discuss the meanings of the hijab to five Palestinian American Muslim women in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I explore the experiential and emotional dimensions of veiling practices, the ‘emotional geographies of veiling,’ in relation to the women’s community and everyday

*Email: [email protected] q 2013 Taylor & Francis


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activism. Drawing on the women’s life narratives, I demonstrate how the donning of the hijab embodies a politics of visibility and activism in the context of the USA, and also raise interesting questions with respect to the psychological and emotional ramifications of demonstrating a particular religious and political self in public. The desire and undertaking to be seen, to become more visible in the public eye as a ‘Muslim woman,’ point to a complex process of identity construction in the post-9/11 context where being Muslim and being a woman become important sites for activism. By drawing on a recently initiated study of Muslim women in Milwaukee, a medium-sized Midwestern US city, I aspire to make both a humble empirical and theoretical contributions. Although British human geographers, in particular, have done extensive research on Muslim identities and communities in Britain in the context of gender, religion, urban planning, youth, and racism (Dwyer 1999; Gale 2003; Hopkins 2007), surprisingly less work has been done on Muslim women and identity in the USA (see Kwan 2008 for an exception). Overall, there is a significant dearth of research on Muslim geographies in the USA (Kong 2009). Recent important edited volumes have centered on religious women and space from a global and historical perspective (Morin and Guelke 2007), including geographies of Muslim identities with focus on the relationship of Muslim identity, gender, and space (Falah and Nagel 2005) and the relationship between gender, diaspora, and sense of belonging (Aitchison, Hopkins, and Kwan 2007), but none of these works address the lived realities of Muslim women in the USA. Although small in sample, the women’s narratives reflect experiences that are taking place in a very segregated mid-sized American city where Muslims constitute a small but growing minority. Inspired by the scholarship on emotional geography and its call to acknowledge the importance of feelings and emotions in human, social, and cultural life (Anderson and Smith 2001; Davidson and Milligan 2004; Bondi 2005), I hope to add to this body of work by drawing on ideas from phenomenological and psychological anthropology (Jackson 1996; Linger 2005). As an embodied practice, we need to further attend to the emotionladen experiences triggered by veiling and how these relate to the questions of public visibility. If we claim that emotions matter (Davidson, Bondi, and Smith 2005, 1), I believe we also have to depart from a certain model of self that acknowledges internal or psychological processes of identity formation and making sense of the world (Chodorow 1999; Linger 2005). Such a claim rests on an understanding that emotions are not only social but also psychological processes. My arguments in this article reflect my interdisciplinary position as faculty in geography and women’s studies, trained as an anthropologist, and my desire to enter into interdisciplinary conversation about experiential and emotional subjective life (cf. Bondi 2005). Such an approach differs from that of some feminist geographers, who have primarily looked at veiling through a poststructuralist perspective, analyzing veiling as a site for ‘the disciplinary administration of bodies’ (Go¨kariksel and Mitchell 2005, 150) and ‘the regulation of population’ (Secor 2005, 204). Drawing on Foucault’s theories of ‘biopower’ and technologies of power and of the self, these important contributions describe the body and subjectivity as discursively constructed and situated and the meaning of the veil as something inscribed on the body through spatial practices and discursive powers (Go¨kariksel 2009). This approach places great analytical importance to ‘spatialized understandings’ of the hijab (Secor 2002), as if it is ultimately space that ‘provides meaning to the hijab’ (Siraj 2011, 719), rather than a self-reflective self (although always contextualized). Instead, by approaching the hijab as a symbol with both personal/ psychological and social and political meaning – a psycho-social space – this article sheds light on the intertwined, complex processes of internally embodying and publically


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manifesting a Muslim female self. Based on the women’s narratives, I argue that public visibility through veiling entails both emotional/internal and socio-spatial processes. My hope is that this approach offers ‘intimate, personal and embodied accounts of the salience of religion to people’s everyday experiences’ and contributes to the conversation on the different potential avenues for feminist geographical inquiry of religion (Hopkins 2009, 9). As with any identity category, ‘Muslim woman’ is fraught with complexity and heterogeneity as ‘Muslimness’ is defined in relation to personal lives and other categories of belonging (Nagel 2005). Due to the small sample, the article does not attempt to give a general description of Arab-American Muslim women, neither does it claim to speak about the meanings of hijab in general. By focusing on mostly religiously oriented Muslim women and women who have decided to don the hijab, I do not wish to reify ‘Muslim’ to a mere religious identity or make it seem like most American Muslim women in the USA wear the headscarf (in fact a minority do). Neither do I explore the complexities of their hybrid identities; that would be a focus for another article. Rather, I intend to focus on the intricate processes of veiling through the experiences of five self-identified Muslim women in a mid-sized, American Midwestern city. Though a small sample, the narratives point to interesting experiences and tendencies of veiling in a smaller, segregated American city, a location often overlooked by scholars and journalists. Also, the narratives constitute a rich material from which certain theoretical assertions can be made to further the conversation on the various dimensions and meanings of veiling. Before I analyze the women’s narratives, I explore the literature of emotional geographies, the hijab and veiling, as well as activism among Arab and Muslim Americans, and lastly the methodology and context of the study. Exploring emotional geographies In the last decade, geographers have increasingly attended to emotions and explored the salience of emotions in social life and its spatialities (Davidson, Bondi, and Smith 2005; Davidson and Milligan 2004; Wood and Smith 2004). It is not my intention to offer a representative overview of this impressive body of work, but rather focus on what I find is a general trend within this literature that is of interest for my argument. Primarily, I would like to raise an epistemological question: can we talk about emotions without talking about a psychological self – a self with emotional agency and capacities? Overall, I find the concept of an emotional, self-reflective self curiously absent in the work on emotional geographies (for exceptions see, e.g., Bondi 2005; Thien 2005). Emotions are explored, bodies are felt, and authors and interviewees feel, but many of the accounts avoid precise elaboration on what model of the self/person underlies the work. Emotions, as a ‘key area of human experience’ (Anderson and Smith 2001, 9), have been defined by geographers as ‘intimate “structures of feeling”’ (Wood and Smith 2004, 534), and emotional geographies as ‘the ways in which our affective experiences of self and others are conceptualized temporally and spatially’ (Wood and Smith 2004, 533). Although these definitions seem to acknowledge some kind of self and internal dimensions, geographical approaches toward emotions appear to treat emotions as primarily culturally and socially constructed phenomena that can importantly shed light on the social spatiality of life (Davidson, Bondi, and Smith 2005). Similar definitions can be found in the more recent work on emotional geographies of activism, which has made important contributions pertaining to the role and relation of emotions to activism and in social movements and the emotional aspects of collective and public action and visibility


