Negotiating submission. Pedagogies of coloniality in the everyday of veiled Muslim women in France and Switzerland
Article de Sélima Kebaili et Eléonore Lépinard dans la revue Ethnic and Racial Studies
Muslim women wearing simple headscarves (hijab) have been at the center of intense public scrutiny for several decades in many European countries, and they experience widespread ordinary forms of gendered and racialized discrimination. Our study of veiled Muslim women’s reported experiences of stigmatization in France and Switzerland identifies types of interactions that we conceptualize as pedagogies of coloniality. These interactions follow similar scripts in which interlocutors, who are members of the majority group, ask hijabi women to unveil or to veil differently even though it is not legally required in the context of the interaction. Our concept aims at analyzing more precisely how Islamophobia works at the intersection of race, religion, gender and age in everyday interactions aimed at disciplining visibly Muslim women. By identifying essentialization, scrutiny and mimicry as pedagogies of coloniality, we show that Islamophobia is a form of racism deeply shaped by coloniality.