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Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of

Feminist Geography
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Emotional geographies of veiling:

the meanings of the hijab for five
Palestinian American Muslim women
a

Anna Mansson McGinty

a

Department of Geography, Women's Studies Program, University

of WisconsinMilwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Bolton Hall 478,
Milwaukee, WI53211, USA
Published online: 03 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Anna Mansson McGinty (2014) Emotional geographies of veiling: the meanings
of the hijab for five Palestinian American Muslim women, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of
Feminist Geography, 21:6, 683-700, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2013.810601
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Gender, Place and Culture, 2014

Vol. 21, No. 6, 683700, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.810601

Emotional geographies of veiling: the meanings of the hijab for five

Palestinian American Muslim women
Anna Mansson McGinty*
Department of Geography, Womens Studies Program, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, P.O.
Box 413, Bolton Hall 478, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA

Downloaded by [Hong Kong Shue Yan University] at 00:53 21 August 2014

(Received 7 October 2011; final version received 19 February 2013)

This article explores experiential and emotional dimensions of veiling practices, the
emotional geographies of veiling, in relation to Muslim womens community
activism. By approaching the hijab as a symbol with both discursive effects and
personal meaning a psycho-social space this article offers important insights into
the intertwined, complex processes of internal embodiments and public manifestations
of Muslim female identities. Based on the analysis of life narratives of five Palestinian
American Muslim women in Milwaukee, a medium-sized city in the American
Midwest, this article comes to the conclusion that public visibility through veiling
entails both socio-spatial and emotional/internal processes. The analysis of these
womens narratives explores how veiling practices can guide personal piety and selftransformation, and contributes to the solidification of a politically and religiously
identifiable community.
Keywords: American Muslim women; hijab; visibility; Islamic activism; Islam in the
USA, emotional geographies of veiling

Introduction
The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed a wave of activism among
American Muslim women in the USA. Interestingly, the social and political climate post9/11 seems to have opened up a space for socio-religious and political activism, and as a
result, reinforced a sense of religious commitment and belonging (Ahmed 2011; Haddad,
Smith, and Moore 2006; Mansson McGinty 2012a). In response to racialization,
discrimination, and exclusion, Arab and South Asian Americans and Muslim Americans
in general have become more visible participants in anti-war movements as well as in
public discourses on civil and racial justice, immigrant rights, and integration. Or, differently
put, previously invisible citizens have become visible subjects (Naber 2008, 2; see also
Cainkar 2009; Nagel and Staeheli 2008).
In the aftermath of 9/11, the hijab, Islamic headscarf, has become a signifier of an
identity that defies Western demonization of Islam and the debasement of its women
(Haddad 2007, 254). It has become a symbol of resistance and solidarity, and in many
cases an expression and affirmation of an American Muslim identity. An easily discernible
marker of Muslim identity and belonging, for Muslims and non-Muslims, the hijab serves
as a means to assert visibility of a growing Muslim community. In this article, I discuss the
meanings of the hijab to five Palestinian American Muslim women in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. I explore the experiential and emotional dimensions of veiling practices, the
emotional geographies of veiling, in relation to the womens community and everyday

*Email: mansson@uwm.edu
q 2013 Taylor & Francis

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activism. Drawing on the womens life narratives, I demonstrate how the donning of the
hijab embodies a politics of visibility and activism in the context of the USA, and also
raise interesting questions with respect to the psychological and emotional ramifications of
demonstrating a particular religious and political self in public. The desire and undertaking
to be seen, to become more visible in the public eye as a Muslim woman, point to a
complex process of identity construction in the post-9/11 context where being Muslim and
being a woman become important sites for activism. By drawing on a recently initiated
study of Muslim women in Milwaukee, a medium-sized Midwestern US city, I aspire to
make both a humble empirical and theoretical contributions.
Although British human geographers, in particular, have done extensive research on
Muslim identities and communities in Britain in the context of gender, religion, urban
planning, youth, and racism (Dwyer 1999; Gale 2003; Hopkins 2007), surprisingly less
work has been done on Muslim women and identity in the USA (see Kwan 2008 for an
exception). Overall, there is a significant dearth of research on Muslim geographies in the
USA (Kong 2009). Recent important edited volumes have centered on religious women
and space from a global and historical perspective (Morin and Guelke 2007), including
geographies of Muslim identities with focus on the relationship of Muslim identity,
gender, and space (Falah and Nagel 2005) and the relationship between gender, diaspora,
and sense of belonging (Aitchison, Hopkins, and Kwan 2007), but none of these works
address the lived realities of Muslim women in the USA. Although small in sample, the
womens narratives reflect experiences that are taking place in a very segregated mid-sized
American city where Muslims constitute a small but growing minority.
Inspired by the scholarship on emotional geography and its call to acknowledge the
importance of feelings and emotions in human, social, and cultural life (Anderson and
Smith 2001; Davidson and Milligan 2004; Bondi 2005), I hope to add to this body of work
by drawing on ideas from phenomenological and psychological anthropology (Jackson
1996; Linger 2005). As an embodied practice, we need to further attend to the emotionladen experiences triggered by veiling and how these relate to the questions of public
visibility. If we claim that emotions matter (Davidson, Bondi, and Smith 2005, 1),
I believe we also have to depart from a certain model of self that acknowledges internal or
psychological processes of identity formation and making sense of the world (Chodorow
1999; Linger 2005). Such a claim rests on an understanding that emotions are not only
social but also psychological processes. My arguments in this article reflect my
interdisciplinary position as faculty in geography and womens studies, trained as an
anthropologist, and my desire to enter into interdisciplinary conversation about
experiential and emotional subjective life (cf. Bondi 2005).
Such an approach differs from that of some feminist geographers, who have primarily
looked at veiling through a poststructuralist perspective, analyzing veiling as a site for the
disciplinary administration of bodies (Gokariksel and Mitchell 2005, 150) and the
regulation of population (Secor 2005, 204). Drawing on Foucaults theories of biopower
and technologies of power and of the self, these important contributions describe the body
and subjectivity as discursively constructed and situated and the meaning of the veil as
something inscribed on the body through spatial practices and discursive powers
(Gokariksel 2009). This approach places great analytical importance to spatialized
understandings of the hijab (Secor 2002), as if it is ultimately space that provides
meaning to the hijab (Siraj 2011, 719), rather than a self-reflective self (although always
contextualized). Instead, by approaching the hijab as a symbol with both personal/
psychological and social and political meaning a psycho-social space this article
sheds light on the intertwined, complex processes of internally embodying and publically

