Veiling in Fashion: Space and the Hijab in Minority Communities 9781788315784, 9781784539238

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To the memory of my beloved grandmother Aili Maria Kuki

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 Full-length khimar with face veil.

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1.2 Thigh-length khimar with long skirt.

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3.1 Screenshot from Queens Onlinestore.

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3.2 Screenshot from Queens Onlinestore Facebook page.

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3.3 Fashion image from Umma magazine.

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3.4 Fashion image from Umma magazine.

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3.5 Fashion image from Ana magazine.

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3.6 Fashion image from Ana magazine.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, thanks are due to the Muslim women who this book is about. Thank you for your generosity, your patience, and for showing me all of those lovely garments! I also wish to thank Reina Lewis for first suggesting that I write this book and for being such a brilliant and supportive colleague. Thanks to colleagues at I.B. Tauris and Bloomsbury for their invaluable help and support before and during the editorial process. Thanks are also due to the two reviewers of the original manuscript; you made me improve my work! Part of the data this book draws upon was collected with the help of two Finnish Cultural Foundation research grants – the Eeva Rauhankallio grant in 2012 and the Central Fund grant in 2013. University of the Arts London has financially supported the copyediting of this book. I thank Alba, Taisto, Sibylla, Suburro, Amarante, Ska-B, Aigea, Siberia, Abadia, Relæ, Mr Gidleigh, Emilia, A. Cini, Ora, Mr B, Jura and Mr T. Quin for their constant support. Above everyone else, beyond everything else I love in this world, I am grateful to David for all he is and all he does (and also for his very useful suggestions concerning this manuscript).

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INTRODUCTION: THE VEIL, FASHION, SPACE, EVERYDAY LIFE AND GLOBALIZATION

In January 2012 Sheikh Khalid Yasin visited Helsinki. A UK-based, internationally known black convert to Islam from Harlem and Brooklyn, he is a greatly admired charismatic speaker, but also a highly controversial character due to ‘radical Islamism’ being attributed to him. His visit provoked aggressive reactions and online threats from the Finnish radical right, and consequently the location of the two-day event where he was to speak was changed at the last minute and kept secret from the public. When I arrived at the event, I noticed a police car patrolling the area. Before I was admitted to the lecture hall through the women’s entrance, my bag was searched by a male security guard. I heard later that at the men’s entrance, body searches were also performed. These are security arrangements highly untypical for religious events (or indeed any public events) in Finland. There were certain common characteristics in the audience: especially on the first day there were many more women than men, the majority of the women were young Somalis and a significant number of them wore black full-length khimars (Figure 1.1) of light, flowy material. I was told by a Somali teenager sitting next to me in the audience that no young Somali girl would wear the type of thigh-long khimar (Figure 1.2) her mother wore: that was considered utterly old-fashioned. The long veil is actually a festive dress for most of these young women. Their everyday dress is more likely to be an abaya or a long skirt with a

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jacket, cardigan or coat, and a stylishly draped scarf, whereas the older generation tends to wear their khimars – that come in a wider variety of colours and patterns than the long khimar – on an everyday basis. During the two-day event where the Sheikh spoke to his audience, I observed women at intervals covering their faces when talking with men, or when asking a question during the lectures. This took two different forms: some put on the face veil for the duration of the event or after they had arrived at the event, some merely lifted part of their khimar to cover the lower part of their faces when they needed to communicate with men. These performative acts appeared highly significant. Within this particular field, the performance of piety is an act that signifies religious conviction and modesty. In this case, there was also a particular atmosphere of secrecy, exclusion and resistance; the potential safety threat probably contributed to the sense of religious commitment. But while many women engaged in such performances of heightened religious commitment, other women were in the bathroom fixing their make-up and carefully draped colourful scarves. I witnessed scenes of unmistakeable flirting between young veiled women and young men wearing white robes, beards and prayer caps (all such elements of appearance indicating a high religious commitment and performance of virtue). The religious nature of the event made it possible for these young people to take advantage of the mixed-gender environment that outside such events is not always readily available for them during their adolescence. The event in question brought together many elements I discuss in this book: local and global politics, fashion, community relations, performances of religious commitment and gendered spatial behaviour. Much more was present in the event than the few hundred Muslim youth; there was also an absence of those Finnish Muslims who consider the preacher a radical, there was a consciousness of global religious belonging (and religious exclusion), and also the transnational politics of counter-jihadism were present through the security threat. The garments worn by most of these women were likely imported from the Gulf countries or ordered via the internet, and the community divisions indicated by dress and behaviour reflected much more global divisions of community belonging. From intimate to global, from skin to supraterritorial, dress and fashion indicate, reflect and create complex forms of existence. This is a book about mundane everyday fashions and dress practices. Despite of the veil having been politicized and fetishized in an increasing variety of contexts throughout the colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial

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Full-length khimar with face veil. Illustration by the author.

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Thigh-length khimar with long skirt. Illustration by the author.

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eras, Islamic veiling remains a perfectly ordinary form of everyday dress practice for millions of women worldwide. And while both left-wing ‘Western’ media and Muslim lifestyle magazines alike are often enthusiastic about veiling images considered as signifiers of female emancipation, such as hijabi athletes, female business leaders and outspoken Muslim feminists, everyday life for many Muslim women has become both more challenging and more manageable due to global political, ideological, material, commercial and human interconnections. Therefore, this is also a book about politics, global connections and transnational influences as well as about clothes and fashion. Indeed, I argue that in the sociological study of dress and fashion it is not possible to separate the mundane and the globalized; to talk of one is to talk of the other. VEILING Regarding Islamic dress, there are terms used fairly uncontroversially that refer to certain kinds of garments with certain geographical histories. To say that these terms are not controversial, however, is not to say that they would mean the same in every cultural and linguistic context. I use terms such as abaya (‘a long-sleeved robe that covers the body from the neck to the floor’ (Lindholm 2010: 253)), khimar (‘a headcover that covers the hair and extends low to the forehead, comes under the chin to conceal the neck, and falls down over the chest and back’ (El Guindi 1999: 130 – 1)), jilbab (a ‘full-length long-sleeved outer garment’ (Tarlo 2005: 17)) and niqab (an Arabic face veil, ‘a freeflowing piece of black cloth of various lengths that covers the lower part of the face’ (Moors 2007a: 335)), but the definitions applied here are by no means universal. Depending on geographical context and cultural and linguistic background, the same garment can, for example, be called ‘khimar’ by some and ‘jilbab’ by others. Also styles of garments vary greatly, and what one woman would, for example, consider an ‘abaya’ might not be an ‘abaya’ to another woman due to factors to do with cut and style. There are also much more politically charged terms such as headscarf, veil and hijab. For example, there are disagreements as to the cultural meanings of the Arabic word ‘hijab’, and whether it should be

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understood to mean the same as ‘veil’ (or voile in French). According to Allievi (2006: 120), ‘[t]he word veil itself dramatizes the debate, referring at least implicitly and certainly psychologically to something that separates, conceals, masks, or blocks the view’. Scott’s (2007: 16) analysis of the French usage of ‘voile’ seems to make a similar point: Muslim women in France wear what they refer to as a hijab; in French the word is foulard; in English, headscarf. Very quickly, this head covering was referred to in the media as a veil (voile), with the implications that the entire body and face of its wearer were hidden from view. Yet others have argued that such connotations are by no means automatic, but instead ‘veil’ can be understood in a variety of ways: [T]he meanings assigned in general reference to the Western term veil comprise four dimensions: the material, the spatial, the communicative, and the religious. The material dimension consists of clothing and ornament, i.e. veil in the sense of [a] clothing article covering head, shoulders, and face or in the sense of ornamentation over a hat drawn over the eyes. In this usage ‘veil’ is not confined to face covering, but extends to the head and shoulders. (El Guindi 1999: 6) Hijab, on the other hand, can mean a barrier, something that prevents, conceals, covers or protects. In the Qur’an, it has both positive and negative connotations; it may refer to a metaphoric obstacle or division, as well as spatial separation, but it is not used to refer to women’s dress codes (Ruby 2006: 55 –6). The Qur’anic meaning of hijab is not that distant from the meaning of veil. Clearly there are similar meanings connected to both terms, but one must be careful not to assume the terms would mean exactly the same in all contexts. According to Ruby (2006: 56), ‘the distinction between the words veil and hijab is important, as the latter has Islamic association that differentiates it from the former term’. I am reluctant to think that the only difference between hijab and veil would be the Islamic association. I find it more plausible to say that the way separation and concealment are interpreted, and the common

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‘Western’ association of religious veil with invisibility, seclusion or lack of communication, may be much more significant factors separating ‘Western’ understandings of veil and hijab from ‘Islamic’ ones. Although I do not consider hijab and veil fully interchangeable terms, I still use both words in this book. One reason for this is that the meanings my informants connected to their dress practices were often equally fitting to both hijab and veil. Because hijab has become a globalized term referring both to female Islamic dress and the headscarf that is part of it, the term was also used by my informants to refer both to their broader dress and to their scarf. The garment-related term they used most commonly was, simply, scarf (huivi in Finnish), but they also referred to their dress practices as peitt€aminen, a word that can mean covering, concealing, hiding or protecting. As the Finnish word for veiling (hunnuttautua, hunnuttautuminen) is practically never used in everyday language – the word veil (huntu) almost exclusively refers to a bride’s veil and is not used in reference to religious veiling such as a nun’s habit – it is hardly surprising that ‘covering’ was the word used instead. I find the meaning of peitt€aminen close enough to veiling and hijab to justify the use of both. Headscarf is another term often used, especially in political contexts, when referring to female Islamic dress practices. Although it certainly captures the ‘Western’ side of what is constructed as a problem – the earlier dress controversies in Europe from the late 1980s onwards were largely about the scarf, although there have also been some concerning the type of body covering, and especially more recently many about the face veil and types of swimwear – it does not refer to hijab as a form of dress. Nor does it capture the material and embodied elements of veiling. The headscarf is either a piece of fabric, a part of a woman’s broader dress or, more frequently, a symbol and signifier of Muslim faith. Muslim women’s scarves are recognizable for three kinds of reasons: visual (ways of draping, wrapping and/or fastening the scarf) and temporal and gendered/spatial (worn at all times in all mixed-gender spaces). In sum, hijab and veil mean covering, hiding and protecting something, the terms come with material and spatial connotations and therefore are used interchangeably in this book. Headscarf, on the other hand, is typically used to indicate particular forms of political significance in Europe, in the context of headscarf debates and anti-scarf legislations. Therefore, the

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word refers to symbolic and political meanings rather than forms of everyday and lived dress practice. FASHION The meaning of the word fashion is contested. Some definitions are narrower, focussing on certain, historically specific organization of the fields of sartorial fashion (e.g., Entwistle 2015 [2000]). Some take a broader approach, stressing that fashion as social phenomenon is not a matter of one type of objects (such as garments) only but instead take a variety of forms which nevertheless have common characteristics (Aspers 2013). Aspers and Godart (2013) focus on fashion as a specific kind of organized change. They stress that fashion changes are not random, but happen in ways that are ordered in some ways, unlike, for example, fads which need not be related to previous fads. They conclude that fashion is ‘an unplanned process of recurrent change against a backdrop of order in the public realm’ (Aspers and Godart 2013: 185). According to this definition, fashion is a process that is outside of any individual’s control, or even outside collective control. Yet it follows some ordering logics. Fashion is also always public in the sense that it happens in a web of social relations, but here it is worth stressing that fashions may also happen in semi-public realms, especially in social contexts where fashion is restricted in the public realm but allowed in semi-public spaces (see, e.g., Finnane 2008). Fashion and the fashion system (or industry) are two different things (Entwistle 2015 [2000]). While I do refer to elements of the latter, especially in the chapter on commercial spaces, the main meaning of the word fashion in this book refers to socially ordered processes of change. One element of the contested nature of ‘fashion’ is connected to the globalization of fashion studies that has happened since the 1990s onwards, and especially in the twenty-first century (Almila and Inglis 2017). A rapidly growing body of literature concerning fashion systems in different parts of the world and in different historical moments challenge previous ideas about fashion’s locations, global divisions such as ‘West’ versus ‘non-West’, and historical divisions such as ‘modern’ versus ‘pre-modern’ (e.g., Belfanti 2008, Finnane 2008, Francks 2015,

INTRODUCTION

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Niessen 2003, Rabine 2002, 2016). One of the points this book seeks to make concerns the hybrid nature of fashion and fashion systems. To focus too much (or, indeed, exclusively) on fashion core locations and to consider (semi-)peripheral locations of little importance for understanding fashion phenomena, is to reinforce the global bias of fashion worlds. One way to tackle such a bias is to consider everyday fashions everywhere of equal importance for understanding fashion more generally (Craik 1993). To understand fashion’s globality, one must understand its intimate, everyday nature. Therefore the word ‘fashion’ in this book refers to three broader issues: (1) broad fashion processes related to dress, ideologies and politics; (2) everyday fashion practices; and (3) elements of the globalized fashion system. Veiling is very much ‘in fashion’ today, and there are fashions in veiling. A focus on veiling phenomena can also help us understand fashion phenomena more broadly, both at the everyday, intimate level as well as at the more structural level in terms of power, politics and economy. All dress phenomena are more or less influenced by politics as well as economy and everyday life, but it is in the extremely visible case of veiling that such political elements and their interconnectedness with fashion phenomena can be most obviously observed. This is not to say that I would not consider veiling as far too politicized by forces external to those who practise it. I agree with Reina Lewis (2015: 2) who argues that veiling is ‘underrepresented in the style media, overrepresented in the news media’. In my analysis I seek to make the point that while the politicization of veiling cannot be escaped and therefore must be acknowledged, an analysis of the political together with the intimate may help us see the interconnectedness of various phenomena more clearly. This is partly what my theoretical framing seeks to do. SPACE: HUMAN, SOCIAL, IDEOLOGICAL Space is one leading theme in this book. Space is where the intimate and the global come together, and globalization also changes space in many ways, making it stretch beyond its local characteristics. Deterritorialization, the process through which social, cultural, political and economic practices come to be dislodged from their territorial connections, can be

