Amiraux, Valérie
Visibility, Transparency and Gossip: About some Conditions Enabling Islamophobia... and Citizenship
- 2014.
98
Starting with French laws of March 2004 and October 2010 which prohibit the wearing of certain garbs characterized as religious, this paper revisits two features of the implementation and stabilization of an islamophobic reading grid for the actions of some members of Muslim communities in France. The first one has to do with the non-intelligibility of religion (as a social phenomenon); the second is an injunction for veiled Muslim women to be both visible and transparent. These two features serve as a basis for a preliminary analysis of the terms of political participation and the conditions for citizen involvement. What does it mean to be at once a “good” citizen and a pious person? Along other research on Islamophobia, this paper is meant to prompt a theoretical conversation on such terms and conditions regarding Muslims living in France in 2014.