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(see, e.g., Emotion, Space and Society 2009). This work emphasizes the urgency to understand the importance of emotions when studying people’s motivation and experience of their activism. In the editorial of the above-mentioned issue, Brown and Pickerill (2009, 1) define emotion by quoting Askins’s piece in the same issue: ‘We also begin with the assertion that “emotions are contextual, embodied, and socially constructed [ . . . ] emotions are relational across relational spaces”’ (Askins 2009, 10). Many of the issue’s contributions speak of emotions primarily as social and cultural constructs and as processes in relation to the body, ‘physiological (preconsciously bodied) and socially circulating’ (Askins 2009, 10). In his article on emotional and affectual geographies, Pile asserts that the ‘emotional geography’s subject is a psychological subject’ (p. 12). Besides a few exceptions (see, e.g., Bondi 2005; Conradson 2005) however, there appear to be limited accounts that seriously and explicitly treat the subject/self and its abilities and emotions as psychological phenomena. Although the ‘emotional turn’ within geography signaled important epistemological shifts, many informed by feminist scholarship (Wright 2010), one is left to wonder if there are prevalent anti-psychological trends within emotional geography similar to much of the work within anthropology of feelings and emotion (Chodorow 1999)? I make this claim, drawing on the book The Power of Feelings by feminist, psychoanalyst, and sociologist, Chodorow (1999, 5), in which she demonstrates that ‘personal psychodynamic meanings are constitutive of meaning in general as much as are culture, language, or discourse and that personal meaning created by the power of feelings is central to human life.’ She criticizes culturally determinist accounts on gender, self, and emotion (focusing particularly on anthropology and feminist studies) that overlook or dismiss psychological life. By acknowledging a meaning-making and self-reflective self, I do not mean to adhere to any inherent essential self, separate and autonomous from context. Neither do I intend to reproduce binaries such as personal/political, but rather direct attention to the dynamic meaning-making of the self in relation to the world. In that regard, the approach I develop here resonates somewhat with that of psychotherapy advocated by Liz Bondi and David Conradson. Similarly, they attend, at least in my reading of their work, to a model of self, a relational self – to ‘the emotional or affective dimensions of relationships’ (Bondi 2005, 440) and ‘psychosocial dynamics of subjectivity and emotion’ (Conradson 2005, 105). Pile (2010, 17) asserts that ‘emotional geography must know why emotions are important and interesting.’ I agree. The emotional and experiential realm is critical as it sheds light on the parallel processes of individual meaning-making and social and political formation (Linger 2005). In my research, there are multiple processes of internalizing a faith and publically and socially forming a visible religious community/minority. Or, as Davidson and Milligan (2004, 524) put it, ‘Emotions, then, might be seen as a form of connective tissue that link experiential geographies of the human psyche and physique with(in) broader social geographies of place.’ By introducing the notion of the hijab as a psycho-social space, I hope to further extend the discussions on emotional geographies, reinstating that emotions entail psychological processes. Here, I believe that phenomenological and psychological anthropology can contribute with a few theoretical assumptions and insights. One general notion would be that the self is understood as social and cultural, but yet not a passive subject of society and culture. As anthropologist Anthony Cohen argues, individuals make the external world theirs through ‘their acts of perception and interpretation’ (Cohen 1994, 115). Hence, we need to give attention to the agency and reflexivity of the self, the active engagement with others and



