From: "Erik Hoogcarspel" <jehms-AT-xs4all.nl>
Subject: RE: [BOU:] << an outline of an investigation of "l'affaire dufoulard" >> 2
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:10:49 +0100


 

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
[mailto:owner-bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] Namens John Evans
Verzonden: donderdag 8 januari 2004 9:58
Aan: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Onderwerp: Re: [BOU:] << an outline of an investigation of "l'affaire
dufoulard" >>

Hi

I would like to propose that what gets applied to "l'affaire du foulard" is
the methodology developed by Bourdieu and co-workers!

Would anyone be interested in contributing to << an outline of an
investigation of "l'affaire du foulard" >>?  I think that several
contributors to the list have tried to signal that taking this issue at face
value (so to speak) might not be the best place from which to start!

By way of a start:

1. Our own attitudes towards this issue (like other attitudes of other
people) are socially constructed and historically contingent. Hence there
should be an attempt to integrate into the investigation an analysis of the
practices and rituals surrounding the clothing (?) that is taken to be
appropriate for public spaces (?) in the societies from which we come (we
who seek to investigate this issue).

2. Does the use of the term "l'affaire du foulard" restrict the
investigation to French society? I don't think so - in fact I can see all
kinds of positive features in drawing upon as wide an area as possible.

Does it?
No, of coourse not. If this is a problem of the right to distinguish oneself
in a chosen way, it doesn't have anything to do with islam either. The
problem presents itself in a certain way becausse of the historicity of the
(f)actors. What happens if groups are allowed a distinct way of dressing
themselves or a distinct hairdoe? This is the case in India where every
religious group has it's own precepts. But there's one principal difference:
all show themselves in different ways, nobody hides. There is an element of
hiding in some groups, but this has been imported by islamic influences.
The ideal in India is diversity in unity. Show that you're different, but in
such a way that you support the unity. Get involved in the public space,
have respect for it! 
The greatest fear in India is communalism, the movements of groupseparation,
where the solidarity for the public space is broken. Then one group attacks
the other, as has been the case in recent hindu-muslim riots. 
When everybody shows his religious or group identity it's easy to give or
deny certain groups priviliges. This leads to the caste system. One cannot
escape from ones caste, one has to show ones caste. 
Another important difference: most groups recognize the symbolic function.
So everybody can allways adapt. A sikh youngster has to wear a turban, but
he can exchange it for a baseballcap, if he sees the baseballcap as his
version of a turban. This recognition is disappearing, many religious groups
take their rituals as factual efficient duties.
Now back to the muslim veil. In school teachers need to see the whole face
fo the pupils. They need to see who's who, whether they chew gum or whether
they are talking or if they underdstand something or not. It has been
practice for as long as there has been a school. The veil is a way of not
wholly take part, to keep something ofr yourself, to have secrets. But the
pupils want their teachers to give everything, not to hide, to play drama,
act convince explain, make it stick in memory. So the exchange is unequal.
In school you prepare to take part in society, hiding from it doesn't seem
to be a good start. The muslim ideal of a separate society for men and women
is impossible, which would be the final consequence, is impossible. Even the
most fundamentalist muslim doesn't want this. Remember when an imam talkes
of the good old days of Abu Bakr and Ali, that in those days women didn't go
to school. So wearing a veil  in school is allready a paradox.  

3. In seeking to investigate "l'affaire du foulard", we should be aware that
the issue, ""l'affaire", is itself a product of the social world. We should
therefore "retrace the history of the emergence" of this issue.

The historicity as I see it is that we 're part of a development of
globalisation (economical, social and cultural), where group priviliges
based on racial of religious prejudices have to be dismantled. If you keep
them up, they will only give more suffering and trouble as they eventually
go down. But it's also very necessary to form new groups or network based on
real shared interests, for instance neighbourhood committees or fanclubs or
hobbyclubs or philosophygroups, whatever.
To wear a veil because some wahhabite imam in Riad tells you so is not in
ones real interest. Next year this 'affaire' may be forgotten, but the same
problem will manifest itself in another way.

Sorry, no harm intended

erik


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