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manifesting a Muslim female self. Based on the womens narratives, I argue that public
visibility through veiling entails both emotional/internal and socio-spatial processes. My
hope is that this approach offers intimate, personal and embodied accounts of the salience
of religion to peoples everyday experiences and contributes to the conversation on
the different potential avenues for feminist geographical inquiry of religion (Hopkins
2009, 9).
As with any identity category, Muslim woman is fraught with complexity and
heterogeneity as Muslimness is defined in relation to personal lives and other categories
of belonging (Nagel 2005). Due to the small sample, the article does not attempt to give a
general description of Arab-American Muslim women, neither does it claim to speak
about the meanings of hijab in general. By focusing on mostly religiously oriented Muslim
women and women who have decided to don the hijab, I do not wish to reify Muslim to a
mere religious identity or make it seem like most American Muslim women in the USA
wear the headscarf (in fact a minority do). Neither do I explore the complexities of their
hybrid identities; that would be a focus for another article. Rather, I intend to focus on the
intricate processes of veiling through the experiences of five self-identified Muslim
women in a mid-sized, American Midwestern city. Though a small sample, the narratives
point to interesting experiences and tendencies of veiling in a smaller, segregated
American city, a location often overlooked by scholars and journalists. Also, the narratives
constitute a rich material from which certain theoretical assertions can be made to further
the conversation on the various dimensions and meanings of veiling. Before I analyze the
womens narratives, I explore the literature of emotional geographies, the hijab and
veiling, as well as activism among Arab and Muslim Americans, and lastly the
methodology and context of the study.
Exploring emotional geographies
In the last decade, geographers have increasingly attended to emotions and explored the
salience of emotions in social life and its spatialities (Davidson, Bondi, and Smith 2005;
Davidson and Milligan 2004; Wood and Smith 2004). It is not my intention to offer a
representative overview of this impressive body of work, but rather focus on what I find is
a general trend within this literature that is of interest for my argument.
Primarily, I would like to raise an epistemological question: can we talk about
emotions without talking about a psychological self a self with emotional agency and
capacities? Overall, I find the concept of an emotional, self-reflective self curiously absent
in the work on emotional geographies (for exceptions see, e.g., Bondi 2005; Thien 2005).
Emotions are explored, bodies are felt, and authors and interviewees feel, but many of the
accounts avoid precise elaboration on what model of the self/person underlies the work.
Emotions, as a key area of human experience (Anderson and Smith 2001, 9), have
been defined by geographers as intimate structures of feeling (Wood and Smith 2004,
534), and emotional geographies as the ways in which our affective experiences of self
and others are conceptualized temporally and spatially (Wood and Smith 2004, 533).
Although these definitions seem to acknowledge some kind of self and internal
dimensions, geographical approaches toward emotions appear to treat emotions as
primarily culturally and socially constructed phenomena that can importantly shed light on
the social spatiality of life (Davidson, Bondi, and Smith 2005). Similar definitions can be
found in the more recent work on emotional geographies of activism, which has made
important contributions pertaining to the role and relation of emotions to activism and in
social movements and the emotional aspects of collective and public action and visibility

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(see, e.g., Emotion, Space and Society 2009). This work emphasizes the urgency to
understand the importance of emotions when studying peoples motivation and experience
of their activism. In the editorial of the above-mentioned issue, Brown and Pickerill
(2009, 1) define emotion by quoting Askinss piece in the same issue: We also begin with
the assertion that emotions are contextual, embodied, and socially constructed [ . . . ]
emotions are relational across relational spaces (Askins 2009, 10). Many of the issues
contributions speak of emotions primarily as social and cultural constructs and as
processes in relation to the body, physiological (preconsciously bodied) and socially
circulating (Askins 2009, 10).
In his article on emotional and affectual geographies, Pile asserts that the emotional
geographys subject is a psychological subject (p. 12). Besides a few exceptions (see, e.g.,
Bondi 2005; Conradson 2005) however, there appear to be limited accounts that seriously
and explicitly treat the subject/self and its abilities and emotions as psychological
phenomena. Although the emotional turn within geography signaled important
epistemological shifts, many informed by feminist scholarship (Wright 2010), one is
left to wonder if there are prevalent anti-psychological trends within emotional geography
similar to much of the work within anthropology of feelings and emotion (Chodorow
1999)? I make this claim, drawing on the book The Power of Feelings by feminist,
psychoanalyst, and sociologist, Chodorow (1999, 5), in which she demonstrates that
personal psychodynamic meanings are constitutive of meaning in general as much as are
culture, language, or discourse and that personal meaning created by the power of feelings
is central to human life. She criticizes culturally determinist accounts on gender, self, and
emotion (focusing particularly on anthropology and feminist studies) that overlook or
dismiss psychological life.
By acknowledging a meaning-making and self-reflective self, I do not mean to
adhere to any inherent essential self, separate and autonomous from context. Neither do I
intend to reproduce binaries such as personal/political, but rather direct attention to the
dynamic meaning-making of the self in relation to the world. In that regard, the approach
I develop here resonates somewhat with that of psychotherapy advocated by Liz Bondi
and David Conradson. Similarly, they attend, at least in my reading of their work, to
a model of self, a relational self to the emotional or affective dimensions of
relationships (Bondi 2005, 440) and psychosocial dynamics of subjectivity and
emotion (Conradson 2005, 105).
Pile (2010, 17) asserts that emotional geography must know why emotions are
important and interesting. I agree. The emotional and experiential realm is critical as it
sheds light on the parallel processes of individual meaning-making and social and political
formation (Linger 2005). In my research, there are multiple processes of internalizing a
faith and publically and socially forming a visible religious community/minority. Or, as
Davidson and Milligan (2004, 524) put it, Emotions, then, might be seen as a form of
connective tissue that link experiential geographies of the human psyche and physique
with(in) broader social geographies of place. By introducing the notion of the hijab as a
psycho-social space, I hope to further extend the discussions on emotional geographies,
reinstating that emotions entail psychological processes.
Here, I believe that phenomenological and psychological anthropology can contribute
with a few theoretical assumptions and insights. One general notion would be that the self
is understood as social and cultural, but yet not a passive subject of society and culture. As
anthropologist Anthony Cohen argues, individuals make the external world theirs through
their acts of perception and interpretation (Cohen 1994, 115). Hence, we need to give
attention to the agency and reflexivity of the self, the active engagement with others and

