The politics of veiling, gender and the Muslim subject: on the limits and possibilities of anti-racist education in the aftermath of September 11

Abstract

This paper draws on feminist, postcolonial and queer analytic frameworks to address the pedagogical significance of veiling and the Muslim subject in the aftermath of September 11. It addresses questions related to the knowledge and analytic frameworks needed to engage pedagogically with a politics of difference vis-à-vis the gendered body and practices of veiling in the context of teacher and public school education. The paper discusses implications for developing an approach to anti-racist education that is capable of addressing the limits of Orientalist representations of veiled women, while still entertaining a critique of heteronormativity and sexism as they apply across the Orientalist divide. The pedagogical implications of such tensions are explored in light of drawing on bodies of knowledge that attend to the historical specificity of gender and race relations, as well as engaging with analytic frameworks that inform a knowledge of the body as a cultural signifier. We conclude that a basis for articulating an anti-racist politics must be capable of engaging with a more sophisticated understanding of gender relations, sexuality, agency, and resistance within the context of interrogating narratives about the practices of veiling and unveiling.

Keywords:

• Muslim women
• veiling
• Islamophobia
• anti-racist education
• gender relations

Notes

1. Said did not engage with gender depiction of Orientalism. His work, however, has intellectually and politically inspired postcolonial feminists to engage with gender dimension of Orientalism.

2. Productive pedagogies have been defined by Hayes et al. (2006) as involving four integrated dimensions: intellectually demanding curriculum; relevant curriculum that is connected to the everyday lives of students; safe classroom learning environment; and working with and valuing difference. All of these dimensions are considered integral to any pedagogical reform agenda in education.