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available categories, symbols, and discourses (Jackson 1996; Linger 2005; Mansson McGinty 2006). From this perspective, discourses are not understood as straightforwardly copied into people’s minds (Strauss and Quinn 1997). As discourses or public representations of the veil are not identical to the personal meaning and emotional salience of the veil, I find approaches that engage in a straightforward semiotic, symbolic, or discursive reading of the veil problematic. Instead, by attending to the often overlooked realm of embodied experiences and subjective emotions and by acknowledging that this realm is not a replicate of the public/political realm, insights can be gained into how the hijab is internalized and imbued with life, which becomes an integral part of the self. The hijab and veiling practices Besides numerous studies on the Islamic headscarf and modest Islamic dress code within the social sciences broadly (El Guindi 1999; MacLeod 1991; Tarlo 2010), there is also an emerging body of work on young Muslim women in the USA and Canada, and the shifting and diverse meanings of hijab, demonstrating individual reasoning, ijtihad (independent reading and reinterpretation of the Qur’an), and political protest against Islamophobia as well as patriarchal ideas within their own communities (Ahmed 2011; Hoodfar 2003; Mishra and Shirazi 2010). Feminist geographers such as Claire Dwyer (1999), Banu Go¨kariksel (2005, with Mitchell 2009), and Anna Secor (2002, 2005) have made important contributions to the scholarship on veiling. Their work explores, in particular, the contested nature of the veil and its visibility and meaning in public and secular spaces. While Dwyer (1999, 21) analyzes the multiple meanings attached to the veil among British-born Muslim women and the possibilities of imagining and exploring alternative identities and femininities beyond the dominant patriarchal ‘rhetoric of the veil,’ Go¨kariksel and Secor’s work focuses primarily on urban spaces in Istanbul, Turkey, in the context of neoliberalism and secularism (Go¨kariksel) and dress and urban mobility and citizenship (Secor). Their analyses illustrate the analytical significance of looking at the veil in relation to place and space, demonstrating the importance of the spatial and political/discursive meaning attached to veiling. Both Secor and Go¨kariksel examine veiling through a Foucauldian perspective, studying the discursive production of veiled bodies. Secor (2002, 6) analyzes veiling as a ‘socio-spatial practice,’ a practice governed by different regimes, or spatialized norms, which affect the meaning of women’s veiling. In a more recent joint project, they study how women form themselves as ethical subjects through the ‘technology of veiling-fashion’ (Go¨kariksel and Secor 2012, 1). There are, however, some limitations with a Foucauldian approach to the veil. Based on her ethnographic work on Javanese Muslim women, Suzanne Brenner (1996, 676) argues that ‘their motivations for veiling were simultaneously personal, religious, and political.’ She states, drawing on Foucault, that veiling cannot simply be understood as ‘a certain technology of power over body,’ and continues that ‘to reduce veiling to an effect of totalizing forms of power on individuals elides both individual agency and the symbolic role of veiling in processes of self- and social production’ (Brenner 1996, 689). Thus, a poststructuralist approach to the veil rests on the assumption that the veiled subject is discursively constituted, offering much less attention to variations and complexities within the personal realm. I sympathize with Go¨kariksel’s (2009, 666) description of the body as ‘an embodied and affective religious space’ and Secor’s (2007, 148) emphasis on religion as a way of ‘being in the world’; hence, I further explore the experiential and emotional dimensions of


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veiling. Veiling is not merely a discursive practice, but a practice informed by particular personal experiences, emotions, and quests. In line with what I argue in my book (Mansson McGinty 2006), the veil is infused with emotional life and given personal meaning, and thus a significant part of self-making. This approach also importantly elucidates the multiple, and at times contradictory, meanings the veil has to the women, as well as the dissonance between personal and discursive meaning. My approach to the hijab as a psycho-social space echoes Obeyeskere’s (1981) notion of ‘personal symbols,’ which have simultaneously cultural meaning and personal meaning. While personal meaning for Obeyeskere implies unconscious conflicts and processes (cf. Chodorow 1999), I am here exploring conscious and expressed personal emotional meanings. Invisibility and activism among Arab and Muslim Americans The racialization processes that Arab Americans have experienced in the last few decades have been well documented. The Arab-American experience has been characterized by ‘exclusion, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and selective policy enforcement’ (Cainkar 2009, 46). The narrative of the ‘Muslim/Arab’ enemy (Jamal and Naber 2008) has been perpetuated by the political rhetoric of ‘war on terror’ as well as negative representations in news media (Falah 2005) and popular culture (Shaheen 2008). Naber (2000) discusses some of the paradoxes that have informed the Arab Americans’ positioning within the US racial/ethnic classification system. Although Arab Americans, according to the US Census Bureau, are defined as whites or Caucasians, in most social and political contexts they are approached and treated as ‘non-whites.’ Thus, Naber argues that due to their unclear position within the US racial/ethnic system, Arab Americans have been rendered ‘invisible.’ In the light of this positioning, embodying a ‘Muslim identity’ through the hijab could be understood as one strategy of the women to address the aspect of political and social invisibility. Despite, and in resistance to, this ‘invisibility,’ as well as the challenges brought about by 9/11 such as increase in discrimination cases and hate crimes, the civil rights violations posed by the Patriot Act as well as other initiatives of ‘homeland security,’ Arab-American activists and Muslim Americans have spoken up and made their communities more active and visible part of the American society (Staeheli and Nagel 2008). Besides the fear and pessimism fueled by ‘homeland insecurities,’ the 9/11 attacks also triggered a salient realization of civic responsibilities and demand for civil rights within the multi-ethnic Muslim American community (Cainkar 2009). In her recent book, A Quiet Revolution, on the activist involvement of women in Islamism, Leila Ahmed (2011) makes some quite interesting observations with respect to American Muslim women’s activism in the twenty-first century and their struggle for women’s right, civil justice, and equality. She points to a convergence between a strand of Islamism, with its commitment to the poor and pursuit for social justice, and the American tradition of activism in the cause of justice and social change (295). I believe this ‘liberal end of American Islamist influenced thought’ (302) and the pro-feminist views emerging among Muslim women activists within central national organizations, and their emphasis of the obligatory hijab, resonate well with some of the women’s narratives featured here. The study, the women, and the city This article draws on the life narratives of five Palestinian American women in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The life stories were compiled during 10 in-depth personal