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available categories, symbols, and discourses (Jackson 1996; Linger 2005; Mansson
McGinty 2006). From this perspective, discourses are not understood as straightforwardly
copied into peoples minds (Strauss and Quinn 1997). As discourses or public
representations of the veil are not identical to the personal meaning and emotional salience
of the veil, I find approaches that engage in a straightforward semiotic, symbolic, or
discursive reading of the veil problematic. Instead, by attending to the often overlooked
realm of embodied experiences and subjective emotions and by acknowledging that this
realm is not a replicate of the public/political realm, insights can be gained into how the
hijab is internalized and imbued with life, which becomes an integral part of the self.
The hijab and veiling practices
Besides numerous studies on the Islamic headscarf and modest Islamic dress code within
the social sciences broadly (El Guindi 1999; MacLeod 1991; Tarlo 2010), there is also an
emerging body of work on young Muslim women in the USA and Canada, and the shifting
and diverse meanings of hijab, demonstrating individual reasoning, ijtihad (independent
reading and reinterpretation of the Quran), and political protest against Islamophobia as
well as patriarchal ideas within their own communities (Ahmed 2011; Hoodfar 2003;
Mishra and Shirazi 2010).
Feminist geographers such as Claire Dwyer (1999), Banu Gokariksel (2005, with
Mitchell 2009), and Anna Secor (2002, 2005) have made important contributions to the
scholarship on veiling. Their work explores, in particular, the contested nature of the veil
and its visibility and meaning in public and secular spaces. While Dwyer (1999, 21)
analyzes the multiple meanings attached to the veil among British-born Muslim women
and the possibilities of imagining and exploring alternative identities and femininities
beyond the dominant patriarchal rhetoric of the veil, Gokariksel and Secors work
focuses primarily on urban spaces in Istanbul, Turkey, in the context of neoliberalism and
secularism (Gokariksel) and dress and urban mobility and citizenship (Secor). Their
analyses illustrate the analytical significance of looking at the veil in relation to place and
space, demonstrating the importance of the spatial and political/discursive meaning
attached to veiling. Both Secor and Gokariksel examine veiling through a Foucauldian
perspective, studying the discursive production of veiled bodies. Secor (2002, 6) analyzes
veiling as a socio-spatial practice, a practice governed by different regimes, or
spatialized norms, which affect the meaning of womens veiling. In a more recent joint
project, they study how women form themselves as ethical subjects through the
technology of veiling-fashion (Gokariksel and Secor 2012, 1).
There are, however, some limitations with a Foucauldian approach to the veil. Based
on her ethnographic work on Javanese Muslim women, Suzanne Brenner (1996, 676)
argues that their motivations for veiling were simultaneously personal, religious, and
political. She states, drawing on Foucault, that veiling cannot simply be understood as a
certain technology of power over body, and continues that to reduce veiling to an effect
of totalizing forms of power on individuals elides both individual agency and the symbolic
role of veiling in processes of self- and social production (Brenner 1996, 689). Thus, a
poststructuralist approach to the veil rests on the assumption that the veiled subject is
discursively constituted, offering much less attention to variations and complexities within
the personal realm.
I sympathize with Gokariksels (2009, 666) description of the body as an embodied
and affective religious space and Secors (2007, 148) emphasis on religion as a way of
being in the world; hence, I further explore the experiential and emotional dimensions of