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understood as ‘a far-reaching change in the nature of social space’ (Scholte 2000: 46). Yet much of everyday spaces remain territorial and locally bound. Scholte claims that micro-level spaces are less important for understanding globalization than macro-spaces. I disagree. Similarly, as the focus on deterritorial and supra-state phenomena should not exclude an analysis of state’s significance (Brenner 1997), a focus on the macrolevel should not undermine the understanding of micro-level phenomena. I believe that understanding both may give us a more sophisticated comprehension of human existence today, and of the massive forces shaping it and being shaped by it. In such an analysis, I consider both material objects and the built environment to hold a central role. Therefore understanding how humans and space co-exist is crucial. According to Merleau-Ponty (1996 [1962]), body and space are inseparable; the human body inhabits space, as opposed to simply being located in it. Consciousness, the movements of the body and the objects the body aims at through movement are all spatially intertwined and, consequently, individual perceptions of the surrounding environment and objects in it are always mediated by the body as well as by the mind. Yet it is not only the individual’s mind and body which define how they are to perceive things and objects, but the objects and physical environment themselves have a central role in such perceptions. In a similar vein, it can be argued that ‘perception not only takes place in the mind but is based on a concrete, produced materiality’ (Schmid 2008: 38). Hence, the individual perceives through both the mind and the body, and the material reality within which they live also participates in the creation and operation of perceptions. Material reality also influences the physical body; both the form and the surface of body, as well as bodily techniques, may be subject to modification both by the individual themselves and others through material means, such as wearing shoes and garments (Falk 1995). The body – and dress practices – are also influenced by the physical environment: temperature, humidity, the movement of air. In addition to the obvious fact that human action happens in space, space also shapes human action. At the same time, space itself is shaped by humans. According to Lefebvre (1991 [1974]: 57), space pre-exists its actors, and this pre-existence ‘conditions the subject’s presence, action and discourse’, yet space is also produced by humans through the production of social

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relations, knowledges and institutions (Elden 2004: 184). In the words of Schmid (2008: 29), space and time ‘are both result and precondition of the production of society’. Fashion, historically and socially, can be seen as an essentially urban phenomenon (e.g., Rublack 2010, Simmel 1904). It follows from this that how space is organized in cities will have an effect on fashion and fashion systems, both at the level of individuals, and at the level of social and material processes. Lefebvre sees space as simultaneously physical, mental and social. Physical space is the ‘space that is generated and used’, while mental space ‘is the space of savoir (knowledge)’ (Elden 2004: 190). Social space is a space that is lived, but it is also ‘indistinguishable from mental space [. . .] and physical space’ (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]: 27). Thus lived social space is fundamentally influenced by, and intertwined with, mental and physical spaces. Space is a process functioning on various levels, both produced by humans and producing humans. Lefebvre understands space as a triad; space is at the same time perceived, conceived and lived. The relationship between the realms is dialectical: oppositional, conflicted, transforming and transformative. First, there are spatial practices which Lefebvre (1991 [1974]: 33) defines as embracing ‘the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation’. Spatial practice produces and reproduces space at an everyday level, and it necessarily has some cohesiveness, that is, the individuals inhabiting particular social spaces tend to engage in similar spatial practices. Spatial practices include all the everyday routines and patterns, which while being practised and performed also reveal how the space is perceived by individuals inhabiting it. Thus, for example, workplace practices differ from practices in those spaces perceived as places for leisure, for the reason that the workplace is perceived as a space for certain kinds of activities by those who participate in those activities. In this sense, spatial practices are hegemonic (Gramsci 1971), for they are shaped by powerful social groups, routinized and generally go unquestioned by the majority of the people who operate within them. The second, and dominant, type of space is that of representations of space: the realm of architects, urban planners and engineers. It is a conceptualized space that has a practical impact. It is informed by ideologies and knowledges, and functions through construction, architecture, design and urban planning. Representations of space are

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informed by hegemonic ideologies, and also serve to reproduce and communicate these. The difference of focus between these two kinds of spaces – spatial practices and representations of space – is that the first operates with things in space, while the second tends to operate on thoughts about space; the first is physical/material while the second is mental and ideological (albeit with concrete results in the form of buildings and plans). This means that through the built environment people are made to operate in certain, ideologically influenced ways. Such ideologies involve the communication of desirable and undesirable activities. Through architecture, design and urban planning, impermissible activities (such as sleeping rough in public spaces) can be made impossible or difficult, so that officially banning such activities becomes unnecessary. But at the same time, such architecture communicates the desirability or undesirability of certain groups of individuals moving and living in certain spaces in specified manners. This, too, often goes uncontested and unchallenged, being hegemonic and consensual in character (Gramsci 1971). Spaces of representation (or representational spaces) are dominated in character; symbolic spaces lived through images and narratives by their users. Yet they also allow for resistance; they are spaces that ‘imagination seeks to change and appropriate’ (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]: 39). Consequently, they are both hegemonic (due to representations of space and spatial practices having hegemonic influences on them), but also potentially anti- or counter-hegemonic, since the lived space allows for creativity, variety and resistance. These are alternative spaces, created often by artists and others who seek to imagine life differently, in non-hegemonic ways. Thus, spaces are conceived (representations of space), lived (spaces of representation) and perceived (spatial practices). The different realms are ‘interconnected, [such] that the “subject” [. . .] may move from one to another without confusion’ (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]: 40). Ultimately this means that both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic spatial elements co-exist at the same time – hence the contradictory nature of dialectics of space. For example, state hegemony can only really function if it is successfully integrated into everyday life (Kipfer 2008: 197). The state creates everyday life to a certain extent, but cannot control it fully. Yet space is always contextual, for ‘space and time do not exist universally.

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As they are socially produced, they can only be understood in the context of a specific society’ (Schmid 2008: 29). In other words, space is produced over a course of location-specific history. Therefore space must be understood as a history that is both formulated by and formulates the very social history of the particular location. Consequently, understanding space ‘calls for an analysis that would include the social constellations, power relations, and conflicts relevant in each situation’ (Schmid 2008: 29). Although I am not providing such historical spatial analysis per se, I wish to stress the importance of ideological and historical formulation of space for analyses of dress and fashion practices. Space can be used to control bodies and their representations, but bodies also actually create and re-create space. Lefebvre states that ‘each living body is space and has its space: it produces itself in space and it also produces that space’ (1991 [1974]: 170, emphasis in original). Therefore all embodied activities must be analyzed with reference to spatial structures and perceptions. Furthermore, dress practices (and how they are perceived) are either in consensus with the dominant representations of space (architecture), or they will be imagining, explicitly or implicitly, an alternative spatial existence in relation to what is dominant. One of the major claims of this book is that it is essential for sociology of dress and fashion to pay attention to the interrelations between dress and space. Spaces can also be considered as produced by and for specific fields. The powerful fields of politics and economy are necessarily present in spaces of representation. Bourdieu (1985) considers social space as a kind of summary of all the fields an individual participates in. Such social space is not necessarily about the built environment, nor is it fully defined by geography. Yet fields create spaces and environments. For example, the fields of state politics are located in buildings indicating power and centrality to the nation. Economic institutions often have similarly centred character. A fashion event may be constructed in a manner whereby the physical location of an individual in comparison to others embodies the position the individual holds in the field of fashion (Entwistle and Rocamora 2006). A garment retail shop can be understood as a space where the field of economy and fields of fashion come together (Rocamora 2013). In this book I discuss many different kinds of spaces: commercial spaces, community spaces, intimate spaces,

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deterritorial spaces, work spaces, leisure spaces, public and private spaces and spaces of representation. All these are related to social structures and different fields of social interaction. It is through the variety of spaces that the notion of dress as both intimate and public, both individual and global, truly comes in existence. But how can Lefebvre’s ideas link with globalization, and indeed deterritorialization? Can something that is bound up with architecture and local social relations be at the same time fundamentally intertwined with globality? According to Brenner (1997), Lefebvre’s ideas have in fact very much to do with globalization (albeit largely capitalist globalization). If space is ‘ensemble of social relationships’, it is also a matrix of interdependence and connections between geographical locations (1997: 140). According to Lefebvre, spaces are arranged through a globalizing ideal of rationalization – so the factory spaces in the global south are arranged according to similar principle as the highstreet shop in the global north, and moreover, these spaces are connected through both the abstract principles governing economic structures, and through actual, concrete networks of connections, such as garment trade routes. Indeed, globalization intensifies connections in the abstract space of economy and exchange value. So it is the case that ‘the globalization of capitalism has entailed an epochal transformation from the production of individual commodities in space . . . to the production of space itself’ (Brenner 1997: 142). And yet, although urban spaces have arguably come to be arranged according to similar principles everywhere, this is not a case of straightforward increasing of universalism and deterritorialization of principles in question. Instead, territorial activities are significant and very much continue to shape realities. And this is the important point of Lefebvre – ‘the worldwide does not abolish the local’ (cited in Brenner 1997: 144). In terms of analysis this means that no single spatial scale is primary for the analyst. Instead, all kinds of spatial categories – local, national, regional, global – are crucial. EVERYDAY LIFE: INTIMATE, EMBODIED, SOCIAL As already indicated, in some senses I am talking about very mundane matters in this book. Despite the global and political connotations, dress

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and fashion are largely everyday matters. They are intimate, embodied and micro-level phenomena. To understand such phenomena and especially their socially shaped character, I turn to the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His work, I argue, is well-suited for understanding how the intimate is part and parcel of more general social dynamics, and how the societal is also shaped by the intimate. It is especially important for the argument I develop in this book to consider issues to do with the human body and materiality. By materiality I mean several things. I consider garments as material objects, and the human body likewise as material. Moreover, I consider the very characteristics of these material objects as crucial; the characteristics of fibres, yarns, textures and structures of textile fabrics, physiological features of the human body and the physical elements of the built environment are all bound up in the wearing of garments. While Bourdieu did not pay much attention to materiality per se in his work, he did acknowledge the importance of material conditions for the development of individual habitus. He also considered the cognitive and the embodied as fundamentally intertwined, and both as internalizations of social structures (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]). His work therefore provides a good starting point for sociological considerations of dress and fashion. Bourdieu (1977 [1972], 1990 [1980], 1993 [1984], 1998 [1994], 2010 [1979]) understands human action to be shaped by habitus, but not through a simple one-way process. Habitus is a ‘system of dispositions acquired by implicit or explicit learning’ (1993 [1984]: 76) which creates strategies of action without necessarily implying design or intention. It can be called a ‘generative principle of regulated improvisations’ or a ‘system of internalized structures’ (1977 [1972]: 78, 86); in other words, it shapes human action but regulates it neither fully nor rigidly. Habitus is always acquired in a particular type of social environment in certain historical conditions and, underpinned by that history, has the power to reproduce the environment; each habitus tends to reproduce itself, and thus also related power structures, through the reproduction of both actions and actors. Through habitus, a common sense of the world and consensus among a group can be produced; hence, habitus is essential for the reproduction of social structures. Practices can be understood to be the result ‘of relations between one’s habitus and one’s current circumstances’. In other words, when we react to our social environments, ‘habitus focuses on our ways of acting,

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feeling, thinking and being’, and reflects our personal and relational history that we all carry within us (Maton 2008: 52). Yet Bourdieu (1977 [1972]: 95) argues that ‘[b]ecause the habitus [has] an endless capacity to engender products [. . .], the conditioned and conditional freedom it secures is as remote from a creation of unpredictable novelty as it is from a simple mechanical reproduction’. In other words, habitus may transform, and individual’s hierarchical position may change relatedly, but an individual can never fully escape their background and history. The human body is equally shaped by internalized social structures. Bodily hexis, ‘a durable manner of standing, speaking and thereby of feeling and thinking’ (Bourdieu 1977 [1972]: 94), is embodied history, and because it is the element of habitus that is least conscious, it is also the most naturalized element of habitus. Only in a situation where an individual becomes aware of their difference to others, will they be aware of their bodily hexis, but still likely to remain unaware of exactly why the difference exists, even if the nature of difference is understood (Bourdieu 2004). Bodily hexis involves elements such as standing, walking, moving, carrying the body, gestures and facial expressions. It is deeply embedded in techniques of the body (Mauss 1973 [1935]). Habitus involves ‘classificatory schemes’, evaluations of what is good or bad, right or wrong and so on, for a particular group. In other words, individuals of a particular group share common sets of tastes (Bourdieu 1998 [1994]: 8). Habitus is defined by two capacities: ‘the capacity to produce classifiable practices and works, and the capacity to differentiate and appreciate these practices and products’ (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]: 166). Thus in the process of consumption of garments, the customer will evaluate the producers according to how they ‘fit’ the customer’s habitusdriven taste, and when getting dressed, an individual is (at least partly) aware that they are creating an appearance that will be observed and evaluated by different kinds of others. Habitus is always field-relevant, that is, both its construction and its appreciation depend on particular social environments. Field can be understood as a setting of social locations of individuals, directly influenced by individual habitus and resources. There are multiple fields of different significance: field of politics, field of economy, field of education,

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field of fashion. Each of these fields follows somewhat autonomous logics of operation, yet they are never fully independent (Bourdieu 1993). Bourdieu (1990 [1980]: 66) describes the relationship between the habitus and a field through the famous game metaphor: [T]he ‘feel for the game’ is what gives the game a subjective sense – a meaning and a raison d’^etre, but also a direction, an orientation, an impending outcome, for those who take part and therefore acknowledge what is at stake. An individual is more likely to have a ‘feel for the game’ vis-a-vis a specific field if she is born ‘into the game’. If her entry to the field happens through conscious choice in a later point of her life – such as through religious conversion – she will have to go through a long initiation into the game and she will never play it as ‘unconsciously’ as those who already always played it. In order to enter a field, one must have what Bourdieu (1990 [1980]: 68) calls ‘practical faith’, that is, one must accept certain fundamental presuppositions of that field. Thus, when converting to Islam, as many of my informants had done, one must accept certain principles of the religion. Through internalization of such hegemonic principles, individuals can create a new religious habitus – a habitus where religious ideological and embodied elements play a significant role. Such religious habitus is built upon knowledge and practice: the knowledge of religious doctrine and performances of religious commitment (Rey 2008). Throughout the chapters in this book, I keep drawing upon Bourdieu’s ideas. I also seek to extend his framework and bring it together with considerations of space and forms of materiality in particular. In such a manner I both argue for the use of this type of sociology in studies of dress and fashion, and also seek to offer possible ways of further integrating sociological thought and fashion studies. GLOBALIZATION: IDEAS, HUMANS, OBJECTS, IMAGES All sorts of concerns are bound up with globalization processes: global consciousness and knowledge production, capitalism and new forms of

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production, technology and new means of communication, the increasing plurality of communities, multi-layered forms of governance which undermine nation-state integrity and democracy and security concerns to do with warfare, ecology and increasing regional and individual inequalities (Scholte 2000). All of these are connected to fashion and fashion industries in one way or another. All of these are also very much connected to globalized veiling phenomena. Trans-border and deterritorial spaces are where fashions and global veiling phenomena are at least partly created today. Globalization has been understood in a variety of ways (Scholte 2000). Internationalization has been used to refer to interaction across borders, liberalization to the removal of national barriers to resources. Universalization can be understood as the spreading of people and cultures universally, and Westernization (in its often-criticized form) as a form of cultural homogenization and imperialism. But Westernization can also be considered as a form of hybridization whereby local communities adapt external cultural influences, rather than become homogenized through uncritical adoptation of goods, ideas and customs (Frierson 2000, Jirousek 2000). All these concepts are territorial; fundamentally they rest upon notions of fixed locations, fixed distances between locations, fixed borders between states. For example, the term ‘universal’ indicates the territorial extent of a phenomenon, and ‘international’ indicates relations between clearly fixed nations and states, and therefore both are concepts ‘embedded in territorial space’ (Scholte 2000: 49). These are all are ideas which rest upon a relatively stable, territorial understanding of geography. Even when borders change, the territorial character of geography does not. But there are phenomena that are not locatable territorially, phenomena which change hitherto fixed distances, borders and locations. There are global phenomena which cannot be said to exist in any particular place, such as global social movements. There are forms of communication which make distance irrelevant. And there are trans-border transactions which make the idea of fixed borders seem immaterial. The deterritorialization of different phenomena, meaning that these phenomena are not easily locatable in a territorial sense anymore, is changing social geography. The emergence of global, transborder and virtual spaces have resulted in ‘a relative deterritorialization of

INTRODUCTION

19

social life’ (Scholte 2000: 50), and such changing nature of space has had multiple impacts on phenomena such as production, governance, identity and community, while these in turn have re-shaped social spaces. It is necessarily the case that ‘[i]f the character of society’s map changes [from territorial towards deterritorial], then its culture, ecology, economics, politics and social psychology are likely to change as well’ (Scholte 2000: 46). Some of the phenomena I discuss in this book are international, crossborder and territorial, such as the sales of physical garments. But some are trans-border and deterritorial, such as online financial transactions when shopping in webstores, and images and ideas of fashionability not locatable in a territorial sense. Global politics are partly national and partly globalized; for example, global terrorism cannot be considered fully territorial, and neither are responses to it exclusively territorial, even if many of them take nationalist forms. Global politics also have local consequences for individuals, some of which can be severe. For example, every Islamist terror attack in the USA and Europe has led to a peak in Islamophobic hate crime in multiple national contexts. An important part of globalization is human migration (Roy 2004). The Muslim diaspora in Europe is a result of many waves of migrations for a variety of reasons: work migration, political persecution, war, economic and ecological crises. Human migration creates new communities in new locations, but at the same time these communities remain tied in various complicated ways to their home countries. Migrations also influence communities back home through economic, material and ideological means. When talking about the Muslim diaspora, it is important to remember that not only have Muslims moved to Europe and North America, but there have also been various migrations within the ‘Muslim world’ which have influenced the economic situation of individuals as well as their interpretations of religion and their religious practices. For example, work migration to the Gulf countries has meant increasing wealth for the families of these migrants, but also the spreading of Saudi-influenced religious thought (often referred to as ‘Salafi’) to many places previously untouched by it (Roy 2004). Newly acquired economic capital has enabled more people to participate in consumption of fashionable garments, and thereby to contribute to the existence of Islamic fashion in locations such

20

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as Egypt and Yemen (Abaza 2007, Moors 2007). Egyptian, Turkish and Emirate fashion centres have further influenced fashion trends in locations such as Syria, Iran and Indonesia (Go€ karıksel and Secor 2013, Smith-Hefner 2007). As ideas and humans move across borders, so too do objects. The global fashion industry is universal in the sense that it has made the whole world its territory (if a very unequal territory). Garments move through trade routes, but also with humans when they migrate or visit various locations. For example, the Turkish Islamic fashion industry has a strong and long-standing hold over the German market due to its networks within the Turkish diaspora (Go€ karıksel and Secor 2013). As performing the Hajj pilgrimage has become possible for an increasing number of Muslims in different locations due to growing wealth, also dress preferences of the pilgrims have been influenced, and new preferences are expressed through garments bought during the pilgrimage (Renne 2013, Masquelier 2013). Yet the global fashion industry also exists in virtual spaces and there it follows its own deterritorialized logics (Aspers 2013). Fashion influences are no longer purely and wholly territorial, even though they are somewhat bound to locations considered fashion centres – in case of Muslim fashion, cities such as Istanbul, Dubai, Jakarta and London. Garments and fashions bring us back to politics: the politics of dress and fashion. It is well-known that veiling has been at the centre of political debates and a target of legislative regulations for well over 100 years, first across the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, and later on in Europe and North America. Recently, the face veil in particular has been a focus of attention in Europe (Brems 2014b, Ferrari and Pastorelli 2013), and summer 2016 saw a wave of anti-burkini initiatives, especially in France (Al Jazeera 2016a). While the face veil debates are territorial in the sense that they happen within nation-states, in national media, and in relation to national legislation, they are also multinational because they refer to governance beyond the nation-state (such as in the European Court of Human Rights), and deterritorial in the sense that they take similar forms in different places, and therefore the specific arguments involved cannot be called purely territorial. For example, despite its very marginal presence in European countries,

INTRODUCTION

21

the face veil has been the target of serious legislative restrictions across Europe (Brems 2014a). France, Belgium and the Netherlands introduced a general ban on it in 2011 and Austria in 2017. In Spain some regions have banned the face veil, and in Italy some towns have done the same. In Switzerland, the proposed law banning the face veil was rejected by the national Parliament in 2012, but a local ban was introduced in Ticino Canton after a popular vote. The issue has since risen again, as the lower house of parliament approved a draft legislation banning face veils in September 2016 – but the process to get the legislation confirmed is very complex, possibly involving a referendum (Independent 2016). In late 2016, Norway announced it plans to ban face veiling in classrooms (Hirvonen 2016), the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel stated that she supports a ban on face veils (Al Jazeera 2016a), and the country introduced a ban for face veiling during work hours for judges, police officers and state officials (Vuolteenaho 2017). There is no reason to believe that the debates and ban initiatives would end any time soon. The politics of fashion is not only about regional, state-level and multinational debates and legislation. Recently some designers, fashion brands and retailers have come under criticism for introducing collections and garments for the Muslim market. In March 2016, Dolce&Gabbana, H&M and Uniqlo were criticized by the Yves Saint Laurent founder Pierre Berge for their abaya and hijab collections, and the UK’s Marks & Spencer chain store came under fire from France’s women’s rights minister Laurence Rossignol for introducing a burkini in their UK stores – M&S had sold their burkini internationally for several years, but included it in their UK collections only in 2016. Politics and fashion are again bound up in ways that are both territorial and deterritorial: national, international and supraterritorial. The kind of wide framework within which I seek to place my empirical data and analysis is, I believe, crucial for the further development of sociology of fashion and sociological analyses of fashion. When taken seriously, dress and fashion are astonishingly rich media through which to observe social and individual realities. It is my contention that through the analytical focus on different kinds of spaces and occurrences within them, not only can dress and fashion phenomena be understood in its multiplicity and abundance, but also the ever-

22

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recurring sociological considerations around the relationships between subjects and social realities can be seen in a different light. As objects that fundamentally shape our social existence, clothes deserve profound and dedicated sociological analyses. It is through this sort of lenses that I view my empirical data. THE WOMEN IN THIS STUDY This book draws upon a variety of primary and secondary data: interviews, participant observation, observation in public places, documents and media reports. For a fuller description of the ethnographic research methods, the reader can turn to the Appendix. Here my focus is on introducing my main informants, those Muslim women who in long semi-structured interviews in the Greater Helsinki area – a hub of four cities: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen – in 2011 – 2012 shared with me their views on veiling, and described and demonstrated their dress practices. I am on purpose not exact about their ages and other such characteristics in the text, for the Muslim community in Finland is small and I wish to avoid the possibility of making these women recognizable. Therefore I cover the main demographics here and use anonymized quotes in the book throughout. I interviewed altogether 46 women – 20 Finnish converts to Islam, 16 Somalis, four Shi’a Afghan, three Shi’a Iranian and three Shi’a Iraqi women. Eighteen of the 20 Finnish women wear the veil; two of them would wish to veil but are anxious about the reactions of others and so try to apply Islamic dress norms in ways that are not directly detectable as Islamic. One of the women wears the face veil and one has worn it previously. Sixteen of the women identify themselves as Sunni Muslims, whereas four are Shi’a Muslims. Four of the women were between 19 and 24, seven between 25 and 34, three between 35 and 44, five between 45 and 59 and one was in her 60s. The majority of them converted to Islam in their early 20s or late teens, five of the women converted during their late 20s or early 30s, and one converted in her later life. One of the women converted in the 1970s, six converted in the 1990s and eight in the 2000s. Three of the Finnish women are adult daughters of Finnish converts who, like their mothers, have chosen Islam

INTRODUCTION

23

as their religion. As regards educational background, all the Finnish women hold either a further secondary degree or a lower or higher university degree or were studying or applying to study towards a degree. All the women either worked or studied, or did both, with two exceptions: one woman was on maternity leave and one on nursing leave.1 Among those who worked, there were office workers, teachers and nurses; two women worked in lower management, one in a secretarial position, one as a cook, one as a pharmaceutical worker and two in customer service. Sixteen of the women were married or had previously been married, and all the married women had children. When compared to women in Finland in general, the convert women had tended to have had children younger, and often they have more children, than their non-Muslim peers; many had three or four children, which is untypical in Finland (OSF 2014b). All 16 Somali women wear the veil, one of them wears the face veil and one has worn it previously. Five of the women were between 19 and 24 years old, four between 25 and 34, and seven between 35 and 45. One of the women had been born in Finland, and nine had been children when they arrived in Finland. The others had been in their 20s when they migrated. Seven of the women had arrived in Finland in the early 1990s, five in the late 1990s, and two women had only arrived after 2005. There was a generational divide as regards educational background among the Somali women. Whereas among the women over 35 years old, there were several women with no education or primary education only, and only one woman with a lower university degree, of the younger women some held further secondary degrees or lower university degrees, and many were studying or had educational ambitions. The Somali women, with a few exceptions, were either students, on maternity leave or unemployed. This is not untypical for Somali women – employment among migrant women in Finland tends to be very low (OSF 2014c), and Somalis as a minority are particularly vulnerable to discrimination in the labour market (Puuronen 2011). Those Somali women who worked were either self-employed or worked in lower service sector jobs or cleaning. One Somali woman had a temporary office job. Only three young Somali women were single, all the others were married or divorced and many had a number of children – up to six, seven or eight. This fits with the general trend

24

VEILING IN FASHION

that migrants, and particularly Somalis, tend to have more children and have their children younger than average Finnish women (OSF 2014a). On the other hand, many young Somali women also had smaller families – two to three children – and some had no children despite being married (although two recently married women became pregnant soon thereafter). This is in accordance with the trend that the average number of children of Somali women in Finland has decreased from 6.6 to four during the last 20 years (Markkanen 2013). Nevertheless, a weak financial status combined with a relatively large number of children significantly limits the economic capital available for many Somali women and this necessarily influences these women’s consumer behaviour, as we will see. The Shi’a Afghan women I interviewed were in their late teens, 20s or 30s and the Iranian women were all in their 20s. The Iraqi women were in their 20s and 40s. While all the Afghan and Iraqi women hold secondary degrees, the Iranian women all hold higher university degrees. The majority of the women were students, and two worked in nursing. While one of the Afghan women had given up her scarf when she arrived in Finland three years previously, and one of the Iranian women wore only a loose scarf that left some hair visible, all other of the women veiled. In general, the Shi’a women had arrived in Finland later than the Somalis. The Afghans and Iranians had been in Finland for less than ten years, while the Iraqis had arrived in the mid-1990s. Most of the younger women had no children, even though some of them were married. In this they follow the trend of later marriages and fewer children that Roy (2004) claims is common also in Muslim majority countries today. In addition to the women described here, I also spoke with many others informally, and observed their behaviour in public and semipublic spaces. The analysis in this book is not seeking to be a definitive account of Muslim women’s dress practices in Finland, but rather to point out the diversity of such practices – which nevertheless are patterned according to factors such as age, ethnicity, education and economic situation – and the fact that similar trends can be observed also elsewhere. While the Finnish context is important, it is equally important that the context itself is shaped and influenced through forms of globalization, and that the Muslim women themselves are

INTRODUCTION

25

bound into processes of cosmopolitanization and networks of global connections. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHAPTERS This book uses a variety of approaches to explore veiling phenomena. Each chapter is focussed on specific kinds of spaces, whether physically specific or deterritorialized. Each chapter can be read separately, as each starts with a chapter-specific framing, and an explanation as to how the chapter relates to topics debated in contemporary fashion studies. The book is arranged as follows. Chapter 2 contextualizes the empirical research field and provides a brief history of Muslim communities in Finland. Through the consideration of national myths, social customs, politics, attitudes and legislative regulations, a background is painted which will help the reader to locate the argument in its territorial context. This background is not strictly necessary for understanding and following the argument presented in the book. As the reader will see, many of the phenomena described and discussed are international, global and deterritorial in character, and relate to other studies conducted in different national and geographical settings. The empirical chapters are assembled according to this logic: Muslim women draw upon various resources when they purchase garments and accessories, drawing on outlets that are part of the global Islamic fashion industry as well as Euramerican fashion system (Chapter 3); the garments and how they are worn involve spatially mediated and socially constructed forms of comfort and discomfort, which are themselves simultaneously cultural, material and experiential (Chapter 4); the garments are deployed in various ways in order to protect the purity of individuals, objects and spaces, but such endeavours are not guaranteed, because of threats from polluting forms of space and behaviour (Chapter 5); garments used for veiling are both utilized within particular spaces, including the workplace, in ways which delicately balance differing social requirements, and are also used to manage and construct other spaces, such as sports facilities, in order to render such locations acceptable to religious principles (Chapter 6); finally, how garments are

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VEILING IN FASHION

used both to navigate within and create particular types of public and private space is considered, with an emphasis on how gender is negotiated in multiple micro-level practices (Chapter 7). Chapter 3 summarizes the existing literature on Islamic cultural industries related to fashion. It then moves on to analyze in detail the practices of cultural consumption and shopping in a minority context. Through the analysis of such practices, and also of problems experienced in relation to these, the complex nature of commercial spaces is explored. Commercial spaces in which production and consumption meet are fundamental for the creation of fashion, but often they are challenging spaces for minority women whose needs may be ignored by producers and retailers targeting larger market sectors. While the change towards mainstream brands recognizing Muslim consumers has begun in the field of fashion, many local limitations still restrict the dress practices of Muslim women in a minority position. Chapter 4 considers the variety of meanings embedded in the concept of comfort. Far from a straightforward, neutral word, comfort in fact reveals social and global structures embedded in an individual habitus. Embodied, physical, emotional and mental comfort is created through the materiality of garments, physical and social environments, cultural and material histories and global and local politics. The spatial character of comfort encompasses physical elements, such as climate, weather and the built environment and social elements, such as spatial practices, and the deprivation or prosperity of particular areas. Chapter 5 considers how communities are constructed, perceived and protected. Community spaces here mean both imagined deterritorial spaces, such as the global Muslim community, and specific spaces such as mosques and prayer rooms. Secular spaces, such as schools and certain spaces for leisure may emerge as potentially corruptive to the integrity of communities. The chapter argues that when constructing community borders, the purity or profanity of individuals, motivations, behaviours and spaces is essential. Self-regulation and the regulation of others aim to create a community that is both pure in itself and represents Islam in a way deemed appropriate and desirable. Thus community boundaries are drawn, recognized and protected against polluting social, spatial and individual elements.