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interviews with the women, whom I interviewed twice, with the exception of one who was interviewed three times, and one who was interviewed once. The semi-structured interviews are part of an ongoing project on Muslim women’s activism and gender identity in the area, and were conducted between December 2007 and June 2011. I met and recruited the women through a Muslim women’s organization in the city. The interviews were often over 2 h long, and in the case of the follow-up interview we talked more in depth about a few ideas that had come up in the first interview. The interviews took place at one of the mosques or at cafes, but also twice at my place and at the home of one of the women. I came to the interviews with questions divided into four larger themes, including (1) childhood and growing up; (2) family, children, and work; (3) identity, hijab, and everyday life; and (4) activism and community. Thus, the first interview with each woman took the shape of a life narrative, although each interview took a unique turn guided by what each interviewee found most important to talk about. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. To protect the women’s identities I have given them pseudonyms. Methodologically, I am drawn to person-centered ethnography (Hollan 1997), in which individuals are asked to reflect upon their own understanding, experience, and feelings about different aspects of their lives and larger social and cultural context. This approach explores the ‘intricacies of personal worlds’ (Linger 2005, 15) through the intersubjective encounter of the interview, and ‘the individual’s serious attempts to render personal emotions and experiences by employing available categories and representations in idiosyncratic ways’ (Mansson McGinty 2006, 36). In this article, one can hear the voices of Samira, Nadra, Dalia, Leila, and Rafa. While Samira and Nadra were born in the early 1960s and are thus in their fifties, Dalia, Leila, and Rafa are in their mid-twenties and see themselves as part of the younger generation (or second generation) American Muslims. All women were born in Palestine (Samira was born in Jerusalem) with the exception of Rafa, who was born in Milwaukee. As they arrived in the USA as young children around the age of four, they grew up in the USA and identify themselves, broadly speaking, as Arab-American Muslims. They see Milwaukee as their home, a place where they were raised, went to school, work, and, in the cases of Samira and Nadra, both are now married to Arab Americana and raised their own children. All but Leila don the hijab and follow an Islamic dress code of modesty, which in these cases implies a headscarf pinned underneath the chin and loose fitting clothing, such as long skirts or longer tunics over pants. With the exception of Samira, the women come from working-class background and grew up in the poorer neighborhoods in the southern and northern parts of the city. Rafa, Leila, and Dalia placed strong emphasis on that they grew up in poor, working-class, diverse neighborhoods where the population was predominantly African American and Hispanic and ‘whites were in a small minority’ (Rafa). The women’s experiences take place in the backdrop of Milwaukee, a post-industrial city dealing with serious segregation along race and class lines. According to an analysis by the Brooking Institution of the US Census 2010 data, Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the USA followed by Detroit, New York, Chicago, and Cleveland (Frey 2010). A recent demographic survey of the Muslim Milwaukee community, conducted by my colleagues and I in collaboration with Muslim leaders in the city, confirms that larger segregation patterns are reflected within the Muslim community. The survey shows that congregational membership among Muslims is divided along ethnicity and race and economic capital, with the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (hereinafter ISM) located in South Milwaukee serving a diverse immigrant community with ancestry mainly from the


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Middle East and South Asia, and the Da’wa Islamic Center located in the impoverished and deindustrialized northern part of the city, serving more African-American Muslims, African immigrants, and inner city residents (Sziarto, McGinty, and Seymour-Jorn forthcoming). As the US Census is forbidden by law from asking questions about religious affiliation, we are left with vague estimates, both on a national and on a local scale. Recent estimates for 2010 indicate that there were about 3143 individuals with Arab ancestry in Milwaukee county, which was 0.3% of the total population of 937,616 (U.S. Census Bureau 2006– 2010 American Community Survey). Local Muslim leaders have estimated that there are at least 10,000 Muslims in the greater Milwaukee area. From the above-mentioned local survey, we learned that Milwaukee has a large proportion of US-born Muslims of Arab/ Middle Eastern descent. Of nearly 700 households (approximately 3580 respondents), 40% described their household as Arab/Middle Eastern (only) (Sziarto, McGinty, and Seymour-Jorn forthcoming). Thus, although the Arab-American Muslim population in Milwaukee represents a marginal group, it constitutes a rather significant portion of the Muslim community itself. While there were a few Muslims in Milwaukee in the beginning of the twentieth century, it was in the 1940s and 1950s that Arab Muslims started to arrive in Milwaukee, followed by Muslims from Pakistan, India, and Kashmir in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The number of Arab Muslims continued to increase in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily due to the Israeli occupation and the 1967 war. This was when Samira and Nadra arrived with their families. Besides the increased number of Palestinians during this time, Milwaukee also became home to Arab Muslims from Egypt, Iraq, Jordanian, Syria, Lebanon, and Morocco among others. Many different organizations and institutions representing American Muslims in Milwaukee have emerged in the last couple of decades with the ISM being the most prominent religious, social, and cultural institution within the community. A few of these organizations that have been of importance to the Arab-American community, including the women in this article, are the Muslim women’s organization, a newly established Islamic resource center, the former Milwaukee branch of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC – WI) and the student organizations such as the Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) at UW –Milwaukee and Marquette University and the Arab Student Association (ASA) at Marquette. In what follows, I discuss how emotional geographies of veiling relate to the women’s activism. First, I explore the hijab as a psycho-social space, which prompt both internal embodiments and public manifestations of Muslim women’s identities. Second, I consider the specific emotional geographies of veiling of one of the women, Dalia. Third, I discuss activism through veiling and how personal meanings of the veil manifest itself publically in the context of the women’s activism.

