Secular spaces and religious representations

Reading the headscarf debate in Turkey as citizenship politics

Bibliographic Data

ID4524940
AuthorsFeyzi Baban (Trent University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume18
Issue6-7
Pages644-660
Publication date2014-08-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2013.865900
OpenAlexW2035813873
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited16

Although in recent years there has been a relaxing attitude in Turkey towards wearing headscarf in the public sphere, the controversy surrounding the visibility and use of the headscarf has often been read through modernity/tradition dichotomy which sees the use of headscarf by women as a threat to modernity by religious subjectivities. The principal reason for this reading is that the citizenship regime in Turkey has not been simply about defining a framework of membership to a political community but rather has been used to construct modern subjectivity. This article attempts to dislocate the headscarf controversy from this dichotomous reading by moving it into the larger framework of citizenship politics. It argues that instead of interpreting the growing visibility of the headscarf within the public sphere that pits modernity against tradition, we need instead to identify the wearing of the headscarf as a specific ‘act of citizenship’ that challenges dominant citizenship practices

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Epistemology · Modernity · Political science · Political subjectivity · Politics · Public sphere · Sociology · Subjectivity · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Philosophy · Turkey's Politics and Society

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub