Politics, religion and gender. Framing and regulating the veil.

Heated debates about Muslim women's veiling practices have regularly attracted the attention of European policymakers over the last decade. The headscarf has been both vehemently contested by national and/or regional governments, political parties and public intellectuals and passionately defended by veil wearing women and their supporters. Systematically applying a comparative perspective, this book addresses the question of why the headscarf tantalises and causes such controversy over issues about religious pluralism, secularism, neutrality of the state, gender oppression, citizenship, migration, and multiculturalism.

Seeking also to establish why the issue has become part of the disciplinary practices of some European countries but not of others, this work brings together an important collection of interpretative research regarding the current debates on the veil in Europe, offering an interdisciplinary scope and European-wide setting. Brought together through a common research methodology, the contributors focus on the different religious, political and cultural meanings of the veiling issue across eight countries and develop a comparative explanation of veiling regimes.

This work will be of interest to students and scholars of religion & politics, gender studies and multiculturalism.

Contents:

Framing and Regulating the Veil: An Introduction Sieglinde Rosenberger and Birgit Sauer

Part 1: Frames and Framing
1. Veiled Debates: Gender and Gender Equality in European National Narratives Rikke Andreassen and Doutje Lettinga
2. Thinking through Secularism: Debates on the Muslim Veil in Europe Eirini Avramopoulou, Gül Çorbacioğlu and Maria Eleonora Sanna
3. Negotiating Belonging: Or How a Differentiated Citizenship is Legitimized in European Headscarf Debates Nora Gresch, Petra Rostock and Sevgi Kiliç
4. Discursive Europeanization? Negotiating Europe in Headscarf Debates Ilker Ataç, Sieglinde Rosenberger and Birgit Sauer

Part 2: Regulations and Actors
5. Legal Regulations: Responses to the Muslim Headscarf in Europe Sabine Berghahn
6. Regulating Religious Symbols in Public Schools: The Legal Status of the Islamic Headscarf in Bulgaria Kristen Ghodsee
7. The Limits of Populism: Accommodative Headscarf Policies in Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands Leila Hadj-Abdou, Sieglinde Rosenberger, Sawitri Saharso and Birte Siim
8. In the Name of Laïcité and Neutrality: Prohibitive Regulations of the Veil in France, Germany, and Turkey Sabine Berghahn, Gül Çorbacioğlu, Petra Rostock and Maria Eleonora Sanna
9. Non-Regulation: Opportunity for Freedom of Religion or Sedimentation of Existing Power Structures? Rikke Andreassen, Eirini Avramopoulou, Nora Gresch, Sevgi Kiliç and Birgit Sauer
10. Muslim Women’s Participation in the Veil Controversy: Austria and the UK Compared Leila Hadj-Abdou and Linda Woodhead. Conclusion: The Veil as a Case of Value Diversity and European Values Sawitri Saharso