I am Just Doing my Bit to Promote Modesty: Niqabis' self-portraits on photo-sharing websites

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the main arguments that deal with mainstream media representations of niqabis in the West. In distinguishing between such representations of niqabis and their self-representations distributed online on photo-sharing sites, it is my purpose to highlight the entirely different visual rhetoric that emerges from the latter by pointing to various aspects of the self-portraits. After giving an overview of the literature that discusses the niqab, and indicating that niqabis' voices have been entirely neglected, I analyze several self-portraits of two niqabis located online in reference to a theoretical framework offered by Kati Caetano who has traced established ways of representing Muslim women in journalistic photography. Finally, I argue that niqabis disrupt the normalized associations of the niqab with passivity, otherness, and violence by establishing intimacy with the audience.

Keywords::

• niqab
• niqabi
• Muslim women
• Islam
• self-portrait
• representations
• media

Acknowledgements

I thank Joseph Covey as well as the two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on this article.

Notes

^1. In the article I use the term “niqab” in reference to all types of women's Islamic dress that include a face veil. I only use the word “burka” when referring to media article titles or popular terms containing the word “burka” (such as “burka ban”), even though burkas are worn specifically by Afghan women, and are seen in the West much less frequently than niqab.

^2. Chan-Malik (2011) provides an elaborate account of how Western media, politicians, and feminists re-forged Victorian colonial Orientalism discourse into modern anti-Islamic rhetoric during the 1979 revolution.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Piela

Anna Piela is a researcher based at the School of Education, University of Leicester. Her main research interests are gender, new media, and Islam. Her PhD, conducted at the University of York, was focused on Muslim women's contemporary interpretations of Islamic texts conducted online. In addition to the monograph Muslim Women Online: Faith and Identity in Virtual World, she has published articles in several peer-reviewed journals. E-mail: [email protected]