Emotional geographies of veiling I can’t see myself not wearing it. I remember in the beginning, in the first couple of weeks, just wearing it made me feel like something was on my head. So uncomfortable, because you feel it, and now if I would walk out of the house and I don’t have it I feel naked. It has become so much part of my identity now; it is a part of me. It is a part of me. (Rafa)

What are the personal and emotion-laden ramifications of visibility through veiling? That is, what does it mean experientially and emotionally to display a particular religious self in public? How does the hijab gain strong ideological force in the context of an American



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city? How can Rafa’s experience of the hijab, expressed above, be an integral part of her own self? To address these questions, I depart from two salient assumptions: first, the narratives demonstrate processes of personal meaning-making and internalization of faith; second, identities and meanings are imbued by personal quests and desires. Throughout the interviews, some of the women deliberated on how their personal faith and belief in the presence of God constitute a powerful source in their lives. For the women who are donning the hijab (with the exception of Dalia, which is discussed later) it is viewed as a religious obligation. In Nadra’s words: ‘My understanding of the Qur’an is that we need to cover.’ She expresses it as a personal and ‘conscious effort’ in contrast to the view that somebody forced her to wear it. Below, Nadra and Rafa reflect further on their relationship to the hijab. Because when you put on the uniform to go to school you are in a learning mood. You are not in your play clothes. When I put my hijab on in public, I’m very aware, conscious of how I interact [ . . . ] When I’m wearing the hijab I’m more conscious of my action, which is all the time (laughing) . . . This is my hijab and I have to respect the hijab. In a sense I have to be good all the time because I’m fearing God. Because this is what Allah told me to do, and I better be good. So it is much more conscious (now compared to earlier). It is self-discipline and that is what Islam is all about. (Nadra) It is like ‘Here I am; I’m Muslim.’ It is like you are wearing a sign. You know what I mean? People see that. So many Muslims don’t look like they are Muslim. If you don’t wear a scarf people don’t know. [...] People see you as an icon for hijab, and then if you are not (wearing the hijab) you can kind of bend the rules a bit because nobody is going to notice you, you are not representing something bad on Islam. But for me because I wear it, I always feel like it guides me. I’m not going to get caught in a situation that I guess is unsafe or is questionable because it kind of protects me in a sense from doing stuff. (Rafa)

The women’s experiences suggest that the indisputable visibility of the hijab is intimately connected to the emotional and embodied experiences of it. Nadra and Rafa ruminate how they see themselves as personifying Islam publically and how the very embodiment and internalization of the religious symbol speak importantly to an affective sense of self in the public, as well as in relation to God. Nadra understands the hijab as a ‘uniform,’ as a form of ‘self-discipline,’ a disciplinary tactic in public, guiding and reinforcing Islamic ideas about proper female behavior. To Rafa, it provides a space of protection both externally and internally, as it reminds her of appropriate thoughts and actions – ‘I always feel like it guides me.’ In reference to Rafa’s reflections, the emotional and sensory experiences of wearing it, and further, the sensed necessity of it in public spaces so as to not feel ‘naked,’ have become such integral part of her religious self that she cannot imagine walking outside the house without it (Siraj 2011). This allows for an intimate relationship between, on one hand, a particular embodied space that offers her protection and, on the other hand, the state of being visible to the public eye, insisting on her right to be different but equal. As a psycho-social space, the hijab guides self-transformation and encourages the adoption of Islamic doctrine, which promotes a certain gendered and religious self. Through the donning of the hijab, the women internalize Islamic piety and discipline and embody a Muslim identity (Brenner 1996). This view of the hijab rests on the theoretical assumption that symbols do not carry or ‘have’ meanings, but rather ‘meanings arise in interaction between symbols and human minds’ (Linger 2005, 35). The women’s narratives shed light on intricate processes of self-making and meaning-making, processes that are certainly psychological, as well as social and spatial in nature. The decision to


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cover was described as a very conscious and thoughtful decision that addressed a transitional time (high school and college) and, in the women’s view, reflected that a person has achieved a certain level of Islamic knowledge and consciousness (Secor 2002). Rafa decided to don the hijab in her junior year in high school as a sign of religious awareness as well as readiness to publically display her belonging. In her own words, ‘It was more at that time in my life, I felt religious. I felt knowledgeable, had basic knowledge, I felt that I knew enough.’ This resonates with present-day Islamic discourse in the USA that the hijab should be a personal choice, indicating religious awareness and piety (Mishra and Shirazi 2010; Schmidt 2004). Samira, who is older, attended college in the early 1980s when the hijab was far less common on American campus as today. During her university years, she came across a diversity of religious interpretations and perspectives, primarily from foreign students, and this made her aware that she knew rather little about her own religion. It compelled her to study the religious sources further. [W]hen I decided to wear the hijab, I think it was a very, what can I tell you, it really needed a strength of character and a real strong commitment to the faith. Because at the time there were really very few Muslims from the Arab world that would wear the hijab. (Samira)

Today, Samira is quite at ease with the hijab and understands it as part of a feminist self and political statement: As a Muslim feminist, what I want to say, I can be a Muslim feminist and look like this.[ . . . ] Do I have to abide to someone else’s definition of what a feminist should look like?

Rafa also talked about donning the hijab as something that required personal strength, commitment, and faith, a practice through which she comes to define herself as everyday activist on behalf of her faith. There is so much more knowledge you gain by wearing it. So much more jihad, so much more strength because you are constantly confronted by people who want to know. So, if you don’t know you go and find out. (Rafa)

Hijab becomes a means for jihad, an inner struggle to be a ‘good Muslim,’ to embody the traditions of the community and an ideal femininity, encouraging the continuous process of acquiring religious knowledge and teaching others about Islam. These religious ideas were, however, by no means shared by all participants. Leila who claims ‘Muslimness’ without the hijab is highly critical to the religious discourse praising the veiled woman over the unveiled woman, pointing to a relative who veils but does not otherwise implement the Islamic faith in her life. Still, because Leila does not cover, ‘she [her friend] is trying to school me.’ Leila rejects the notion that her faith is weaker due to her non-veiling. ‘[I]t (veiling) is just something I’m dreading, I don’t know what it is, I just hate it!’ It is not only the actual wearing of the hijab (which she does when she visits the mosque to pray) that she hates, but the social pressure and the lived consequences of her not wearing it. ‘Me acknowledging God doesn’t mean praying five times a day. You know, it is in the way I act.’ Also Dalia, who dons the hijab, is critical to the notion that it is a religious obligation. Even after 7 years, she finds it ‘conflicting’ since the meaning it has to her does not correspond to the dominant, normative religious discourse, which asserts veiling as a religious commitment and proper Islamic dress for a practicing Muslim woman. Contrary to Rafa’s words in the beginning of this section, she exclaimed: ‘It still doesn’t feel like a part of me.’ In the next section, I extend my argument that the emotional geographies of veiling entail both psychological and socio-spatial processes by detailing the meanings the hijab has for Dalia.



