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Resumo

Wagner, Sen, Permanadeli and Howarth compare the reasons for wearing the veil of Muslim women in a Muslim majority society, Indonesia and in a society with a Muslim minority, India. They conclude that particularly Muslim minority women display a variety of reasons and strategies with regards to the headscarf, which according to Wagner et al. serve in the construction of identity and as a means of opposition against stereotypes and prejudice. Taking the case of Muslim women in Western societies, I argue that the language of identity, stereotypes and prejudice is insufficient for understanding the agency of women donning the veil. Instead I propose a genetic cultural psychological approach focused on the cultivation of affect and the acquisition of durable bodily dispositions through cultural training. The veil is part of an entire expressive style and discursive accounts are only a minor part of that style. Recognizing that style – unlike propositional accounts – is inherently ambiguous and polysemic allows us to see how Muslim women are creating for themselves the space of an agency that is not primarily defined in terms of opposition or of other people's demands for proper reasons.

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