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veiling. Veiling is not merely a discursive practice, but a practice informed by particular
personal experiences, emotions, and quests. In line with what I argue in my book (Mansson
McGinty 2006), the veil is infused with emotional life and given personal meaning, and
thus a significant part of self-making. This approach also importantly elucidates the
multiple, and at times contradictory, meanings the veil has to the women, as well as the
dissonance between personal and discursive meaning. My approach to the hijab as a
psycho-social space echoes Obeyeskeres (1981) notion of personal symbols, which have
simultaneously cultural meaning and personal meaning. While personal meaning for
Obeyeskere implies unconscious conflicts and processes (cf. Chodorow 1999), I am here
exploring conscious and expressed personal emotional meanings.
Invisibility and activism among Arab and Muslim Americans
The racialization processes that Arab Americans have experienced in the last few decades
have been well documented. The Arab-American experience has been characterized by
exclusion, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and selective policy enforcement
(Cainkar 2009, 46). The narrative of the Muslim/Arab enemy (Jamal and Naber 2008)
has been perpetuated by the political rhetoric of war on terror as well as negative
representations in news media (Falah 2005) and popular culture (Shaheen 2008).
Naber (2000) discusses some of the paradoxes that have informed the Arab
Americans positioning within the US racial/ethnic classification system. Although Arab
Americans, according to the US Census Bureau, are defined as whites or Caucasians, in
most social and political contexts they are approached and treated as non-whites. Thus,
Naber argues that due to their unclear position within the US racial/ethnic system, Arab
Americans have been rendered invisible. In the light of this positioning, embodying a
Muslim identity through the hijab could be understood as one strategy of the women to
address the aspect of political and social invisibility.
Despite, and in resistance to, this invisibility, as well as the challenges brought about
by 9/11 such as increase in discrimination cases and hate crimes, the civil rights violations
posed by the Patriot Act as well as other initiatives of homeland security, Arab-American
activists and Muslim Americans have spoken up and made their communities more active
and visible part of the American society (Staeheli and Nagel 2008). Besides the fear and
pessimism fueled by homeland insecurities, the 9/11 attacks also triggered a salient
realization of civic responsibilities and demand for civil rights within the multi-ethnic
Muslim American community (Cainkar 2009). In her recent book, A Quiet Revolution, on
the activist involvement of women in Islamism, Leila Ahmed (2011) makes some quite
interesting observations with respect to American Muslim womens activism in the
twenty-first century and their struggle for womens right, civil justice, and equality. She
points to a convergence between a strand of Islamism, with its commitment to the poor and
pursuit for social justice, and the American tradition of activism in the cause of justice and
social change (295). I believe this liberal end of American Islamist influenced thought
(302) and the pro-feminist views emerging among Muslim women activists within central
national organizations, and their emphasis of the obligatory hijab, resonate well with some
of the womens narratives featured here.
The study, the women, and the city
This article draws on the life narratives of five Palestinian American women in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The life stories were compiled during 10 in-depth personal

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interviews with the women, whom I interviewed twice, with the exception of one who was
interviewed three times, and one who was interviewed once. The semi-structured
interviews are part of an ongoing project on Muslim womens activism and gender identity
in the area, and were conducted between December 2007 and June 2011. I met and
recruited the women through a Muslim womens organization in the city. The interviews
were often over 2 h long, and in the case of the follow-up interview we talked more in
depth about a few ideas that had come up in the first interview. The interviews took place
at one of the mosques or at cafes, but also twice at my place and at the home of one of the
women. I came to the interviews with questions divided into four larger themes, including
(1) childhood and growing up; (2) family, children, and work; (3) identity, hijab, and
everyday life; and (4) activism and community. Thus, the first interview with each woman
took the shape of a life narrative, although each interview took a unique turn guided by
what each interviewee found most important to talk about. The interviews were recorded
and transcribed verbatim. To protect the womens identities I have given them
pseudonyms.
Methodologically, I am drawn to person-centered ethnography (Hollan 1997), in
which individuals are asked to reflect upon their own understanding, experience, and
feelings about different aspects of their lives and larger social and cultural context. This
approach explores the intricacies of personal worlds (Linger 2005, 15) through the
intersubjective encounter of the interview, and the individuals serious attempts to render
personal emotions and experiences by employing available categories and representations
in idiosyncratic ways (Mansson McGinty 2006, 36).
In this article, one can hear the voices of Samira, Nadra, Dalia, Leila, and Rafa. While
Samira and Nadra were born in the early 1960s and are thus in their fifties, Dalia, Leila,
and Rafa are in their mid-twenties and see themselves as part of the younger generation (or
second generation) American Muslims. All women were born in Palestine (Samira was
born in Jerusalem) with the exception of Rafa, who was born in Milwaukee. As they
arrived in the USA as young children around the age of four, they grew up in the USA and
identify themselves, broadly speaking, as Arab-American Muslims. They see Milwaukee
as their home, a place where they were raised, went to school, work, and, in the cases of
Samira and Nadra, both are now married to Arab Americana and raised their own children.
All but Leila don the hijab and follow an Islamic dress code of modesty, which in these
cases implies a headscarf pinned underneath the chin and loose fitting clothing, such as
long skirts or longer tunics over pants. With the exception of Samira, the women come
from working-class background and grew up in the poorer neighborhoods in the southern
and northern parts of the city. Rafa, Leila, and Dalia placed strong emphasis on that they
grew up in poor, working-class, diverse neighborhoods where the population was
predominantly African American and Hispanic and whites were in a small minority
(Rafa).
The womens experiences take place in the backdrop of Milwaukee, a post-industrial
city dealing with serious segregation along race and class lines. According to an analysis
by the Brooking Institution of the US Census 2010 data, Milwaukee is the most segregated
city in the USA followed by Detroit, New York, Chicago, and Cleveland (Frey 2010). A
recent demographic survey of the Muslim Milwaukee community, conducted by my
colleagues and I in collaboration with Muslim leaders in the city, confirms that larger
segregation patterns are reflected within the Muslim community. The survey shows that
congregational membership among Muslims is divided along ethnicity and race and
economic capital, with the Islamic Society of Milwaukee (hereinafter ISM) located in
South Milwaukee serving a diverse immigrant community with ancestry mainly from the

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Middle East and South Asia, and the Dawa Islamic Center located in the impoverished
and deindustrialized northern part of the city, serving more African-American Muslims,
African immigrants, and inner city residents (Sziarto, McGinty, and Seymour-Jorn
forthcoming).
As the US Census is forbidden by law from asking questions about religious affiliation,
we are left with vague estimates, both on a national and on a local scale. Recent estimates
for 2010 indicate that there were about 3143 individuals with Arab ancestry in Milwaukee
county, which was 0.3% of the total population of 937,616 (U.S. Census Bureau 2006
2010 American Community Survey). Local Muslim leaders have estimated that there are
at least 10,000 Muslims in the greater Milwaukee area. From the above-mentioned local
survey, we learned that Milwaukee has a large proportion of US-born Muslims of Arab/
Middle Eastern descent. Of nearly 700 households (approximately 3580 respondents),
40% described their household as Arab/Middle Eastern (only) (Sziarto, McGinty, and
Seymour-Jorn forthcoming). Thus, although the Arab-American Muslim population in
Milwaukee represents a marginal group, it constitutes a rather significant portion of the
Muslim community itself.
While there were a few Muslims in Milwaukee in the beginning of the twentieth
century, it was in the 1940s and 1950s that Arab Muslims started to arrive in Milwaukee,
followed by Muslims from Pakistan, India, and Kashmir in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The number of Arab Muslims continued to increase in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily due
to the Israeli occupation and the 1967 war. This was when Samira and Nadra arrived with
their families. Besides the increased number of Palestinians during this time, Milwaukee
also became home to Arab Muslims from Egypt, Iraq, Jordanian, Syria, Lebanon, and
Morocco among others.
Many different organizations and institutions representing American Muslims in
Milwaukee have emerged in the last couple of decades with the ISM being the most
prominent religious, social, and cultural institution within the community. A few of these
organizations that have been of importance to the Arab-American community, including the
women in this article, are the Muslim womens organization, a newly established Islamic
resource center, the former Milwaukee branch of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee (ADC WI) and the student organizations such as the Muslim Student
Associations (MSAs) at UW Milwaukee and Marquette University and the Arab Student
Association (ASA) at Marquette. In what follows, I discuss how emotional geographies of
veiling relate to the womens activism. First, I explore the hijab as a psycho-social space,
which prompt both internal embodiments and public manifestations of Muslim womens
identities. Second, I consider the specific emotional geographies of veiling of one of the
women, Dalia. Third, I discuss activism through veiling and how personal meanings of the
veil manifest itself publically in the context of the womens activism.

Emotional geographies of veiling

I cant see myself not wearing it. I remember in the beginning, in the first couple of weeks, just
wearing it made me feel like something was on my head. So uncomfortable, because you feel
it, and now if I would walk out of the house and I dont have it I feel naked. It has become so
much part of my identity now; it is a part of me. It is a part of me. (Rafa)

What are the personal and emotion-laden ramifications of visibility through veiling? That
is, what does it mean experientially and emotionally to display a particular religious self in
public? How does the hijab gain strong ideological force in the context of an American

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city? How can Rafas experience of the hijab, expressed above, be an integral part of her
own self? To address these questions, I depart from two salient assumptions: first, the
narratives demonstrate processes of personal meaning-making and internalization of faith;
second, identities and meanings are imbued by personal quests and desires.
Throughout the interviews, some of the women deliberated on how their personal faith
and belief in the presence of God constitute a powerful source in their lives. For the women
who are donning the hijab (with the exception of Dalia, which is discussed later) it is
viewed as a religious obligation. In Nadras words: My understanding of the Quran is
that we need to cover. She expresses it as a personal and conscious effort in contrast to
the view that somebody forced her to wear it. Below, Nadra and Rafa reflect further on
their relationship to the hijab.
Because when you put on the uniform to go to school you are in a learning mood. You are not
in your play clothes. When I put my hijab on in public, Im very aware, conscious of how I
interact [ . . . ] When Im wearing the hijab Im more conscious of my action, which is all the
time (laughing) . . . This is my hijab and I have to respect the hijab. In a sense I have to be
good all the time because Im fearing God. Because this is what Allah told me to do, and I
better be good. So it is much more conscious (now compared to earlier). It is self-discipline
and that is what Islam is all about. (Nadra)
It is like Here I am; Im Muslim. It is like you are wearing a sign. You know what I mean?
People see that. So many Muslims dont look like they are Muslim. If you dont wear a scarf
people dont know.
[...]
People see you as an icon for hijab, and then if you are not (wearing the hijab) you can kind of
bend the rules a bit because nobody is going to notice you, you are not representing something
bad on Islam. But for me because I wear it, I always feel like it guides me. Im not going to get
caught in a situation that I guess is unsafe or is questionable because it kind of protects me in a
sense from doing stuff. (Rafa)

The womens experiences suggest that the indisputable visibility of the hijab is intimately
connected to the emotional and embodied experiences of it. Nadra and Rafa ruminate how
they see themselves as personifying Islam publically and how the very embodiment and
internalization of the religious symbol speak importantly to an affective sense of self in the
public, as well as in relation to God. Nadra understands the hijab as a uniform, as a form
of self-discipline, a disciplinary tactic in public, guiding and reinforcing Islamic ideas
about proper female behavior. To Rafa, it provides a space of protection both externally
and internally, as it reminds her of appropriate thoughts and actions I always feel like it
guides me. In reference to Rafas reflections, the emotional and sensory experiences of
wearing it, and further, the sensed necessity of it in public spaces so as to not feel naked,
have become such integral part of her religious self that she cannot imagine walking
outside the house without it (Siraj 2011). This allows for an intimate relationship between,
on one hand, a particular embodied space that offers her protection and, on the other hand,
the state of being visible to the public eye, insisting on her right to be different but equal.
As a psycho-social space, the hijab guides self-transformation and encourages the
adoption of Islamic doctrine, which promotes a certain gendered and religious self.
Through the donning of the hijab, the women internalize Islamic piety and discipline and
embody a Muslim identity (Brenner 1996). This view of the hijab rests on the theoretical
assumption that symbols do not carry or have meanings, but rather meanings arise in
interaction between symbols and human minds (Linger 2005, 35). The womens
narratives shed light on intricate processes of self-making and meaning-making, processes
that are certainly psychological, as well as social and spatial in nature. The decision to

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A. Mansson McGinty

cover was described as a very conscious and thoughtful decision that addressed a
transitional time (high school and college) and, in the womens view, reflected that a
person has achieved a certain level of Islamic knowledge and consciousness (Secor 2002).
Rafa decided to don the hijab in her junior year in high school as a sign of religious
awareness as well as readiness to publically display her belonging. In her own words, It
was more at that time in my life, I felt religious. I felt knowledgeable, had basic
knowledge, I felt that I knew enough. This resonates with present-day Islamic discourse
in the USA that the hijab should be a personal choice, indicating religious awareness and
piety (Mishra and Shirazi 2010; Schmidt 2004).
Samira, who is older, attended college in the early 1980s when the hijab was far less
common on American campus as today. During her university years, she came across a
diversity of religious interpretations and perspectives, primarily from foreign students, and
this made her aware that she knew rather little about her own religion. It compelled her to
study the religious sources further.
[W]hen I decided to wear the hijab, I think it was a very, what can I tell you, it really needed a
strength of character and a real strong commitment to the faith. Because at the time there were
really very few Muslims from the Arab world that would wear the hijab. (Samira)

Today, Samira is quite at ease with the hijab and understands it as part of a feminist self
and political statement:
As a Muslim feminist, what I want to say, I can be a Muslim feminist and look like this.[ . . . ]
Do I have to abide to someone elses definition of what a feminist should look like?