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(Not)Belonging – conflicting meanings of the hijab For Dalia, the decision to put on the hijab emerged from strong feelings of uncertainty and alienation from what she referred to in our two interviews as ‘mainstream white society.’ As a result of a segregated city and poorly funded public school system she never felt part of mainstream society, and in lack of other available identities in elementary school she thought of herself as Latina. She and her family did not know many other Arabs or Muslims, and ‘most of my friends were Latino or African American, so I was really confused as a kid.’ She elaborated on the anxiety-driven notion of not really being anyone, the personal need to belong to something and confirm to herself as well as others who she is. It was in high school when she started to become more aware of her difference and background, and in conjunction with 9/11 she experienced an inner need to publically and visibly mark a particular identity for herself. She reflects: ‘You start to think about your identity in terms of ethnicity at that time especially if you are minority. If it weren’t for the scarf, I would look like a ‘Mexican girl’, my friends were all Mexican.’ Her thoughts were realized the first day of college. It (college) was a completely new place; it was the easiest start. I just wanted to start fresh and new [ . . . ] I wanted something that could identify me. It (hijab) is like wearing something on your sleeve. And this was the easiest way for me to do that. (Dalia, my emphasis)

Putting on the hijab the first day of college, in a new place and at a new phase in life, meant embodying a new identity. ‘I picked an identity for myself, and I really didn’t know how to get there until a long time later,’ Dalia explains. This statement points to the gradual psychological process of self-transformation and making sense of a newly acquired symbol. The hijab gains particular meaning that addresses a personal identity quest and is infused with strong emotions – feelings of anger, loneliness, and exclusion and a strong desire to belong (Mansson McGinty 2006). I feel like I have brought trouble onto myself. I think it was all this passion to speak up about things . . . I was really angry, I was a really angry kid . . . I was a very angry kid and I needed to channel that somewhere. And this got me attention!

Although infused with conflicting feelings, donning the hijab brought about a desired new sense of self at a crucial phase in life when moving from a ‘predominately African American and Mexican high school to Marquette which is upper middle class, white.’ During her years at the university she became very involved in the ASA, always propagating Palestinian issues. After September 11, she felt a need to defend who she was and her political affiliation. The group she was identifying with, ‘Muslims’ in a broader sense, was being attacked, and as a result, she felt an urgency to show her stance. Today, veiling serves as an ‘everyday activism’ for a politically targeted group that had been unjustly treated. I wouldn’t say that I’m 100% comfortable with why I wear a scarf, because . . . right now I feel like if you wear a scarf it should be for religious reasons, and I don’t feel that connection to it religiously, so it is a little conflicting. [ . . . ] But then at the same time being a Muslim woman in the U.S. I feel that it actually has helped me in a sense, because I feel like it is my expression of activism even though I don’t necessarily defend the religious reasons for wearing the scarf. But, I defend the social reasons for wearing it in a foreign country. Yeah, I would say that. I don’t know if this makes sense (laughing). (Dalia)

To Dalia, veiling is not primarily a religious practice (ironically she understands faith as a personal issue), but rather gains significant meaning to her in the context of signaling political solidarity and political protest against Islamophobia. She expresses a strong desire to find a solution to this inner conflict, caused by the gap between personal and


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discursive meaning (Strauss and Quinn 1996). At the same time, she underscored how difficult it would be to take it off: ‘I think the social pressure, the stigma that taking it off carries, is too big.’ Her comment suggests the strong ideological power of the hijab in the USA within the Muslim American communities. Not only is the religious discourse so powerful that she feels like she is not wearing the veil for the ‘right’ reasons, but she also feels like the removal of it would stigmatize her socially, even if she has minimum relationship with the local Muslim community. Dalia’s narrative demonstrates the emotional geographies of veiling, how the hijab addresses and triggers emotional experiences of self in relation to others – a quest for belonging and visibility in a segregated city. She describes a personal and spatial trajectory from passing as a ‘Mexican girl’ in an impoverished section of the city to a young Muslim woman in a white affluent private university in downtown Milwaukee. Dalia’s experiences further raise important questions pertaining to the dissonance that occurs when the personal reasons for veiling resonate poorly with prevalent religious discourses, which demonstrate that meaning-making is not an automatic, straightforward process but one that generates multiple, and sometimes conflicting, meanings both within a person and between a person and her community.

