Relocating the veil: the everyday lives of young hijabi Britons under ideological culturalism

Abstract

This article centres the testimonies of young hijabi Britons as social landscapes shift toward ideological culturalism. Exploring the idea that culture is the defining element of social life and that individuals are bound to closed cultural categories, it sets out a context of endemic cultural racism, as voices from across the political spectrum marshal the veil to vilify Islam and promote cultural homogenization. The paper reports on a qualitative study privileging the testimonies of 18 hijabi women, aged between 18 and 26. It advances “everyday culturalism”, a social standpoint that shapes everyday relations to reflect culturalist ideologies and undermine cultural plurality. Three themes illuminate the young women’s experiences of being addressed in ideologically embedded ways: the white scripted hijabi subject; harm, silencing, and exclusion; and resistance through re-narration. Ultimately, participants’ reflections reject culture as the organizing force for selfhood, instead, asserting hijabi identities as multi-vocal, contextually contingent and contradictory.