Rafa also talked about donning the hijab as something that required personal strength,
commitment, and faith, a practice through which she comes to define herself as everyday
activist on behalf of her faith.
There is so much more knowledge you gain by wearing it. So much more jihad, so much more
strength because you are constantly confronted by people who want to know. So, if you dont
know you go and find out. (Rafa)

Hijab becomes a means for jihad, an inner struggle to be a good Muslim, to embody the
traditions of the community and an ideal femininity, encouraging the continuous process
of acquiring religious knowledge and teaching others about Islam.
These religious ideas were, however, by no means shared by all participants. Leila who
claims Muslimness without the hijab is highly critical to the religious discourse praising
the veiled woman over the unveiled woman, pointing to a relative who veils but does not
otherwise implement the Islamic faith in her life. Still, because Leila does not cover, she
[her friend] is trying to school me. Leila rejects the notion that her faith is weaker due to
her non-veiling. [I]t (veiling) is just something Im dreading, I dont know what it is, I just
hate it! It is not only the actual wearing of the hijab (which she does when she visits the
mosque to pray) that she hates, but the social pressure and the lived consequences of her
not wearing it. Me acknowledging God doesnt mean praying five times a day. You know,
it is in the way I act. Also Dalia, who dons the hijab, is critical to the notion that it is a
religious obligation. Even after 7 years, she finds it conflicting since the meaning it has to
her does not correspond to the dominant, normative religious discourse, which asserts
veiling as a religious commitment and proper Islamic dress for a practicing Muslim
woman. Contrary to Rafas words in the beginning of this section, she exclaimed: It still
doesnt feel like a part of me. In the next section, I extend my argument that the emotional
geographies of veiling entail both psychological and socio-spatial processes by detailing
the meanings the hijab has for Dalia.

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(Not)Belonging conflicting meanings of the hijab

For Dalia, the decision to put on the hijab emerged from strong feelings of uncertainty and
alienation from what she referred to in our two interviews as mainstream white society.
As a result of a segregated city and poorly funded public school system she never felt part
of mainstream society, and in lack of other available identities in elementary school she
thought of herself as Latina. She and her family did not know many other Arabs or
Muslims, and most of my friends were Latino or African American, so I was really
confused as a kid.
She elaborated on the anxiety-driven notion of not really being anyone, the personal
need to belong to something and confirm to herself as well as others who she is. It was in
high school when she started to become more aware of her difference and background, and
in conjunction with 9/11 she experienced an inner need to publically and visibly mark a
particular identity for herself. She reflects: You start to think about your identity in terms
of ethnicity at that time especially if you are minority. If it werent for the scarf, I would
look like a Mexican girl, my friends were all Mexican. Her thoughts were realized the
first day of college.
It (college) was a completely new place; it was the easiest start. I just wanted to start fresh and
new [ . . . ] I wanted something that could identify me. It (hijab) is like wearing something on
your sleeve. And this was the easiest way for me to do that. (Dalia, my emphasis)

Putting on the hijab the first day of college, in a new place and at a new phase in life, meant
embodying a new identity. I picked an identity for myself, and I really didnt know how to
get there until a long time later, Dalia explains. This statement points to the gradual
psychological process of self-transformation and making sense of a newly acquired
symbol. The hijab gains particular meaning that addresses a personal identity quest and is
infused with strong emotions feelings of anger, loneliness, and exclusion and a strong
desire to belong (Mansson McGinty 2006).
I feel like I have brought trouble onto myself. I think it was all this passion to speak up about
things . . . I was really angry, I was a really angry kid . . . I was a very angry kid and I needed
to channel that somewhere. And this got me attention!

Although infused with conflicting feelings, donning the hijab brought about a desired new
sense of self at a crucial phase in life when moving from a predominately African American
and Mexican high school to Marquette which is upper middle class, white. During her years
at the university she became very involved in the ASA, always propagating Palestinian
issues. After September 11, she felt a need to defend who she was and her political
affiliation. The group she was identifying with, Muslims in a broader sense, was being
attacked, and as a result, she felt an urgency to show her stance. Today, veiling serves as an
everyday activism for a politically targeted group that had been unjustly treated.
I wouldnt say that Im 100% comfortable with why I wear a scarf, because . . . right now I feel
like if you wear a scarf it should be for religious reasons, and I dont feel that connection to it
religiously, so it is a little conflicting. [ . . . ] But then at the same time being a Muslim woman
in the U.S. I feel that it actually has helped me in a sense, because I feel like it is my expression
of activism even though I dont necessarily defend the religious reasons for wearing the scarf.
But, I defend the social reasons for wearing it in a foreign country. Yeah, I would say that. I
dont know if this makes sense (laughing). (Dalia)

To Dalia, veiling is not primarily a religious practice (ironically she understands faith as a
personal issue), but rather gains significant meaning to her in the context of signaling
political solidarity and political protest against Islamophobia. She expresses a strong
desire to find a solution to this inner conflict, caused by the gap between personal and