Activism through veiling How do emotional geographies of veiling relate and translate to the women’s community outreach and activism? How does the psycho-social space of the hijab relate to visibility and publically manifest a religiously identifiable community? I start with a quote from Rafa: People can’t say that [Muslim] females are suppressed, because everything was run by us. Because we also had more stakes in it. We can’t hide here; it [discrimination] faces us. If something happens, it comes back to us, we are the main targets. People see us. (Rafa)

A central theme that emerged throughout the interviews was how veiling embodies politics of visibility and serves as a means of activism. Rafa stresses in the quote above that during her activism in the MSA and ASA, women were much more active due to the visibility of the hijab. As they publically embody a ‘Muslim identity’ they had also ‘more stake’ in the activism – an activism triggered by an urgency to act upon and prove stereotypes wrong (Nagel and Staeheli 2008). The visible and public nature of the hijab plays a significant role envisioning a community, demonstrating the presence of Islam, and asserting space and belonging in the city. It is as if no one wore the hijab, how would the rest of the society know that there are Muslims in Milwaukee (Haddad 2007). Nadra explains: ‘We thought women were the best persons to do it [service to the community]. Because as Muslim women we are identified by our dress and we really wanted to have an impact on the community.’ The desire to been seen and defend one’s faith, and thus, also one’s sense of self, was strengthened after 9/11. In Nadra’s words: 9/11 forced us to be more visible. When we saw our faith being attacked that really hurt. My faith was attacked, as was my country [ . . . ] I’m out at least two nights a week speaking. Everybody invites me. I have two church groups coming tomorrow for confirmation classes. And this only started after September 11. (Nadra)

Samira and Nadra are the founders of the only Muslim women’s organization in Milwaukee, and since its start in 1994 they have been engaged in community outreach and partnership with different religious and non-religious organizations. Samira explains: ‘[We] came to the



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realization that the view of the Muslim woman was that we were oppressed, that we were uneducated, that we can’t speak for ourselves. We really just wanted to address those stereotypes that were out there.’ Samira and Nadra are today involved in interfaith alliances, delivering talks about Islam in public schools and at hospitals, collaborating with civil, nonprofit peace, and justice organizations such as Peace Action and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as being part of local initiatives such as a Reproductive Justice Collective. The women’s organization has also been successful in making the Muslim community more visible in media, including having the local newspaper Milwaukee Journal Sentinel change the column ‘Church Services’ to ‘Worship Directory,’ now a column where the Islamic centers and masjids can advertise their religious services. After many years of community outreach, Samira emphasizes an important outcome of their work: They now have a face that they can put to the word ‘Muslim.’ Furthermore, the women occupy salient roles within their own community, influencing local politics and agendas. Samira has been the media spokesperson for the Islamic center for many years, and, together with Nadra, a member of the shura council, the advisory board, at the center. As such, the women’s organization reflects a microcosm of the larger national phenomenon of ‘the extraordinarily dynamic Islamic “feminist” activism’ (Ahmed 2011, 293) in the post-9/11 era, with its dominant form of Islam ‘from its obligatory hijab to its activist social and political agendas’ (299). Participating in community outreach within various religious and secular spaces throughout the city such as the food pantry at the Catholic church in downtown Milwaukee, the UW – Milwaukee campus through collaborative projects with the university (Mansson McGinty 2012b), presenting a talk on Islam at the Rotary Club, and envisioning Islam and Muslims on campuses through student organizations, the women have not only made the hijab a visible symbol within the city, but also claim the city as theirs. Despite experiences of hostility and stigmatization, there was little indication that the women felt out of place or insecure in the city. Rather, they talked about feelings of security and belonging. Rafa compared her own relationship to American culture and Milwaukee to that of parents, who do not see the USA as their country: ‘They always had that fear, while I feel like this is my place; I know this place more than any other, so I don’t have that kind of fear.’ A similar claim is made by Samira when she thinks of herself as a ‘third generation immigrant because my grandfather was buried here (Milwaukee) and my father lived here as a teenager and has been here ever since, and then I came here.’ Visibility and activism as Muslim, however, take different expressions for Leila, who does not wear the hijab, and sees herself as engaged in another kind of struggle. She is highly critical to the local Muslim community’s attitude toward the hijab: They are creating a picture that all Muslim women wear the veil, but that’s not all inclusive [ . . . ] It is not the only picture of the Muslim woman. When my mom found out that I was starting the organization for the Arab Muslim American women she said: ‘None of you are wearing the veil, I don’t know what you are doing!’. (Leila)

Leila’s experiences and her mother’s comment point to how the hijab has taken a monopoly in representing Muslim women due to its power of visibility as well as religious discourse. When Leila was part of founding an Arab and Muslim women resource and research institute, which aims to document the lives of Arab and Muslim women in the greater Milwaukee area, her mother questioned her ability as a non-veiled woman to represent Muslim and Arab women. Leila stresses: There are different faces of Islam, it is not only represented by the woman of the veil. I think the woman of the veil has advantage over me in the community, definitely, with her activism while as I, they look at me and they think I’m too modern, or too far away from the religion and the community.


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This ‘advantage’ was made clear when she, despite great credentials, was denied a teaching position at an Islamic center when she indicated that she would not feel comfortable wearing the hijab. Leila’s activism takes quite different expressions as she has to continuously prove her Muslimness without the hijab to both Muslims and nonMuslims. For Leila, non-veiling entails feelings of exclusion from the Muslim community. Particularly in the political climate of post-9/11, non-veiling (Secor 2002) appears to be as much of a choice as veiling. Similarly, as I explored earlier, Dalia does not feel comfortable with the veil, although she has decided to don the hijab. The hijab gains significant meaning to Dalia as a means of everyday activism against Islamophobia as it displays the veiled Muslim woman as an active participant in society – an image that appears to have become a powerful prototype for ‘the Muslim American woman.’ Because I’m feeling that even if I’m not putting on events and talking about being a Muslim, or being an Arab, or being a Palestinian, I still feel in my everyday life it is a form of activism. Even if it just incites a few questions here and there, even as basic as seeing a Muslim woman in the public sphere where she is doing something, and being an active part of the society. (Dalia, my emphasis)

