THE RHETORICS OF THE HIJAB: FASHIONING AN IDENTITY IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH

The hijab is a head covering worn by many Muslim women. Even though it can be reduced to a mere piece of cloth, the hijab is a contested form of expression that holds a lot of meaning for both Muslims and non-Muslims. To non-Muslims, the hijab can be viewed as anything from oppression to a label to designate an “other.” For some Muslims, the hijab may be viewed as a means of Muslim women representing Islam. Western media is ultimately to blame for perpetuating anti-Muslim rhetoric which fuels Islamophobia and contributes to the hypervisibility of the hijab. Some Muslims at the same time expect perfection from Muslim women to abide by the hijab to represent Islam, but often neglect the cultural factors that influence their beliefs. For Muslim women, embodying a religion can come with criticism from both Muslims and non-Muslims if they do not abide by certain standards to wear or not wear the hijab and counter Islamophobic rhetoric. This study seeks to uncover the rhetoric from both Muslims and non-Muslims that perpetuate the standards Muslim women are forced to conform to when it comes to wearing or not wearing the hijab, specifically in the American South, using Knoxville, Tennessee as the primary location. By offering a review of the current conversation surrounding the hijab, this study moves forward by conducting phenomenological interviews with Muslim women with varying relationships with the hijab to uncover the cultural, religious, and environmental reasons that influence them to wear or not wear the hijab. The findings of this study emphasize that Muslim women choose to wear and even not wear the hijab for religious reasons rather than cultural reasons. At the same time, the choice to wear the hijab or not is directly correlated to anti-Islam rhetoric from the media and location.