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discursive meaning (Strauss and Quinn 1996). At the same time, she underscored how
difficult it would be to take it off: I think the social pressure, the stigma that taking it off
carries, is too big. Her comment suggests the strong ideological power of the hijab in the
USA within the Muslim American communities. Not only is the religious discourse so
powerful that she feels like she is not wearing the veil for the right reasons, but she also
feels like the removal of it would stigmatize her socially, even if she has minimum
relationship with the local Muslim community.
Dalias narrative demonstrates the emotional geographies of veiling, how the hijab
addresses and triggers emotional experiences of self in relation to others a quest for
belonging and visibility in a segregated city. She describes a personal and spatial trajectory
from passing as a Mexican girl in an impoverished section of the city to a young Muslim
woman in a white affluent private university in downtown Milwaukee. Dalias experiences
further raise important questions pertaining to the dissonance that occurs when the
personal reasons for veiling resonate poorly with prevalent religious discourses, which
demonstrate that meaning-making is not an automatic, straightforward process but one
that generates multiple, and sometimes conflicting, meanings both within a person and
between a person and her community.

Activism through veiling

How do emotional geographies of veiling relate and translate to the womens community
outreach and activism? How does the psycho-social space of the hijab relate to visibility
and publically manifest a religiously identifiable community? I start with a quote from
Rafa:
People cant say that [Muslim] females are suppressed, because everything was run by us.
Because we also had more stakes in it. We cant hide here; it [discrimination] faces us. If
something happens, it comes back to us, we are the main targets. People see us. (Rafa)

A central theme that emerged throughout the interviews was how veiling embodies
politics of visibility and serves as a means of activism. Rafa stresses in the quote above
that during her activism in the MSA and ASA, women were much more active due to the
visibility of the hijab. As they publically embody a Muslim identity they had also more
stake in the activism an activism triggered by an urgency to act upon and prove
stereotypes wrong (Nagel and Staeheli 2008).
The visible and public nature of the hijab plays a significant role envisioning a
community, demonstrating the presence of Islam, and asserting space and belonging in the
city. It is as if no one wore the hijab, how would the rest of the society know that there are
Muslims in Milwaukee (Haddad 2007). Nadra explains: We thought women were the best
persons to do it [service to the community]. Because as Muslim women we are identified
by our dress and we really wanted to have an impact on the community. The desire to
been seen and defend ones faith, and thus, also ones sense of self, was strengthened after
9/11. In Nadras words:
9/11 forced us to be more visible. When we saw our faith being attacked that really hurt. My
faith was attacked, as was my country [ . . . ] Im out at least two nights a week speaking.
Everybody invites me. I have two church groups coming tomorrow for confirmation classes.
And this only started after September 11. (Nadra)

Samira and Nadra are the founders of the only Muslim womens organization in Milwaukee,
and since its start in 1994 they have been engaged in community outreach and partnership
with different religious and non-religious organizations. Samira explains: [We] came to the

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realization that the view of the Muslim woman was that we were oppressed, that we were
uneducated, that we cant speak for ourselves. We really just wanted to address those
stereotypes that were out there. Samira and Nadra are today involved in interfaith alliances,
delivering talks about Islam in public schools and at hospitals, collaborating with civil, nonprofit peace, and justice organizations such as Peace Action and the American Civil Liberties
Union, as well as being part of local initiatives such as a Reproductive Justice Collective. The
womens organization has also been successful in making the Muslim community more
visible in media, including having the local newspaper Milwaukee Journal Sentinel change
the column Church Services to Worship Directory, now a column where the Islamic
centers and masjids can advertise their religious services. After many years of community
outreach, Samira emphasizes an important outcome of their work: They now have a face that
they can put to the word Muslim. Furthermore, the women occupy salient roles within their
own community, influencing local politics and agendas. Samira has been the media
spokesperson for the Islamic center for many years, and, together with Nadra, a member of
the shura council, the advisory board, at the center. As such, the womens organization
reflects a microcosm of the larger national phenomenon of the extraordinarily dynamic
Islamic feminist activism (Ahmed 2011, 293) in the post-9/11 era, with its dominant form
of Islam from its obligatory hijab to its activist social and political agendas (299).
Participating in community outreach within various religious and secular spaces
throughout the city such as the food pantry at the Catholic church in downtown
Milwaukee, the UW Milwaukee campus through collaborative projects with the
university (Mansson McGinty 2012b), presenting a talk on Islam at the Rotary Club, and
envisioning Islam and Muslims on campuses through student organizations, the women
have not only made the hijab a visible symbol within the city, but also claim the city as
theirs. Despite experiences of hostility and stigmatization, there was little indication that
the women felt out of place or insecure in the city. Rather, they talked about feelings of
security and belonging. Rafa compared her own relationship to American culture and
Milwaukee to that of parents, who do not see the USA as their country: They always had
that fear, while I feel like this is my place; I know this place more than any other, so I dont
have that kind of fear. A similar claim is made by Samira when she thinks of herself as a
third generation immigrant because my grandfather was buried here (Milwaukee) and my
father lived here as a teenager and has been here ever since, and then I came here.
Visibility and activism as Muslim, however, take different expressions for Leila, who
does not wear the hijab, and sees herself as engaged in another kind of struggle. She is
highly critical to the local Muslim communitys attitude toward the hijab:
They are creating a picture that all Muslim women wear the veil, but thats not all inclusive
[ . . . ] It is not the only picture of the Muslim woman. When my mom found out that I was
starting the organization for the Arab Muslim American women she said: None of you are
wearing the veil, I dont know what you are doing!. (Leila)

Leilas experiences and her mothers comment point to how the hijab has taken a
monopoly in representing Muslim women due to its power of visibility as well as religious
discourse. When Leila was part of founding an Arab and Muslim women resource and
research institute, which aims to document the lives of Arab and Muslim women in the
greater Milwaukee area, her mother questioned her ability as a non-veiled woman to
represent Muslim and Arab women. Leila stresses:
There are different faces of Islam, it is not only represented by the woman of the veil. I think
the woman of the veil has advantage over me in the community, definitely, with her activism
while as I, they look at me and they think Im too modern, or too far away from the religion
and the community.