Conclusions Drawing on the life narratives of five Palestinian American Muslim women, I explore the emotional geographies of veiling in relation to public visibility and activism. I argue that the donning of the hijab and publically displaying a Muslim female identity through veiling reflect salient processes of meaning- and identity-making. The women’s narratives reflect how the hijab, as a psycho-social space, is a symbol with both personal/psychological meaning and discursive effects. The women embody and experience it in emotive and moving ways that affect sense of self and its relation to surrounding society. Consequently, there are both personal and socio-spatial dimensions of envisioning a Muslim female identity in public through the hijab. Adopting the hijab encourages not only social and political changes but also self-transformation and the strengthening of personal piety and Islamic principles on female modesty and proper conduct in the public sphere. Therefore, I argue that emotional geographies entail psychological processes of meaning-making and that important insights are gained by paying attention to the dynamic relationship between personal and emotional lives and discourses. This approach allows an understanding of how symbols, such as the hijab, gain emotional salience and how certain messages are reproduced. It also allows an examination of the slippage between individual meaning-making and discursive power, as well as the multiple meanings of the hijab among the five women. As indicated in the case of Dalia, personal meanings assigned to the hijab do not always harmonize well with prevalent religious discourses of the veil. It might also serve as an example when dominant meanings are challenged, pointing to possible openings of change and reinvention. Further, Rafa’s experience of non-veiling and Dalia’s fear of taking it off demonstrate the strong ideological power that the hijab has acquired in the community and the social consequences of not wearing it as a self-identified Muslim woman. Through the politics of veiling (or non-veiling) in conjunction with community outreach, interfaith dialogs, and collaboration with other social and political groups, the women in the study manifest a particular collective identity in public, asserting their presence in city in which they represent a small minority. As such, the women’s activism in Milwaukee presents a small-scale example of the emerging national movement of



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Islamic activism with its emphasis on the hijab and political and social engagements within the larger American society (Ahmed 2011). The women’s narratives suggest that the hijab is a compelling symbol with both psychological and socio-spatial dimensions, which simultaneously guides their faith and self-making and solidifies a politically and religiously identifiable community in a smaller Midwestern city post-9/11 – two inextricably intertwined and mutually reinforcing processes.

Acknowledgements This research was supported by a Graduate School Research Committee Award from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor, Lynda Johnston, for their constructive comments. The author appreciates the feedback from Judith Kenny, Daniel Linger, and Andrea Westlund on earlier drafts of this article, and would also like to thank the women who participated in this study.

Notes on contributor Anna Mansson McGinty is an Assistant Professor of Geography and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee. Her research interests center on Muslim identities in the West, gender in Islam, Islamic feminisms, and person-centered ethnography. Her book Becoming Muslim: Western Women’s Conversions to Islam explores the identity formation of Swedish and American female converts to Islam with focus on life story and conversion narrative. In her current project, she focuses her studies on gender identity and community activism among Muslim women in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is also involved in Muslim Milwaukee Project, a community partnership with Muslim leaders, which aims to document and map the diversity and complexity of a significant Muslim population in the greater Milwaukee area, looking at basic demographics as well as issues such as healthcare, community involvement, and experience of discrimination.

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ABSTRACT TRANSLATIONS Las geografıás emocionales del uso del velo: los significados del hijab para cinco mujeres musulmanas estadounidenses palestinas Este artıćulo explora las dimensiones experimentales y emocionales de las praćticas del velo, las ‘geografıás emocionales del uso del velo,’ en relacioń al activismo comunitario de las mujeres musulmanas. Abordando el hijab como un sı´mbolo con efectos discursivos y significados personales, –un espacio psico-social – este artıćulo ofrece importantes perspectivas sobre los entrelazados y complejos procesos de encarnaciones internas y manifestaciones pu´blicas de identidades musulmanas femeninas. Basado en el ana´lisis de las narrativas de vidas de cinco mujeres musulmanas estadounidenses palestinas en Milwaukee, una ciudad de tamanõ medio en el Medio Oeste de Estados Unidos, este artıćulo llega a la conclusioń de que la visibilidad pu´blica a trave´s del uso del velo comprende tanto a procesos socioespaciales como emocionales/internos. El ana´lisis de las narrativas de las mujeres explora co´mo las praćticas del uso del velo pueden guiar la piedad personal y la autotransformacioń, y contribuir a la solidificacioń de una comunidad religiosamente y polı´ticamente identificable. Palabras claves: mujeres musulmanas estadounidenses; hijab; visibilidad; activismo isla´mico; islamismo en los Estados Unidos; geografıás emocionales del uso del velo 蒙面纱的情绪地理：面纱（hijab）对五位巴勒斯坦裔美国穆斯林女性的意义本文探讨蒙面纱的经验与情绪面向，意即所谓的“蒙面纱的情绪地理”，及其与穆斯林女性社群倡议主义的关联性。透过将面纱视为同时具有论述效应与个人意义的象徵——一个心理—社会空间，本文对理解穆斯林女性认同的内在体现与公共展现的纠结、复杂过程，提供了重要的洞见。本文根据五位来自美国中西部一个中型城市密尔瓦基的美国穆斯林女性生活叙事的分析，达成以下结论：透过蒙面纱获得的公共可见性，同时引发了社会—空间与情感／内在的过程。对这些女性叙事的分析，探讨了蒙面纱的实践如何引导个人虔诚与自我转化，并促成了政治及宗教上可被辨识的社群之团结。关键词: 美国穆斯林女性; 面纱; 可见性; 伊斯兰倡议主义; 伊斯兰在美国; 蒙面纱的情绪地理