INTRODUCTION

27

Chapter 6 focusses on spaces of specific character, namely spaces for work and physical exercise. From regulated workplace environments, such as hospitals, kitchens and pharmacies, to more open yet specifically arranged spaces such as schools and offices, dress adaptations create spaces for integration for female members of minorities. Spaces for leisure have much less formal, yet implicitly structured, characteristics. In certain spaces for exercise, flexible adaptations of the space and its gendered nature are sometimes necessary in order to bend the space to be suitable for veiling women. In public and semi-public spaces, sport and the veil may become tools for claiming and accessing space, and a means of acquiring new forms of spatial mobility. Chapter 7 considers the spaces of representation on the one hand, and the fluidity of public and private on the other. While the dominant realms of space construct the limits of possible in accordance with hegemonic ideas, it is nevertheless the case that individuals are left with some liberty as to how they respond to such spatial demands. Forms of visibility in relation to the dominant architectural background may become both a means of resistance and a means of conformity in society. Mundane garments such as t-shirts, and ‘exotic’ garments such as the niqab, may become tools of managing and using visibility, and resisting spatial definitions and expectations. Through the consideration of all these different elements, the book seeks to build up a multi-faceted picture of Muslim women’s everyday lives and the interplay of religion, space and materiality within them as regards veiling and clothing choices and uses. Spaces of different character discussed throughout the chapters are multi-layered and involve a variety of fields. I hope to demonstrate how sociological analysis of dress and fashion phenomena can be done as a simultaneous consideration of micro-, meso- and macro-level factors, of physical, mental and social elements and of individual, spatial and global characteristics. This book seeks to understand veiling phenomena in their richness and variety, from skin to globality.

2

INVESTIGATING THE VEIL IN FINLAND

It’s incredibly cold. I went for a walk along the Quays, and over to a great Sally Line Baltic ferry, wearing every single article of clothing that I had brought with me – cardigan, muffler, David Owen mac, Citro€en cap, gloves ... I like the Finns. They are serious, and straightforward. Like Germans, but without the sinister streak. ... I said to the Interior Minister, ‘What is your immigration policy?’ ‘We don’t have one.’ ‘Can anyone come into the country, then?’ ‘Sure. But there’s just one thing . . .’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘They have to look like us. Just like Finns.’ And he burst out laughing. (Alan Clark, Diaries, 27 September 1986, Palace Hotel, Helsinki) When the first Somali refugees, fleeing civil war, arrived in Finland in the early 1990s, they caused a shock at many levels. It was indeed the case that Finland had not very considered or formulated immigration policies, as such a policy would have been considered unnecessary – no one wanted to come to Finland, rather, many of the Finns were likely to want to emigrate! There had been waves of refugee migration before, but these never caused quite the stir that the Somalis

INVESTIGATING THE VEIL IN FINLAND

29

did, for a number of reasons to do with the political and socioeconomic situation as well as perceived differences and cultural factors. From a time when a government minister1 saw it fit to make jokes about assumed ethnic homogeneity and avoidance of difference, to a moment when integration strategies needed to be developed for people coming from radically different society, climate and culture, time was astonishingly short. Finland has had to adapt quickly to a wave of globalized forced migration that arrived unexpectedly to an unprepared country. MUSLIMS IN FINLAND Finland was a part of Sweden until 1808– 9, when it was conquered by Russia and became an autonomous part of the empire. This is significant for Muslim presence in Finland, for it was due to this development that the first Muslims arrived in Finland from Russia, and later settled down. This is also the time when, due to Russian influence, regulations against practising anything else than the Lutheran state religion – an inheritance from Swedish rule – started to be loosened. The first Muslims in Finland were soldiers and merchants from Russia, but it was only towards the later nineteenth century that Tatar peddlers, who would form the first permanent Muslim community of Finland, started arriving from Russia (Martikainen 2008). Tatars are a minority ethnic group with their own language, and the Finnish Tatars come largely from the Mishar Tatar subgroup that speaks one of the Volga Tatar dialects. The Tatar community was and remains small, approximately 1,000 individuals at most, and has always been tight-knitted. They remained practically the only Muslims in Finland until after World War II. Slowly other Muslims from places such as Turkey and North Africa started arriving then, due to studies, work and marriage. Between the late 1940s and early 1980s the number of Muslims had doubled to about 2000 individuals. An important structural change for Finland in the 1980s, and related also to the increasing Muslim migrant numbers, was the change from a country of emigration to a country of immigration. More migrants started to arrive in Finland, from increasingly varied backgrounds (Martikainen 2008).

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Several changes in domestic and international politics radically changed Finland’s migration situation in the 1990s. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Finland’s European Union membership in 1995 changed both border control and migration policies (Martikainen 2008). For example, Somalis fleeing the civil war in the early 1990s arrived in Finland mainly via Moscow and many of them initially intended to continue to other countries (Tiilikainen 2003). Muslim refugees from former Yugoslavia also found their way to Finland. From ‘no policy’ in the mid-1980s (which rather indicated loose immigration policy than no policy at all), towards a conscious liberalization of policies and the opening of borders, Finland found itself unprepared to the growth of refugee and immigrant numbers in the 1990s and early 2000s. By 2006, Finland’s Muslim minority had grown from a few thousand individuals to at least 40,000 (Martikainen 2008). How many Muslims there are in Finland today is a difficult question to answer. Some of the reasons for the difficulty of estimates are that not all Islamic organizations are registered as religious communities (Martikainen 2008) and not all Muslims are members of organizations or communities. One estimate of the number of Muslims in Finland in 2006 was between 37,000 and 41,000 (Martikainen 2008), when according to the official statistics there were 4,944 members in Islamic religious communities (OSF 2012: 9). At the end of 2013 Islamic religious communities in Finland had 12,327 members (OSF 2014b: 9), but the Institute of Migration estimated there to be approximately 70,000 Muslims in Finland, 1.3 per cent of the population (Kantola 2015). For the sake of comparison, of the 5.47 million people living in Finland, a bit over 4 million are Evangelical Lutheran (decreasing slowly from over 4.4 million in 2000), almost 1.3 million are not members of any religious community (increasing steadily from 0.65 million in 2000) and the traditionally largest religious minority church, the Finnish Orthodox Church, has approximately 61,000 members (OSF 2014b: 9). Muslims are the largest religious minority in Finland today, and as the majority of Muslims live in southern Finland, especially in the Greater Helsinki area but also in Turku and Tampere (Martikainen 2008), in these places the percentage of Muslims in the population, as well as their visibility, is significant.

INVESTIGATING THE VEIL IN FINLAND

31

Since the late 1990s, Muslims in Finland have become increasingly organized. There is a growing number of mosques (or, rather, prayer rooms, for Finland has only one mosque specifically built for the purpose, the mosque of the Tatar minority), religious organizations and internet communities. The Finnish Islamic Council (SINE – Suomen Islamilainen Neuvosto r.y.) was founded in 2006 (Martikainen 2008). Such official organizations are encouraged by the state, as their existence creates possibilities to govern Islam and Muslims, and institutionalize the religion in a manner deemed appropriate in the national context (Martikainen 2007). Yet the task of representing Muslims in Finland is difficult and controversial, for the communities are multiple and religious interpretations equally complex. The data for this book is not reflecting any particular Islamic doctrine, but rather illustrates the opinions and interpretations of my informants as they described them. I seek to make no statements as to what is according to religion or not, but rather to show the rich variety of interpretations present in even small communities. The global Sunni/Shi’a divide is relatively strong also in Finland. While some Shi’a Afghans claimed that also Sunni Afghans sometimes come to the Shi’a mosque, many Sunni Muslims do not consider Shi’as as ‘real’ Muslims – although there are exceptions to this, too. The many division lines among Finland’s Muslim communities are also partly linked to ethnicity, whereby ethnically Finnish converts often join the ethnic community of their marital partner. Among the Somali community, there are signs of a generational change, whereby the older generation is often Sufi-influenced, while many of the younger generation have Salafi-influenced religious ideas. Saudi money and religious influence operate in Finland, too, like in so many other locations around the globe, but some young Somalis also feel kinship with North American black converts, some of whom would be considered ‘radical’ by many Muslims and non-Muslims alike. All these variations influence also how dress operates within Finland’s Muslim communities, as we will see throughout this book. The diversity of Finland’s Muslims, and how they are grouped, connected and divided, is the reason why this book speaks of communities in the plural. Although considerable attention is paid to the ethnic Somali community as the largest Muslim community in Finland

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and to the ethnically Finnish converts to Islam, I also seek to stress that Finland is a home to a culturally and religiously varied Muslim population who cannot and should not be spoken of in reductive terms. FINNISH SOCIETY AND POLITICS Finnish national identity – as so many European national identities – is based on nineteenth-century ideas of a nation-state. For Finland, this was a time when the Swedish-speaking elites that had settled in Finland during the Swedish rule found themselves facing Russian rule instead. Many of them turned towards a ‘Finnish’ identity instead, stating that they were not Swedish, and did not want to become Russian, either. These educated elites started to construct national identity, but such a project had little significance for the majority of Finnish people at the time. Independence from Russia in 1917 (after the Revolution) was quickly followed by a traumatic civil war in 1918. The country remained politically and class-wise deeply divided for the next two decades. A homogeneous people in a culturally homogeneous and isolated country is the myth upon which ‘Finnishness’ has been built since the World War II. This myth involves the denial of many kinds of inequalities, such as gender, class and ethnicity. Contrary to the national myth, Finland was never isolated; it is a country between ‘West’ and ‘East’, and has had significant cultural, political and material influences through invasions, trade routes and migrations (Lehtonen 2009). Nor is Finland homogeneous. For example, Eastern and Western cultural customs, dialects and vocabularies differ sometimes radically from each other, as was keenly felt by Karelian refugees who settled in other parts of Finland during World War II when the Soviet Union invaded large parts of Karelia. The myth of undivided country was largely created during this time, as well as in the years following the war, and was often contradictory to the Karelian refugee and other minority experiences. Another established national myth is that Finland was never the colonizer, always the colonized. Even ignoring our very specific colonial history in terms of the indigenous Sami people,2 it is not true that Finland had nothing to do with colonialism. In terms of trade, the country has benefited greatly from the European colonial past (Puuronen 2011).

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33

In terms of religious colonialism, Finnish missionaries have been active in various parts of Africa throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Peltola 1958). Middle East in particular has been a target of orientalist knowledge production in form of anthropological research (Sakaranaho 2008). Orientalist imagery also appears in Finnish art, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Salin 2005). From the early twentieth century onwards, Finnish media has consistently used Islam as an othering frame of reference, seeking to establish Finland as part of ‘the West’ (Taira 2008). Therefore the ways how Muslim minorities are viewed in Finland today have long historical roots deeply embedded in European colonial histories. As it comes to opportunities for social mobility of individuals, Finland has been relatively open (at least until recently), and post-WWII, the educational level of individuals has been mostly – but not fully – independent of their grandparents’ education (Erola and Moisio 2007). This may be partly attributed to fairly equal access to education as well as a state-wide public schooling system – there are extremely few private schools in Finland, and in principle every child gets similar schooling until the age of 15. However, education after comprehensive school has been recognized as the single most significant element of Finnish latent class identification (Dutton 2010), and class differences are increasingly part of academic and political discourses in the twenty-first century (Erola 2010). Part of the myth of classless Finland is that the Swedishspeaking Finns, largely descendants of those Swedish elites that initially sought to formulate Finnish national identity in the nineteenth century, have for a long time been framed as the only upper class in Finland, and thus the upper class has been considered a foreign element in Finland, despite there in reality being a Finnish-speaking elite, too (Anttonen cited in Dutton 2010: 97). Aversion from elite status is such that many highly educated Finns working in middle-class positions actually consider themselves as working-class (Dutton 2010). The assumption that everyone is equal in Finland often leads to a denial of anything contradictory, such as the existence of classes, misogyny or racism. As an illuminating example of this, Puuronen (2011) argues that the unwillingness of Finnish researchers to use the word ‘race’ has led to them ignoring international research on race systems, especially on ‘whiteness’.

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Therefore yet another part of national myth, a dogma of equality, came to direct the postwar nation-building (Kolbe 2010). Finland is continuously pronounced a ‘woman-friendly’ country contrary to clear proof of a gendered salary gap, gendered segregation of the labour market, and widespread domestic violence against women (Julkunen 2010). Finnish concept of gender equality is based on a Nordic model of ‘sameness’ between genders, which in practice has led to supposed gender neutrality, and ‘gender-blindness’ that tends to favour men in the labour market (Saari 2013). Tuori (2012) argues that gender equality is often perceived as a Finnish attribute – as opposed to seeing gendered structures as results of policies, acts and practices that either promote or prevent gender equality. As she notes, Finland is not alone in Europe in claiming the status of a gender-equal country. ‘European’ supposed gender equality is often constructed through others, that is, migrants who presumably do not understand gender equality and thus are inferior in terms of their gender systems (Rottmann and Marx Ferree 2008). In the Finnish gender equality discourse, immigrants are constructed as ‘problems’ whereas Finland is constructed as equal, free and antidiscriminative. Such strategies are often evoked in populist anti-Muslim discourses. La€hdesma€ki and Saresma (2014) have demonstrated how anti-migrant populist strategies include the framing of white males as protectors of women and women’s rights, and arguing for rights for Muslim women, in order to reduce the (presumed) power of Muslim men. Equality in such discourses is often framed as a ‘European’ or ‘Western’ value, but its empowering elements such as equal pay and reproductive rights are ignored, removed or opposed. ‘Equality thus becomes an empty word used in the promotion of hegemonic power relations’ (La€hdesma€ ki and Saresma 2014: 310). The Finnish political field has gone through radical changes during the last ten years. The populist, Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) made considerable gains in the 2008 and 2012 communal elections, as well as in the 2011 and 2015 parliamentary elections (although they suffered a major loss in the 2017 communal elections). The party’s success in the 2011 parliamentary elections was attributed partly to the party’s ‘immigration criticism’ (Borg 2012), at a time when antiimmigrant attitudes among the Finns had been increasing (Haavisto and Kiljunen 2011). It can be argued that the Finns Party filled a demand in the

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35

political market where anti-immigrant themes were rarely explicitly engaged with by the mainstream parties (with the exception of some individual politicians). Shortly before the rise of the Finns Party, Kestila€ (2006) argued that the lack of radical right success in Finland was due rather to supply-side factors than to a lack of anti-immigrant attitudes among Finns. Finnish politics, attitudes and discourse clearly follow certain wider European trends, such as polarization of ‘the West’ and Islam, the increasing popularity of right-wing populism and the construction of Muslim women as both threat and victims (Bartlett et al. 2011). Some of these trends date further back. There were great political and economic changes in Finland in the early 1990s, partly due to Finnish trade having previously been strongly focussed on the Soviet Union. Therefore the collapse of Soviet Union hit Finnish trade hard, contributing to high levels of unemployment. Puuronen (2011) reminds us that the recent change in attitudes must not be simplified as a response to the current economic recession. Instead, it has its roots in the ideological and political shift that dates back to the early 1990s. Finnish financial and social politics took a neo-liberal turn in the 1990s and the political changes hit the most vulnerable hardest: unemployed people and lowincome families with children at home. Such changes and their lasting effects – and a relative lack of political and popular migration discourse – later on contributed to the success of the Finns Party in 2008 communal elections and thereafter. But the party has also been deploying more social democratic themes in their campaigning, and since the party joined the government coalition in 2015, the government’s extremely neo-liberal austerity policy has already significantly reduced the popularity of the party. Many of their lower-class voters were expecting protection rather than further weakening of their financial and social security. But recently the party has gained back some ground in polls. This comes as an aftermath of an astonishing political manoeuvre triggered by the election of a new party head, an outspoken anti-human rights, anti-immigration counter-jihadist – convicted of disturbing religious worship (uskonrauhan rikkominen) as well as incitement to hatred against group of people or community (kiihottaminen kansanryhm€aa€ vastaan) – whose online writings have inspired, among others, the Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik. The party was dismissed from the government and at the same time a group of party members formed a

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new group of MPs whose only purpose was to win back a slim majority in the parliament, in order for the government coalition to be rescued. It remains to be seen how this new group and the Finns Party will do in future elections. Local economic and political developments have been reflected in Finnish attitudes towards ‘strangers’. During the early 1990s economic recession and austerity politics Finnish attitudes became markedly antiforeigner, but then started to improve until 2008 (Puuronen 2011). Many authors have noted that the turning point of political and media rhetoric was the 2008 local elections (Puuronen 2011, Keskinen et al. 2009, Keskinen 2009, Rastas 2009, Raittila 2009). The recent arrival of Syrian refugees in 2015 has further hardened anti-immigrant attitudes (Toivonen 2016), but also provoked pro-refugee activism and grass-roots support movements. Those who are critical of or hostile to these asylum seekers often use a pan-European right-wing rhetoric of calling them ‘immigrants’ (maahanmuuttaja, mamu), or even ‘arrivers’ (maahantulija, matu) or ‘intruders’ (maahantunkeutuja, matu) rather than ‘refugees’ or ‘asylum seekers’. Such rhetorical battles happen across Europe when people are labelled as either legitimate or illegitimate seekers of safety and shelter. Such rhetoric strategies are important. Rydgren (2003) has argued that Radical Right Populist (RRP) parties influence both other political actors and people’s ways of thinking. As a result, xenophobic attitudes, and the expression of them, become legitimate. Such developments can be detected also in Finland. After the Finns Party opened the ‘migrationcritical’ and often openly xenophobic discourse, politicians from other parties have joined in (Keskinen et al. 2009, Raittila 2009). While attitudes do not directly lead to discrimination, general attitudes in the society with regard to discrimination and legal sanctions influence individual discriminative behaviour (Aaltonen et al. 2009). Hence, if discriminative rhetoric and behaviour becomes politically legitimate, it together with anti-immigrant attitudes is likely to cause discriminative practices at the everyday level. The increased xenophobia visible everywhere in the society is likely to have consequences for veiling Muslim women due to their recognizability as apparent representatives of Islam. Public discourse around migration issues in Finland has tended to ignore migrants’ voices, and to stress the presumed threats of migration (as opposed to possibilities created through migration) (Puuronen

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37

2011). The people participating in the discussions and debates are politicians, migration and integration authorities, and individuals who participate in discussions in a variety of internet fora (Keskinen et al. 2009). Immigrants are typically framed as either threat or victims in these debates. The threat frame – migrants are ‘illegal’ – tends to be more powerful than the victim frame in both Finnish and European journalism (Horsti 2009). The change in the tone of migration discourse throughout Europe dates back to before 2001, but the change has become more marked since the New York terror attacks of that year (Keskinen 2009). One significant characteristic of the Finnish migrant discourse is that it differentiates between those who come to work, and those who are considered to be a burden, that is, refugees. As refugees in Finland have mostly come from countries such as Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan (and more recently Syria), and the work-related migrants have often been ‘Western’, the differentiation seems to have racist connotations (Puuronen 2011). A recent characteristic in these debates seems to be the denial of a status of needing help as described above. There is also a certain lack of critique in the mainstream media of anti-immigrant discourses, which contributes to the racialization of individuals becoming seemingly acceptable. The new actors in the field – the Finns Party and their loud supporters, but also more radical neo-nazi groups – are perceived to not behave according to the rules of political correctness, but they have gained increasing symbolic power in discursive terms nevertheless (Puuronen 2011). Politicians from many parties have claimed that ‘immigration critics’ are silenced with accusations of racism (Keskinen 2009). According to Rastas (2009: 47, my translation) ‘[t]he public discourse about racism seems to be more about what is not racism. Racism is talked about when the speaker wants to deny that their or their friends’ speech or actions are connected to racism’. One might claim that the whole society avoids facing accusations of racism. Racists are always other people, living in some other places or in the past. They are always individuals and exceptions to rules (Lehtonen 2009). Thus racism is constructed as an exception and its structural and structurally enacted character is denied. Along similar lines, Finnish mainstream journalism tries to give an impression of Finland as a multicultural country through visual means, especially when the articles have nothing to do with migration. However, in the stories covering

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immigration issues, negative stereotypes and their visual expressions abound (Haavisto and Kivikuru 2009). When considering whether acts are racist, one must not only look at whether the motives of a certain act were racist, but also at the consequences of racist acts. The political parties tend to be interested only in the former (Horsti 2009). Racist crime is an increasing problem in Finland. Those at highest risk are Somalis, Turkish, Afghans, Iranians and Iraqis (Puuronen 2011). Somalis and Arabs have previously reported more negative experiences than other groups in a wide range of everyday situations and with a variety of state and other actors (Jasinskaja-Lahti et al. 2002). Not only are they at high risk compared to other migrant groups in Finland, this is also the case on a larger European scale. According to European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights research in 18 EU countries in 2009, Finland’s Somalis experienced more violence and intimidation than any other minority group in Europe (cited in Tuori 2012: 277). Yet in Finland more attention is paid to presumed problems within immigrant communities than hate crimes, racism and discrimination (Tuori 2012). On 18 August 2017, a deadly knife attack took place in Turku, southwest Finland. On a global scale, the attack was relatively minor: two victims died, eight, including the attacker, were injured. Yet national and international media coverage were enormous. Quickly, the incident was declared the first jihad-inspired terror attack in Finland, or even the altogether first terror attack in Finland. Unsurprisingly, Finnish media followed the common Euramerican line of declaring attacks as terrorism only if the suspect is brown, in this case a young Moroccan man. Those acts of violence committed by ethnically Finnish people that the Global Terrorism Database of the University of Maryland lists – ten of the recent ones targeting asylum seekers – have been framed as at the most hate crime and often as drunken incidences (Wallius 2017). Finnish mainstream media clearly subscribes to similar racialized logics that are frequent in the USA and in Europe. NORMATIVE AND MINORITY DRESS IN FINLAND According to Lo€ nnqvist (2010), one defining aspect of Finnish dress is the relative genderlessness of many popular garments in Finland.

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He further claims that Finnish fashionable dress has more to do with activities than class signification. This was largely, although not fully, the case for some decades, until the early 2000s, when openly expressing the widening income and wealth gaps became more socially acceptable (Kolbe 2010). However, European and North American fashions had for a long time influenced Finnish dress, and fashion and fashionability were ideologically linked to modernity and belonging to Europe and ‘the West’. Elements of the national tradition of Finnish dress may be observed for example in the case of well-known Finnish design company Marimekko that is said to have built its popularity on ‘functional, aesthetic, personal, durable, timeless, genderless and safe’ garments (Lo€ nnqvist 2010: 354). Finnish dress can be said to aim to demonstrate ‘freedom in the sense of freedom from the physical body [plus commitments to] consensus, and democracy’ (Lo€ nnqvist 2010: 354). Of course this is not the whole truth of the Finnish dress system, but one may argue that many iconic garments in Finland reflect the myth of equality that can be observed in the society in general. Also, overly stressing femininity and sexuality through dress is often frowned upon in Finland. Dutton (2010) has written in detail how the Finnish middle classes define ‘appropriate dress’ in comparison to different kinds of others. As regards consumption, his informants condemned different kinds of immodesties: conspicuous consumption of the rich was considered arrogant, vain and materialistic, while the vulgarity of those with (presumably) lower education was also due to their conspicuous use of accessories, label clothes and make-up, and in particular imitating ‘American’ styles. Such latent class distinctions were drawn especially by wealthy, highly educated middle-class people. In the late 1990s the majority of Finnish consumption patterns certainly demonstrated no desire for conspicuous consumption, but rather for modest and ‘rational’ use of money (Wilska 2002). Although class consciousness has increased and consequently so has more conspicuous consumption in recent years, large numbers of Finns still believe in inconspicuous consumption. Koskennurmi-Sivonen et al. (2004: 446) state that in their research about hijab practices in Helsinki, Finnish Muslim women’s dress was ‘consistent with what we know about Finnish-born women’s attitudes towards clothes in general’, meaning that ‘[t]hey like comfortable and

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timeless clothes that are not too conspicuous’. Visual conspicuousness is indeed often considered suspicious in Finland, and the modesty of not drawing attention to oneself is considered extremely important to how the Finnish middle class defines good manners and appropriate dress. Thus it is only to be expected that veiling Muslim women in Finland face suspicion due to their dress: they break several ‘rules’ of how ‘typical’ Finnish dress is constructed. Muslim women’s very visibility goes against the norm of inconspicuousness, and the gender difference that the hijab underlines breaks another important form of cultural hegemony, namely that of genderlessness. Muslim women are not the first minority that has marked their ethnic or religious belonging through dress in Finland. There have been, and are, sects of Christianity, such as Ko€ rtti (to be found mostly in Savo and Ostrobothnia) and Laestadian (in Ostrobothnia and Lapland) that at least previously have followed certain dress rules. While Ko€ rtti dress – nowadays rare, although experiencing a recent revival – is a formal, dark dress style following strict regional cut and fabric regulations (Eerola 2013), Laestadians follow a general rule of modesty in dressing. The most visible minority in Finland was for a long time the local Roma people. The women, who often wear a highly conspicuous dress including black, wide, heavy, full-length velvet skirts with layers of petticoats, lace- and pearl-decorated light-coloured shirts and large jewellery, are particularly recognizable and are often subjected to hostility and discrimination as a result. The new highly conspicuous minority in Finland, Somalis, today favour a variety of veiling styles. While a minority of them combine trousers, tops, tunics and scarves, the majority of young Somali women wear combinations of abayas, skirts, jackets and scarves. The slightly older generation favours skirts, abayas and khimars. Such a style was not traditionally worn in Somalia. Before the 1970s, Islamic veils were worn by Arab and Persian settlers only (Akou 2010b). Somali women wore instead Dirac, a full-length, sleeveless, rectangle-shaped dress-like garment, often made of translucent fabric (Isotalo 2017). Some Somali women only took on the hijab in Finland, as a marker of their ethnic and religious identity (Tiilikainen 2003), while those who had veiled already in Somalia often became more conscious of their dress through the reactions of others when they arrived in Finland (Marjeta 2001).

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Within the Somali community, the veil may also serve as a tool to control in particular young Somali women’s sexuality through community surveillance and social regulation (Isotalo 2006). Not all Muslims veil, however. For some, the hijab is an unnecessary provoker of hostile reactions (Virtanen and Vilkama 2008), and it can also function as a marker of difference within Muslim communities where the veiling Muslims are considered overly religious, and overly ‘Arabic’ by some (Sa€ a€va€la€ 2008). Non-veiling is also often constructed as appropriate in light of ‘Islamic’ doctrine: to not veil is not necessarily equivalent to not being religious (Tiilikainen 2003). FINNISH LEGISLATION AND INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS The Finnish Constitution declares equality of individuals, and guarantees the freedom of expressing, declaring and practising religion. Such constitutional rights, however, are also declared by the constitutions of countries where certain religious practices are banned in public institutions or public places. Therefore it is more important to understand how individual’s right to religious freedom is related to the state and wider legislation. For example, The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has repeatedly allowed so-called ‘wide margin of appreciation’ to countries such as France and Turkey, which means that the ‘secular’ character of a state has been considered more significant a factor than an individual’s right to religious freedom, when these two are in conflict (Westerfield 2006). While some parts of the Finnish public sphere are secularized, Finland is not a secular country as it comes to how the state is organized. The Evangelic Lutheran Church and the Orthodox Church enjoy special rights, and particularly the former is connected to the state with many ties. Two legislative elements are important when evaluating Muslim communities’ position in Finland: interpretations in terms of freedom of religion, and legislation against discrimination. The Finnish legislation on freedom of religion dates back to 1922, and it resulted in the registration of the first religious Muslim community in 1925 (Martikainen 2008). The law guarantees the right to organize and

