Review of “Questioning French Secularism: Gender Politics and Islam in a Parisian Suburb” (2012)

Questioning French Secularism: Gender Politics and Islam in a Parisian Suburb (2012) by Jennifer A Selby is one of the most recent titles published in SAR’s book series with Palgrave Press under the editorship of Laurel Kendall.

Cover of Questioning French Secularism. Image courtesy Jennifer A Selby

There have been many fine academic works on Muslim immigration into France, but most of these have focused more on official French discourse about Islam and secularism and on migrants’ public reactions to that discourse. Jennifer A Selby’s new book, however, joins a small but growing number of solid ethnographies that looks beyond the public discourse to explore the everyday experiences and shifting views of Muslim migrants inhabiting the banlieues of France. Selby spent two years living among mostly North African migrant women in the Parisian banlieue of Petit Nanterre, in the process discovering (without surprise) that the political rhetoric of French officials about the supposed oppression and backwardness of Muslim women relates only tangentially to the real-life concerns of the migrants.

As is requisite for a work on Islam in France, Selby lays out the assumptions about religion and public life that undergird French secularism, or laicité, assumptions such as the implicit equation of democracy, nationhood, and a public sphere devoid of (certain) religious symbols. Though Selby’s larger survey of the history of the theory of secularism seems odd at times, her more specific exposition of French laicité gives theoretical depth to her examination of dominant French attitudes about Muslim migrants, especially as those attitudes were expressed during the recent debates about the Islamic headscarf, or hijab. For example, Selby notes that the historical development of laicité in France has over time become conceptualized as freedom from religion, rather than freedom of religion. Because the hijab is interpreted as a religious symbol, then creating a laic public sphere means barring the public presence of the hijab. The French parliament accordingly passed the Law of March 15, 2004, that bans girls in “Islamic scarves” (foulards) from public schools.

While the passage of this law has been dissected in the academic literature—Selby reviews some of this literature—she adds several interesting points of analysis to the discussion, in the process highlighting the disparities between French public discourse and migrant reality. For example, Selby points out that the French focus on the headscarf is somewhat fetishistic and obscures Muslim women’s actual political and communal engagement. That is, the French voices that supported the passage of the law assumed the hijab revealed everything one needed to know about its wearer—that she was oppressed, uneducated, and needed to be liberated from her condition. What a veiled woman actually thought seemed to be of little concern. As Selby makes clear, however, the migrant women cared about many things, but they were singularly unconcerned about the issue of the hijab. The 2004 law passed with barely any comment from the women of Petit Nanterre. What did motivate them to protest were other, more fundamental issues concerning their community’s well-being: educational opportunities for their children, the drug trade in their neighborhood, and discrimination their children faced in school. About these topics the women of Petit Nanterre were hardly cowed into submission and were instead quite politically active, trying to create a better world for themselves and their families.

Another issue Selby highlights is the fact that Muslim migrants and French women maintain mutually unflattering stereotypes of each other. The French stereotype of the “Oppressed Muslim Immigrant” is well known. But the migrants often stereotyped native women as “Liberated French Whores,” falling back on the popular idea that women’s liberation can be equated with sexual looseness and immorality. This preconception of French women not only performs the boundary maintenance roles that stereotypes often do, but also serves as a way to police the behavior of migrant women within Petit Nanterre itself. Through public surveillance and gossip, women regulate their neighbors’ tendencies to assimilate into the dominant culture—being too “French-French” becomes equated with moral failings and potential alienation from the Muslim-French community.

Overall, the book provides a fine overview of some French attitudes toward Muslim migrants, especially women, as well as an ethnographic exploration of a Muslim community in France. Yet the chapters did not always relate well one to another; for example, the discussion of “Marriage Partner Preference” seemed somewhat out of place. Nevertheless, the book would be a great text for an undergraduate or graduate course on migration, gender and Islam, or European anthropology.

Kim Shively is professor of anthropology at Kutztown University. SAR’s Guest Contributing Editor Robert W Hefner is professor of anthropology and director of the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA) at Boston University.

via Anthropology-News http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/02/21/review-of-questioning-french-secularism-gender-politics-and-islam-in-a-parisian-suburb-2012/