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This advantage was made clear when she, despite great credentials, was denied a
teaching position at an Islamic center when she indicated that she would not feel
comfortable wearing the hijab. Leilas activism takes quite different expressions as she has
to continuously prove her Muslimness without the hijab to both Muslims and nonMuslims. For Leila, non-veiling entails feelings of exclusion from the Muslim community.
Particularly in the political climate of post-9/11, non-veiling (Secor 2002) appears to be as
much of a choice as veiling.
Similarly, as I explored earlier, Dalia does not feel comfortable with the veil, although
she has decided to don the hijab. The hijab gains significant meaning to Dalia as a means
of everyday activism against Islamophobia as it displays the veiled Muslim woman as an
active participant in society an image that appears to have become a powerful prototype
for the Muslim American woman.
Because Im feeling that even if Im not putting on events and talking about being a Muslim,
or being an Arab, or being a Palestinian, I still feel in my everyday life it is a form of activism.
Even if it just incites a few questions here and there, even as basic as seeing a Muslim woman
in the public sphere where she is doing something, and being an active part of the society.
(Dalia, my emphasis)

Conclusions
Drawing on the life narratives of five Palestinian American Muslim women, I explore the
emotional geographies of veiling in relation to public visibility and activism. I argue that
the donning of the hijab and publically displaying a Muslim female identity through veiling
reflect salient processes of meaning- and identity-making. The womens narratives reflect
how the hijab, as a psycho-social space, is a symbol with both personal/psychological
meaning and discursive effects. The women embody and experience it in emotive and
moving ways that affect sense of self and its relation to surrounding society. Consequently,
there are both personal and socio-spatial dimensions of envisioning a Muslim female
identity in public through the hijab. Adopting the hijab encourages not only social and
political changes but also self-transformation and the strengthening of personal piety and
Islamic principles on female modesty and proper conduct in the public sphere.
Therefore, I argue that emotional geographies entail psychological processes of
meaning-making and that important insights are gained by paying attention to the
dynamic relationship between personal and emotional lives and discourses. This
approach allows an understanding of how symbols, such as the hijab, gain emotional
salience and how certain messages are reproduced. It also allows an examination of the
slippage between individual meaning-making and discursive power, as well as the
multiple meanings of the hijab among the five women. As indicated in the case of Dalia,
personal meanings assigned to the hijab do not always harmonize well with prevalent
religious discourses of the veil. It might also serve as an example when dominant
meanings are challenged, pointing to possible openings of change and reinvention.
Further, Rafas experience of non-veiling and Dalias fear of taking it off demonstrate the
strong ideological power that the hijab has acquired in the community and the social
consequences of not wearing it as a self-identified Muslim woman.
Through the politics of veiling (or non-veiling) in conjunction with community
outreach, interfaith dialogs, and collaboration with other social and political groups, the
women in the study manifest a particular collective identity in public, asserting their
presence in city in which they represent a small minority. As such, the womens activism
in Milwaukee presents a small-scale example of the emerging national movement of

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697

Islamic activism with its emphasis on the hijab and political and social engagements
within the larger American society (Ahmed 2011).
The womens narratives suggest that the hijab is a compelling symbol with both
psychological and socio-spatial dimensions, which simultaneously guides their faith and
self-making and solidifies a politically and religiously identifiable community in a smaller
Midwestern city post-9/11 two inextricably intertwined and mutually reinforcing
processes.

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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Graduate School Research Committee Award from the University
of Wisconsin Milwaukee. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor,
Lynda Johnston, for their constructive comments. The author appreciates the feedback from Judith
Kenny, Daniel Linger, and Andrea Westlund on earlier drafts of this article, and would also like to
thank the women who participated in this study.

Notes on contributor
Anna Mansson McGinty is an Assistant Professor of Geography and Womens Studies at the
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Her research interests center on Muslim identities in the West,
gender in Islam, Islamic feminisms, and person-centered ethnography. Her book Becoming Muslim:
Western Womens Conversions to Islam explores the identity formation of Swedish and American
female converts to Islam with focus on life story and conversion narrative. In her current project, she
focuses her studies on gender identity and community activism among Muslim women in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is also involved in Muslim Milwaukee Project, a community partnership
with Muslim leaders, which aims to document and map the diversity and complexity of a significant
Muslim population in the greater Milwaukee area, looking at basic demographics as well as issues
such as healthcare, community involvement, and experience of discrimination.

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A. Mansson McGinty

ABSTRACT TRANSLATIONS
Las geografas emocionales del uso del velo: los significados del hijab para cinco
mujeres musulmanas estadounidenses palestinas
Este artculo explora las dimensiones experimentales y emocionales de las practicas del
velo, las geografas emocionales del uso del velo, en relacion al activismo comunitario
de las mujeres musulmanas. Abordando el hijab como un smbolo con efectos discursivos
y significados personales, un espacio psico-social este artculo ofrece importantes
perspectivas sobre los entrelazados y complejos procesos de encarnaciones internas y
manifestaciones publicas de identidades musulmanas femeninas. Basado en el analisis de
las narrativas de vidas de cinco mujeres musulmanas estadounidenses palestinas en
Milwaukee, una ciudad de tamano medio en el Medio Oeste de Estados Unidos, este
artculo llega a la conclusion de que la visibilidad publica a traves del uso del velo
comprende tanto a procesos socioespaciales como emocionales/internos. El analisis de las
narrativas de las mujeres explora como las practicas del uso del velo pueden guiar la
piedad personal y la autotransformacion, y contribuir a la solidificacion de una comunidad
religiosamente y polticamente identificable.
Palabras claves: mujeres musulmanas estadounidenses; hijab; visibilidad; activismo
islamico; islamismo en los Estados Unidos; geografas emocionales del uso del velo
hijab

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