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register as a religious community, and an individual’s right to be a member or not be a member of a religious community or church. In terms of discrimination, Finnish legislation makes a distinction between equality (tasa-arvo) that deals with gender equality, and parity (yhdenvertaisuus) that covers every other type of grounds for discrimination, such as ethnicity and religion. The first parity legislation dates back to only 2004, when it was formulated in response to the European Union’s demands about Member States’ antidiscrimination legislation (Aaltonen et al. 2009, see also Lewis 2013b). Forms of legislation are not equally powerful, however; when making a complaint about discrimination a person may need to consider which grounds of discrimination is most likely to lead to positive results – the legislation against gender discrimination (tasa-arvolaki) was initially significantly stronger than the law against other kinds of discrimination (yhdenvertaisuuslaki) (Aaltonen et al. 2009). This led to the formulation of new parity law in 2014. The legislation states that all representatives of the state or municipalities, organizers of education, as well as private employers have the duty to promote parity. This is usually interpreted as not only forbidding direct and indirect discrimination against individuals or groups, but also enabling positive discrimination when deemed necessary. The new law also centralized the handling of complaints, which had previously been handled only at the municipal level. The principal aim is for officials such as the Ombudsperson for Parity (v€ahemmist€ovaltuutettu) to give recommendations and statements, as well as judgements on individual cases, which are expected to be followed and can be enforced through sanctions, but do not hold the legal status of court rulings. Finland has ratified treaties of the United Nations and the European Convention of Human Rights. Once ratified in the Finnish legal system, such treaties come to define the lowest level of human rights protection each individual is entitled to: ‘within the Finnish legal system, these international obligations themselves also have the status of the law incorporating them’ (Venice Commission 2008: 20). What is significant here is that these treaties are considered binding by the Finnish legislative system, and also that they define the minimum protection of individual rights. This principle of human rights-friendly interpretation ( perusoikeusmy€onteinen tulkinta) means that the international treaty which guarantees

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highest protection to individual rights becomes the lowest level of protection in the national context. Thus the Finnish interpretation of international human rights treaties differs from, for example, the French interpretation where laïcite is a stronger principle than freedom of individual religious expression in the public sphere. Therefore, constitutional and legal protection of individual rights is very strong in Finland. What is important to stress here is that these rights are supported by the organization of the Finnish parliamentary and legislative systems. Any changes to laws that the government, individual members of Parliament, or groups of citizens wish to suggest, must go through processes of legal consideration, performed by public servants rather than politically committed decision-makers. If a proposed law is found to be against the Constitution, the committee of public servants may either recommend that the law proposal be rejected, or they may suggest changes to the proposal which would make the proposed law constitutionally acceptable. Thus the legal protection that minorities enjoy in Finland is far less dependent on political changes than are many everyday issues, such as racism and hostility, that individuals encounter. In Finland, the Constitution guarantees not only religious freedom but also the right to wear clothes of one’s choice. This became clear when Ha€meenlinna prison, in Southern Finland, practised a categorical ban on the use of prisoners’ own clothes. Muslim women’s scarves where exempted from the rule because ‘the scarf is an elementary part of a Muslim woman’s life’ and the prison could not provide the women with scarves. Following a complaint from other female prisoners, the Parliamentary Ombudsperson considered the practice of a general ban of personal clothing illegal, for basic individual rights and equal treatment are guaranteed to everyone (EOAK 1455/2007). There are very few specific regulations on veiling in Finland, but neither are there many explicit statements allowing it. In one exception, wearing a scarf in passport photographs is specifically allowed in Finland as long as the scarf does not hinder identification (see EOAK 2079/2002). In line with this, the official webpage of the Finnish Police gives a variety of visual examples of correct and incorrect wearing of a scarf in a passport photograph.3 In less formalized manner, Finnish schools allow the wearing of a headscarf – the only local exception to this was overturned in 2010 when a local Muslim family questioned the

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general headgear ban practised in one southern Finnish primary school (Mattson 2010). At the state level, there is no legislation for or against the hijab. Skjeie (2007) has claimed that schools Finland follow a policy of ‘selective regulation’ of the hijab in the sense that it makes a distinction between face veiling and other kinds of veiling. However, she does not provide any details with regard to Finland but lumps it together with Sweden where, according to her, in 2003 the National Education Agency issued directives that allow schools to ban face veiling. There is no such general directive in Finland. The school policies in accommodating various forms of hijab are based more on local negotiations with the students and their families than any general regulation. When one of my Somali informants at the age of 15 decided to wear the niqab for school (because she thought it was ‘cool’), she was not forbidden to wear it, but her mother was invited to the school to discuss the matter. The school consented to the girl’s dress choice, but she personally faced severe bullying on the part of the other pupils in the school. Nevertheless, she continued to wear the face veil for several years until finally taking it off for pragmatic reasons related to her workplace. In accommodating and governing a minority, several kinds of policies may be used. Phillips (2005) makes a distinction between extension, exception and autonomy policies. The latter, which means partial legislative self-governance usually in cases of property and family law, is not practised in Finland in respect to Muslims. Both extension – whereby minority groups achieve similar or the same rights as the majority – and exception – where a general rule is considered discriminating in case of a particular minority and thus an exception is made – are practised in various ways. So, when freedom of religion is granted to all, extension of rights is practised. But when a school specifically allows for religious headgears while banning other headgears (Mattson 2010), the principle of exception is evoked. Yet areas remain where minority rights are not considered with as high a level of appreciation as the parity law indicates. The national Police Law ( poliisilaki) is one such example. This law and related decrees state explicitly that the police uniform cannot be worn with any religious or ideological symbols. The National Police Board justifies their anti-hijab policy through various arguments, including suggestions that the scarf causes a potential safety risk, might cause aggression on the part of others

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and would endanger the reputation of the police force as reliable and impartial (Leskinen 2014). Such arguments are not considered valid everywhere; for example, Sweden’s police officers are allowed to wear religious headgear. When the decision of such policy was formulated, the Swedish police commissioned designer Iman Aldebe to create a scarf that would not cause any safety hazards and would visually ‘fit’ the police uniform (Naib 2015). The Finnish ban has not yet been challenged beyond the local level. No complaint, to my knowledge, has been made to the Ombudsperson for Parity or to other state officials, let alone to international bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights. Therefore it remains open to question whether the stance against religious headgears is the final word in the debate. Given the police force’s aim of recruiting a diverse body of officers, it may be that the case is not closed yet. It is also considered a constitutional right to cover one’s face in Finland. The situation where this became apparent was the preparation of a law banning participation in public events or gatherings while masked. In 2004, the government suggested a general ban to covering one’s face when participating in demonstrations, from which ‘acceptable’ reasons were excluded: ‘protection against weather, covering the face for religious reasons, or when participating in a parade, carnival or other such event’ (HE 81/2004 vp, my translation). The primary reason for the new law was recent disorder during anarchist and anti-government demonstrations. However, the Legal Affairs Committee stated that it is not constitutional to prevent anonymous participation in demonstrations. Hence, the law eventually only bans masquerading when the person has obvious intent to use violence against others or to harm property (LaVM 8/2004 vp). In terms of the numbers of women wearing the veil, the face veil is not a great question in Finland, any more than in any other European country. Imam Anas Hajjar from the Islamic Society of Finland estimated in May 2013 that there are ‘some tens’ of wearers of the face veil in Finland (Sa€ a€va€la€ 2013). Also I would estimate the actual number to be very low, probably significantly under 100 at any given time. By this I mean that for many women, face veiling is a phase in their spiritual path, and many also give it up when their life circumstances change. Also, some women wear the face veil only occasionally, for example during

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religious events. Even in such events one is unlikely to see more than ten women face veiling. Yet, in May 2013 a Finns Party parliamentarian introduced a bill to ban the face veil in public places (LA 21/2013). Given how Finnish legislation interprets international treaties for the benefit of individual rights, and given how the Constitution has repeatedly been interpreted so that individual’s freedom to wear their own clothes, and even mask if they please, is considered of fundamental importance, it is highly unlikely that such law as this could ever pass in Finland. It is also the case that while many Finns are very hostile to face veiling, suggestions to ban it have not provoked a major debate. As is clear from this discussion, in Finland veiling Muslim women are strongly protected by law. But as we will see throughout the book, such protection is not always enough to secure one’s everyday life experiences, especially when certain socio-political and spatial elements contradict the liberal legislation. The empirical sections that now follow discuss various and diverse elements of Muslim women’s lived realities in Finland, noting both the positive and the negative that shape their lives.

3

COMMERCIAL SPACES: NATIONAL, TRANSNATIONAL, MULTINATIONAL AND DETERRITORIAL

Commercial spaces are complex networks of connections, linking financial centres, places of production and locales of consumption. Garments as physical objects cross national and regional borders while fashion as phenomena is largely deterritorial – where precisely could one locate ‘fashion’ in its rich complexity encompassing material, virtual, visual and imaginary worlds? The argument put forward in this chapter follows fashion and garment connections through a number of commercial spaces, demonstrating how individual preferences and resources meet market forces in multi-layered spaces of consumption, mediation and production. A constantly increasing and expanding body of literature focussing on fashion as part of Islamic cultural industry has emerged during recent decades. Many authors contributing to the field have commented upon the emergence of such industry as a response to limited availability of suitable garments for veiling women (e.g., Kelly 2010, Lewis 2010, € Moors 2009, Mossiere 2012, Osterlind 2013, Sandıkcı and Ger 2005). Yet more attention has been paid to these cultural industries than to the

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shopping practices of veiling Muslim women. After reviewing the literature on globalized Islamic fashion industry, and commenting upon the industry’s small-scale emergence in Finland, I therefore focus on the specific shopping problems, and solutions to these, that Muslim women in minority context face and learn to manage. Through such an analysis, I also seek to increase the understanding of the interconnectedness of production and consumption in the case of Islamic fashion. As is well known in the study of cultural industries, Bourdieu (1993) divides the field of cultural production into two subfields: that of restricted production and that of mass, or large-scale production. While both fields are in their own ways subject to the functioning of the fields of power – economy and politics – they also enjoy different levels of autonomy. In the field of restricted production, financial profit is considered secondary, and symbolic elements, such as not submitting to external (e.g., economic and political) pressures, and the uniqueness of produced goods, are central. The field of large-scale production follows an opposite logic – the producer’s pursuit for financial profit. In this chapter I explore what such organization of fields means in the context of the Islamic cultural industry, including the production of Islamic fashion and Muslim lifestyle media. In other words, what happens when the field of religion comes to influence, legitimate, restrict and occasionally reject the field of cultural production? How can cultural production coexist with the field of religion, and what kinds of strategies are employed for the purposes of legitimacy within the field of religiously oriented cultural production? The field of restricted production, including cultural objects such as high art and poetry, enjoys certain levels of autonomy from other fields. This autonomization of a field is based upon the constant growth of a public of potential consumers, of increasing social diversity, which guarantee the producers of symbolic goods minimal conditions of economic independence and, also, a competing principle of legitimacy [. . .] [It is] correlated with the multiplication and diversification of agencies of consecration placed in a situation of competition for cultural legitimacy [. . .] even if they are subordinated to economic and social constraints (Bourdieu 1985 [1971]: 14, emphases mine)

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Also the fields of fashion, argues Bourdieu (1993 [1984]), follow similar logics; high fashion and mass fashion are each other’s opposites, and function as any other field of cultural production. Yet, fields of fashion can actually be seen as hybrids between restricted and mass production, where fashion houses in fact participate in several forms of production (Rocamora 2002). Consumption is a fundamental part of any field of cultural production; consumers ensure that the producer can keep producing, whether in restricted or large scale. Bourdieu’s (2010 [1979]) ground-breaking work on the organization and stratification of consumption is very much in accordance with my data and therefore I use it in the specific framing of this chapter. Consumption is enabled and restricted by capital possessed by consumers. Each individual holds different amounts of different kinds of capitals such as economic, cultural and social capital. Cultural capital may refer to education, but it can also be embodied, meaning the cultivation of bodily dispositions and actions such as speech, pose, movement and appearance. Cultural capital can also be objectified in the form of artefacts and objects such as dress, jewellery and other consumer goods. Social capital refers to the network an individual can activate within a certain field (Bourdieu 1997 [1983]). All types of capitals can be converted to another type of capital through investment of labour or time, the amount of which depends on the capitals in question. For example, while a garment’s accessibility to a consumer is mostly defined by economic capital, availability of garments may be enhanced through social capital – that is, social networks that expand across geographic locations. In this process social capital – a friend abroad – and economic capital – money – are transformed into objectified cultural capital – a garment sent from abroad. Symbolic capital is any form of capital defined such that social agents recognize it and give it value (Bourdieu 1998 [1994]). Thus any garment can be understood as objectified cultural capital, but in order to be, say, fashionable, the garment must be recognized as holding symbolic value in the field of fashion. Fashion is all about symbolic value (Crane and Bovone 2006); a fashion object is ‘fashion’ only if symbolic value is attributed to it (Schiermer 2009). The quest for gaining such symbolic value can be seen as competition between consumers, where each consumer seeks to ensure as high symbolic

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value as possible with as limited economic sacrifice as possible. This must not be understood as buying cheap, but as a process of evaluating the perceived symbolic value of each garment against its economic value (Aspers 2013). In other words, the garment gains its value in terms of other people in one’s social group, and the garments those others possess. The garment becomes cheap or expensive only in terms of where, when and with whom it is to be worn – a garment is never a ‘bargain’ solely for its price. Symbolic value that is attached to cultural objects is partly defined through taste. Taste is strongly demarcated by educational level and social origin (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]), and therefore is typically shared by individuals of a particular group (Bourdieu 1998 [1994]). Taste can be understood as ‘the capacity to produce classifiable practices and works, and the capacity to differentiate and appreciate these practices and products’ (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]: 166). Thus in the process of consumption of garments, the customer will evaluate the producers according to how they ‘fit’ the customer’s taste. Moreover, as taste defines the desirability of both garment producers (brands) and garments to the individual, there is always certain continuity in an individual’s consumer behaviour, garment choices and personal style. An individual’s capacity to differentiate and appreciate also creates the practical sense, or lack thereof, of what is appropriate in any given situation and whether an individual feels ‘at home’ in a situation. Therefore, the fields of cultural production follow their own logics, but are dependent on their audience, that is, consumers whose taste, and the capitals possessed by them, direct which cultural goods they desire and can possess. Fashion studies have recently increasingly sought ways of linking the research of production and consumption (e.g., Aspers 2013, Entwistle 2015 [2000]). One way of doing this is analyzing markets as spaces that enable choice for both producers and consumers, and at the same time process and send information about those choices. Such approach, used by Aspers (2013), is not directly exploring the restrictions to individual choice, including limited garment resources and consumers’ economic limitations, but is rather interested in the markets as virtual and nonvirtual spaces. So, for example, fashion images spread through the internet, while complex algorithms influence the ‘choice’ of the image.

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In city spaces, shops want to be in ‘right’ locations, and shopping malls control whom they rent to, for it is the concentration of firms and shops that gives meaning to the area. These are all commercial spaces highly relevant to both consumers and producers, and they greatly influence the processes of consumption and the selection of clientele, as we will see below. GLOBALIZED ISLAMIC CULTURE INDUSTRIES The Islamic culture industry is usually not thought of as a field of legitimate high cultural production, which are the types of fields Bourdieu considers as belonging to restricted production. Yet it is a field that claims certain level of autonomy from the field of economy. For example, Muslim entrepreneurs often state that they did not want to take a loan to start their business – while loaning and lending money is acceptable as such, paying interest is considered against religious principles by many. At least to certain extent, especially in the case of small Islamic businesses, one can talk about minimal conditions of economic independence, even if full independence is of course never possible (Bourdieu 1985 [1971]). The field of Islamic cultural production also seems to use certain principles of legitimacy that differ from non-religious cultural production. It is here that the field of religion comes to influence cultural production. Religious legitimacy is claimed in two ways. First, it is claimed that entrepreneurship, as long as it is practised according to religious rules, is desirable, for Muhammed himself was engaged in merchandise. Second, religious legitimacy (halal) is often claimed for the goods produced (Sandıkcı and Ger 2011). What is also important to remember is that Islam is no homogeneous religion. With a variety of schools of thought, and a wealth of religious interpretations, it is always possible to find a differing opinion for what is religiously appropriate. However, seeking legitimacy through religion means that the field of religion comes to shape and influence the fields of cultural production and cultural consumption. We will see below how religious sensibilities have come to shape what entrepreneurs feel they can sell or how they can present their goods.

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Multinational Fashion and Garment Industry The twentieth century was the century of unveiling and re-veiling across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. State-imposed unveiling in the 1920s and 1930s in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan (Cronin 2014, Shirazi 2001, Wide 2014) was echoed in secular feminist movements in Egypt and elsewhere (Ahmed 2011) and Communist regimes’ attempts to encourage unveiling in Central Asia (Kamp and Borbieva 2017), China (Gillette 2005) and the Balkans (Clayer 2014, Neuburger 2014). The early re-veiling emerging especially in the 1970s was associated with political protest and religiously informed critique of fashion, and often took the form of explicit anti-fashion, where fashion was understood as ‘Western’ and extravagant (Lewis 2015a). While such political protest often happened at the state and local levels, and in opposition to secular politics, there were also trans-national trends, which later on contributed to the emergence of Muslim fashions and a global Islamic cultural industry. Guest workers to Europe from Muslim-majority countries settled down (against local expectations) and formed significant Muslim minorities in the UK, France and Germany after World War II. Guest workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries contributed to increasing economic capital in their home countries, but also influenced how religious interpretations and ideas spread across the region (Roy 2004). By the 1980s, a new middle class had emerged in locations such as Turkey, Syria and Egypt, which desired different, aesthetically driven forms of veiling and possessed the economic capital necessary for tempting producers (Abaza 2007; Moors 2007a). As the initially low economic and social status of Muslim minorities in Europe has shifted along with higher cultural resources and ambitions of young third- and fourth-generation Muslims, also London has emerged as a significant Muslim fashion centre (Moors and Tarlo 2013, Lewis 2015a). While mainstream multi-national fashion companies, such as H&M, have recently increasingly recognized veiling Muslim women as a significant group of consumers, such recognition has only come after decades of production, retail and marketing by Muslim entrepreneurs, first in Muslim majority contexts, and thereafter in Europe and North America, too. Today, an increasing number of Muslim women participate actively in the creation of dress availability in Euramerica

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through design, production and merchandise. Yet these women’s personal shopping experiences are often still shaped by the difficulty of finding suitable garments in the locations they inhabit (Lewis 2015a, € Mossiere 2012, 2017, Osterlind 2013, Tarlo 2010).

One early location, and still one of the most important, for the new Islamic garment market was urban Turkey. The industry initiated already in the 1970s, serving mostly a poor clientele in back streets at the time. The liberalization of Turkish market in the mid-1980s and the inexpensive local textile production contributed to the capacity of serving larger groups of customers with higher economic capital (Navaro-Yashin 2002). Increasing competition between Islamic garment producers led to the segmentation of the market, and increasing branding of companies and products (Kılıcbay and Binark 2002). From a homogenizing idea of anti-fashion religiosity, the garment industry moved towards a class- and status-based taste distinction, which led also to the extension and relocation of Islamic commercial spaces from back streets to shopping malls. A pious woman became a modern consumer, and Islamic fashion emerged as a transnational business sector (Sandıkcı and Ger 2007). Similarly, in 1970s Egypt, veiling was associated with the rural poor migrating into cities, and it functioned as a means to avoid fashion competition for those with limited economic means, as well as a tool to manage crowded mixed-gender spaces such as public transport and university lecture halls. But with labour migration to the Gulf countries contributing to increasing economic capital, a bourgeoisified and aspirational garment market emerged also in Egyptian city spaces, serving young, fashion-conscious clientele (Abaza 2007). Similar trends were observable in Syria and Yemen, where transnational migration of individuals enhanced both the economic means and availability of different styles from the 1970s on (Moors 2007a). In Indonesia, colourful and versatile new veiling styles also appeared in this time, replacing old, dark or black Saudi-influenced forms of veiling. Designers trained in and influenced by Euramerica contributed to these trends, and fashion centres such as Cairo and Jeddah increasingly influenced Asian styles and fashions (Jones 2007). At the same time, women studying abroad brought new styles with them when returning home, adding to local versatility of styles (Amrullah 2008). By the 1990s, the Islamic garment industry had grown into a multi-national, versatile market

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serving increasingly affluent middle-class clientele across the Muslim world, Europe and North America (Moors 2009a). From speciality shops in the back streets, Islamic fashion had spread to shopping malls and high street shops in Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and elsewhere (Abaza 2007, Jones 2007, Navaro-Yashin 2002). In places such as Indonesia and Malaysia, Islamic fashion design is also actively supported and funded by governments (Jones 2017, Shirazi 2017). Yet Islamic commercial spaces are not local only, but have grown to encompass vast geographical distances and trans-national connections. The opportunities for accessing and consuming Muslim fashion in Europe and North America remained limited for a long time, initially partly due to limited consumer means and interest, which made the market of low value. Muslim communities in minority position also struggled to establish such retail networks as were conceivable in Muslim majority countries. While, for example, the Turkish diaspora in Europe benefited from the Turkish fashion industry (Go€ karıksel and Secor 2013), the Euramerican markets still remained underdeveloped, and especially young Muslims typically shopped with local and international high street retailers. Local Muslim entrepreneurs were the first to spot the emerging market gap, and shops and webstores started to appear in urban centres with significant Muslim population (Mossiere 2012, Moors 2009, Tarlo 2010).

Islamic Fashion Industry in Finland Finland was for a long time far removed from such urban and transnational developments. Even with the increasing Muslim population arriving in the 1990s, there was little need for a fashionable Islamic garment market, as the arrivals had low economic capital and typically limited interest in fashionable consumption. But with the second, more cosmopolitan generation growing in the diaspora, cultural, educational and economic aspirations have started to contribute to the consciousness of fashion and fashionability (Almila 2016a). While the first generation of migrants has been content with shopping in small ethnic shops that retail everything from halal meat to headscarves, the young have developed more creative shopping customs. Recently, the first online companies have also emerged. I compare two of them here. The first is an

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online store with no branding, selling imported garments and using ready catalogue pictures. It caters for local clientele and communicates in Finnish only. The second is a branded new-wave design company. It offers small collections twice a year and its website is professional and visually coherent. Communication happens in English, and while the brand is Finland-based, it aims for international clientele and uses cosmopolitan marketing language. Operating in such transnational and deterritorial commercial space obviously allows increased opportunities for a company based in a location with limited clientele. Amanah Collection1 was registered in Helsinki in June 2014 as a private person carrying on trade. Its focus is the retail sale of imported clothing, but it also sells affordable make-up products. The web domain it uses is provided by a company specialized in webstore programming, offering service with which anyone can open a webstore (with 30 days of free trial). Amanah Collection uses a standard catalogue setting of the website with no information about the company whatsoever. In many ways, it is an equivalent of a backstreet shop serving a limited ethnic clientele. The product pictures are clearly drawn from other catalogues, rather than self-produced, for they range from pictures of modestly covered women, sometimes with the face blurred, sometimes with heavy make-up, to pictures of women in highly seductive poses with their arms fully bare and hair free. Some of the scarves presented are draped on a mannequin head, some are pictured without a head. The company’s Facebook page presents same pictures, usually without any further explanations (such as information about garment material). While the pictures and related comments are publicly available, the page is a private user page (as opposed to an open company page), and in order to comment upon the pictures, one must be ‘friends’ with the company. Scarf prices range from e5 upwards, dress prices are typically e20– 30, which makes them cheap for Finland. The shop also offers extended purchase through a credit company, and this practice has been criticized by some of the customers, according to whom it is unacceptable for a faithful Muslim to pay interest on credit. The shop owner has not commented on such accusations, nor does she ever make any religious references in her very limited communication with clients. But despite this silence, the field of religion influences her business through community members’ views.

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Queens online store2 was registered in Helsinki in March 2014 as a private person carrying on trade, but it changed its registration to a limited company in November 2014. Its website was launched in early 2015 (Figure 3.1). Behind the company is Sabah Ahmed, a Somali woman who grew up in Somalia, Russia and Denmark, and worked in the UK before moving to Finland. She holds a business management degree and runs her online store in altogether more professional manner. The online store offers small Queens collections by company designers twice a year, winter and summer. The buzzwords the company website uses include modest, sharp, elegant, beautiful, quality, simplicity, timelessness and Scandinavian. Despite Finland not belonging to Scandinavia, advertising the company as ‘Scandinavian’ is probably more internationally successful than the alternatives. The owner also has a sense of Scandinavian belonging herself, due to the time she lived, studied and worked in Denmark. The styling of models is professional and all models are modestly dressed, covering everything except hands and face. Part of the webstore’s branding is religious and ethical commitment. In the company’s Facebook page (Figure 3.2), the owner shares not only pictures from company collections, but also religious aphorisms and citations, statements about sustainable fashion and good wishes related to religious celebrations. Such commitment (and advertisement thereof) to religious and ethical values has for a long time been a characteristic of the

3.1 Screenshot from queensonlinestore.com (2.3.2016) ‘We strive to make clothes that empower you in your daily life, to help you look modest yet sharp, elegant and beautiful. Modest everyday wear fused with that contemporary Scandinavian style.’ Courtesy of Queens/Sabah Ahmed.

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3.2 Screenshot from Queens Onlinestore Facebook page (2.3.2016). www.facebook. com/Queensonlinestore. Courtesy of Queens/Sabah Ahmed.

new Muslim entrepreneurship which has enabled Islamic cultural industry to blossom (Sandıkcı and Ger 2011). From backstreet ethnic shops and network marketing, Finnish Muslim entrepreneurship has moved towards cosmopolitan, trans-national market spaces. Social media

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platforms provide small-scale businesses a virtual space where they can communicate directly with their clientele, and for the customers a space where they can directly respond to both goods and ideas. As such, this virtual market space is very much shaping both consumer and producer choice (Aspers 2013), for the differences in visual and verbal communication between these two stores described here are extremely likely to directly shape their clientele.

National and International Lifestyle Media Industry Muslim lifestyle media is where the field of politics often interferes with the field of cultural production. For example, magazines based in North America often seek to market a ‘moderate’ form of Islam to ‘Western’ Muslims (Kassam 2011). It is a well-known fact that the mainstream media in Europe, North America and Australia presents Muslims and Islam in an extremely negative, homogenizing manner. Finnish media is no exception; since the early twentieth century, Islam has functioned as the threatening Other through which Finland has been constructed as part of ‘the West’ (Taira 2008). Today, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam rhetoric is part of a wider, and more international, discourse, prevalent across Europe (Paaso 2012). In such conditions, a desire for an alternative media among Muslim minorities is understandable. First forms of Muslim media created locally in Finland were information leaflets and printed magazines produced by active members of different mosques. These were focussed on religious content rather than lifestyle, but more recently – and again following international trends – Muslim lifestyle media, targeting young Muslims, has also emerged. In the early twenty-first century, new lifestyle media appeared in some English-speaking countries, with Muslims as its target audience. Attempting to serve a diverse audience with high expectations as to religious appropriateness and representation especially in minority contexts, these magazines had to communicate choices in terms of what Muslim looks like, and what looks like Muslim (Lewis 2010). In creating a commodified subject, Muslim lifestyle media industry was also commenting upon questions to do with integration, ‘fit’ and citizenship. Marketing the idea of a ‘modern’, ‘moderate’ Muslim with full citizenship rights and active participation in society, the liberated,

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educated and fashionable Muslim woman became an inspirational superwoman who can manage career and family while being examplarily religious and pious (Kassam 2011). This Muslim identity was also removed from ‘cultural’ religious customs and interpretations, claiming cosmopolitan identity and a global ummah beyond colonialism and neocolonialism (Lewis 2010, Kassam 2011). Islamic lifestyle media has appeared also in Muslim-majority countries, such as Indonesia. While fashion was not at first a regular element in such publications, due to reader demand, fashion editorials soon appeared and became an established part of Muslim lifestyle magazines (Jones 2010). Umma was the first Finnish lifestyle magazine aimed at Muslim youth in Finland. It was published by the Finnish Islamic Council, but the editors of the journal were said to have made decisions about the content independently. The magazine appeared in 2010–11 and only three issues were published during its short life. The magazine has thereafter been ‘on a break’ due to a lack of funding. The second Finnish magazine, Ana, appeared first in 2014. Published by Young Muslims’ Forum (Nuorten Muslimien Foorumi) and initially financially supported by Saudi-based International Association of New Muslims, the magazine appeared in four issues during the period 2014–2016. Both magazines offer religious guidance that they call ‘moderate’, ‘tolerant’ or ‘middle way’ (despite Ana’s initial Saudi-connection through funding, its editorial line has been relatively diversity-enhancing), as well as inspirational stories of successful young Muslims. Ana is more international and cosmopolitan in this regard, featuring stories of Muslims in other European countries, such as Sweden, Denmark and Italy, in addition to Finnish Muslims. Both feature fashion, but their editorial line in this regard is significantly different. When Umma was still published, I spoke with a young Finnish Muslim woman about the magazine’s fashion editorial line. This woman was not part of the core editorial team but had collaborated with the magazine. She told me that she felt ‘vexed’ because the magazine in her opinion was ‘suggesting that women aren’t allowed to wear anything but abayas’, something which she firmly disagreed with. She was particularly concerned that non-Muslim readers of the magazine would get such an impression which she considered wrong. She pointed to three pictures in the magazine’s fashion section. The first two were pictures of a male model wearing dark blue trousers, light blue shirt, beige casual jacket and

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beige suede shoes in one picture, and a white, fairly casual, slightly translucent shirt, white trousers and black sandals in the other (Figure 3.4). None of the garments were particularly loose. In the third picture a female model was wearing a black, loose abaya with grey sewn-in details in the sleeves, and a grey headscarf with a black under-scarf. Her body shape was completely hidden (Figure 3.3). Based on the images, my informant made the point that the magazine in her view treated men and women differently. Here we see [it] exactly when we look at the men – the men also have, you’ve seen I’m sure, they have a cap and a long robe – but in this magazine the men dress in a Western manner within Islamic rules.3 But the women don’t dress in a Western manner and that bothers me a lot. [. . .] The idea of this magazine was that also non-Muslims would read it. If a non-Muslim reads this they’ll see that, okay, [the man] has clearly [clothes] from a Western shop, but the woman has an abaya. So they’ll think the only fashion for women is an abaya with sometimes coloured sleeves. And that’s wrong, it’s a wrong image. The reality doesn’t match it. Besides of the magazine in her view not representing the ‘reality’ of young Finnish Muslims, she also had religious argument against the use of abaya in fashion pictures: In my opinion wearing Saudi-Arabian culture in Finland is not low profile. And in my opinion, if I dress in Western countries, I draw more attention when I wear black. But if I have a basic skirt bought in H&M or somewhere, Western clothes, loose trousers and long shirt and then a scarf, more normal clothing, that the garment isn’t according to any standard, such as a robe, but it’s like clothes – I feel I draw less attention [to myself] and provoke people less. And that gives me the low profile I seek with the scarf. Umma’s line in female fashion imagery was indeed abaya-driven, and did not fully reflect the variety of Muslim fashion styles visible in the streets of Helsinki. Indeed, my informant told that she had suggested a

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Fashion image from Umma magazine (2010, iss. 3: 29). ‘Your hijab is like your crown’

different kind of fashion editorial, using international high street brand garments, but her pictures were turned down by the magazine. While the speculation as to why only abayas appeared in its women’s fashion section is not fully possible relying on my data, it seems likely that

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Fashion image from Umma magazine (2010, iss. 3: 31).

concerns over more conservative members of local communities played part in editorial decisions, especially as the magazine was associated with the Finnish Islamic Council. It is not only in Finland that Islamic fashion images have been restricted through concerns about conservative

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community members; only very recently have fashion producers and fashion bloggers taken more liberties with regard to the female body in Muslim fashion (Lewis 2013a, 2015b). Some years later, Ana’s fashion editorial line is different. Both women and men wear mixed styles where a variety of garments are defined as religiously appropriate (Figures 3.5 and 3.6). Yet the magazine editors see the purpose of fashion differently for each gender: In Ana magazine Muslim man combines religion and earthly life while building the future. Muslim woman’s appearance reflects the beauty of her spirituality and religion. [She] uses modern fashion to adapt it into Islamic style. (http://ana.fi/, translation mine) Women in Ana wear dresses, skirts, jackets, long coats and large handbags. Their figure is significantly different from the figure of allcovering abaya favoured by Umma. The only abaya featured in Ana, by Queens Onlinestore, slightly brings out the waistline rather than completely hiding it. These are styles familiar from other cosmopolitan contexts, such as London (Lewis 2015a). Ana’s clothes sponsors are Finnish and international high street brands: Aleksi 13, Rill’s, Jack & Jones, Mango, Brothers, Weekday and Riley – sponsorship here meaning that these companies lend garments for fashion shoots, rather than advertising in the magazine. Ana’s fashion editorial line is more cosmopolitan and more akin to global urban fashion trends of the moment. Again, Finnish Muslims are reaching out to the globalized world of Islamic cultural industry, and the change from more parochial to more cosmopolitan has happened very recently.

Deterritorial Struggle over Fashion and Anti-Fashion As already mentioned, re-veiling in the 1970s was associated with antifashion, often explicitly framed as against ‘Western’ fashion that had filled the Middle Eastern and North African markets since the 1920s (El Guindi 1999, MacLeod 1992, Moors 2009a). As part of these postcolonial discourses, fashion was often explicitly associated with external, corrupting influences that threatened religious virtues and local ‘tradition’. Fashion’s historical association with ‘the West’, secularization

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Fashion image from Ana magazine (2014, iss. 1: 38).

and female bodies made it an obvious target of criticism for religious leaders. But by the late 1980s, something very different had emerged: ‘new veiling’ associated with urban locations and working middle-class women for whom the veil facilitated their socio-spatial relations (Abaza 2007, Navaro-Yashin 2002). While for some, these new developments were desirable as they served women seeking to manage their new public

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Fashion image from Ana magazine (2014, iss. 2: 36).

roles and their often more conservative families’ views (MacLeod 1987, 1992), a critique of commercialization and fashionalization of the hijab soon emerged and remains a part of the Muslim fashion debate today (Sandikci and Ger 2007, Moors and Tarlo 2013). While European media is still often considering the existence of Muslim fashion as news, and

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Muslim women’s desire for fashionable accessories and garments as contradictory to veiling, for many young women such fashion has been everyday reality for many years. Similar to how garment trade crosses national borders through different sorts of channels and networks, the debate over fashion and its acceptability in the Islamic frame of thought exists at a level that is globally interconnected. Religious interpretations and pro- and anti-fashion arguments appear in similar forms in different contexts across the globe, and are also often debated in virtual spaces (Akou 2010a). These debates draw arguments not only from religious thinkers but also from secular feminist, Marxist and environmentalist movements (Moors and Tarlo 2013). I have argued elsewhere that irrespective of whether a Muslim woman considers fashion per se as a positive or a negative thing, she is likely to mix elements of fashionability and anti-fashion sentiments in her everyday dress practices and discourses thereof (Almila 2016a). Yet ideas about fashion, fashionability and presentation of fashion divide opinions. Islam’s compatibility with consumerism has been debated, with critics suggesting that capitalism and consumerism are corruptive ‘Western’ phenomena. Many also state that according to Islamic doctrine, wasteful consumption is not acceptable (Go€ karıksel and McLarney 2010). Fashion has more specifically been criticized for sexualization of the female body, exhibitionism and consumerism (Kılıcbay and Binark 2002). Such debates are partly local, but also transnational especially through the internet today, and happen in many spaces simultaneously. Some of my respondents rejected fashion as superficial. This happened both in the form of direct anti-fashion statements – in which case, fashion was defined as profane and polluting – or through feminist-influenced ideas which condemned the objectification of female bodies and considered external appearance as unimportant in comparison to woman’s ‘character’ and achievements. A Finnish convert woman in her 20s considered hijab a religious rule, a general idea of modesty that should influence Muslim’s life in all its areas. She therefore thinks that making scarves fashionable ‘pollutes the beauty behind the rule’ of hijab. It kind of irks me that there’s a lot of . . . Muslim woman’s dress has become a kind of fashion craze. Muslims themselves have done

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that. I’ve had enough of that phenomenon generally. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. Since she considers the hijab a tool that helps her to ‘withdraw from superficiality and objectification of women’, she feels strongly about its fashionalization. For her, claiming fashion status for the hijab profanes religious doctrine, and therefore pollutes the hijab. Such comments were often connected to a critique of consumerism, whereby ‘worldly’ desires and objects were only made acceptable if they served religious goals. These women typically wore Saudi-style garments, sometimes including the face veil, and expressed more conservative religious ideas than many of their peers. Besides vanity and fashion, these women often also condemned wasteful consumption, and tried on purpose to keep their wardrobes small. Consumer culture was not considered negative by all, but was instead seen as a provider of opportunities. A Finnish convert woman in her 30s stated that ‘as we live in a Western shopping culture’, everyone is free to choose her own style of hijab. Also many of those women who considered external appearance secondary to internal characteristics and religious commitment stressed that they had nothing against others wearing fashionable styles of hijab even if such styles were of little interest for themselves. On the other hand, some of my young respondents emphasized that they, as Muslims, have their own fashion system, just like the Finns have, and that within their dress practice they want to be stylish and dress well. Through such claims they sought to ‘normalize’ their dress. They constructed themselves as ordinary young women who are interested in appearance, style and fashion, while still following dress codes that are acceptable in their religious community. The normalization of fashionable hijab can also be considered as part of normalization of the relationship between fashion and religion, which is done by treating fashionable veiling as ordinary, everyday and established (Moors 2013). For example, a Somali woman in her late teens liked clothes that are stylish, timely, not too old [. . .] That at the first sight one sees I’m a girl and dress stylishly. I’ve received quite a lot of comments from Finns, [. . .] where do you buy your clothes, you’re always so stylish! [laughs] [. . .] [I dress] stylishly and a bit fashionably.

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While Somali women are by and large expected to veil by their community, their level of religious commitment obviously varies. Yet to be primarily interested in style, aesthetic and peer appreciation does not necessarily indicate that religious factors of one’s dress would be less important. This particular woman took religious conventions very seriously and visited the local mosque regularly. Similarly, a young Finnish woman liked garments that are ‘current’, particularly in terms of colour. Her favourite of the time, mustard, was a colour that made her ‘excited’, and she had gathered a wealth of garments and scarves of mustard shades. She mostly shopped in high street brand stores. At the time of the interview mustard was indeed a colour highly visible in the streets of Helsinki, indicating the overlap between various fashion systems and urban spaces. It can be seen from the age of the women most interested in either fashion or anti-fashion that the question was more relevant to young women than to others (Almila 2016a). Many new Muslim fashions have been and remain to be associated with young consumers in urban environments (Abaza 2007, Lewis 2015a, Smith-Hefner 2007). It is also these women who are most likely to treat the relationship between Islam and fashion as simple and straightforward rather than contested and controversial.

Islamic Fashion Imagery Hijab fashion shows also divided opinions. This is the case not only in Finland; also elsewhere ‘Islamic’ fashion shows have been criticized (Jones 2010, Sandıkcı and Ger 2007), despite them being increasingly common in urban locations such as Dubai and Istanbul (Al-Qasimi 2010, Amrullah 2008). Indeed, one-off fashion shows have recently grown into fashion weeks, for example, in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Banyuwangi (Java), Istanbul and London. Islamic fashion shows, though primarily operating in the realm of consumerism, nevertheless use Islam as their point of reference. The controversy over them is partly about whether fashion and Islam are compatible, but also how fashion shows are (or should be) performed (Jones 2010). Organizing a fashion show is also a way of claiming a certain status in ‘Western’ terms. Framing the hijab within spaces of fashion places it firmly within the contemporary ‘Western’ ideas of civilization, which

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tend to link fashion, civilization and modernity (Niessen 2010). It also often ensures a certain amount of media attention, particularly in minority context where such shows are a novelty. Hence fashion shows can potentially raise the profile of the hijab in the eyes of non-Muslim majorities. On the other hand, some Muslims consider them a ‘wrong’ kind of representation. As discussed above, the hijab turned into a fashion object is considered sacrilege by those to whom the hijab exclusively signifies spirituality and the rule of God. Among my respondents, opinions were divided. While some wanted to have nothing to do with hijab as fashion, others criticized not fashion shows as such, but the performance of the models as ‘un-Islamic’. A Finnish woman in her 40s, mocking fashion model poses, argued that since one is a Muslim, one does not need such gestures when presenting clothes. The avoidance of overtly sexualized fashion imagery is not a concern only in Finland. Producers of Muslim fashion are well aware of the possibility of such critique also elsewhere (Lewis 2013a). When criticizing fashion poses, not fashion per se but how it is performed is framed as potentially profane and inappropriate. But there are other opinions as well. During a rehearsal of a hijab fashion show in Helsinki in 2012, I had a conversation with a convert woman whose attention was drawn by the ‘modesty and humbleness’ of the models. This was a show organized by a local Muslim woman, to present her small scarf collection, and all the models were local Muslim girls volunteering for the show, not professional models. The observer stressed how the ‘girls don’t know how lovely they are’, thus emphasizing the ideal of a humble Muslim femininity. When the very last model of the show came on stage demonstrating much greater bodily confidence than the other models, the woman praised her ‘professionalism’. For this observer, the goodness of the models’ characters – be that modesty or competence – shone through their performances as models, which were therefore appropriate and acceptable representations. The models’ role in creating appropriate and acceptable performances and presentations of the hijab is indeed significant, and also the knowledge of the model’s private dress styles may influence such readings, veiling women considered as more suitable models for modest fashion (Jones 2010). For the woman I spoke with, hijabi herself, such factor played no role. Although all

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Muslims, not all the models were hijabi, yet they were all considered to demonstrate appropriate behaviour and characters by this observer. Questions to do with appropriateness of certain kinds of models used to present Muslim fashion has risen with increased force due to the professionalization of Muslim fashion imagery, as well as the entry of non-Muslim producers in the field. Some explicitly criticize mainstream non-Muslim brands for using non-Muslim models to present and market their hijab collections, yet alternatives are not widely available; the first hijabi model, Halima Aden (featured in the cover of British Vogue in spring 2018), was listed by a major model agency in 2017 (Khan 2017). The target of criticism is the perceived lack of authenticity of both the brand and the model, which places such collections within the logic of economic profit rather than autonomic cultural production (Bourdieu 1993). In the religious framework even a prestigious brand, normally perceived to be part of the field of restricted production, can be seen as following the carrying principle of the field of mass production, which logically renders the brand undesirable for the Muslim consumer in search of authenticity. On another occasion, when I was observing a fashion photo-shoot of scarves, the volunteer non-professional Muslim model was a non-veiler, which caused problems during the shoot because some of the clothes used were the model’s own. While the designer did not directly object to tight clothes worn with a scarf – ‘It’ll just pass’ – she firmly rejected the translucent back of one of the tops the model was suggesting. She stated that she would ‘hear about it for ever’ if she let such photographs be published on her website. This concern demonstrates awareness of community opinion beyond her clientele. Most of the young women she considered her potential customers were rather relaxed about religious dress rules, and would not have been the first ones to point out ‘inappropriateness’ of dress. Yet this woman was aware that her website would be beheld by the larger community as well, including possibly more conservative parents of her young clients. She was, then, treading a fine line with regard to community opinion beyond her clientele; while some representations (the shape of breasts visible, but skin fully covered) would be potentially criticized but could not be condemned completely, others were thought to be completely unacceptable (as in the case of translucent fabric revealing the skin).

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These kinds of concerns are familiar also elsewhere. Particularly the early retailers of Muslim fashion were extremely aware of sometimes conservative community opinion, even if the most conservative members of communities were not their target group (Tarlo 2010). The variation of presentations, including showing only the product, using mannequin heads, cutting or blurring the face from the photograph or using drawn illustrations instead of photographs, is wide (Moors 2013). When the hijab is constructed as fashionable and presented using the techniques of the contemporary fashion system, the hijab’s religious associations and community evaluation must be taken into account. In such negotiations, the appropriateness of dress and dress-performance are evaluated both in light of the performance itself and in light of presumed motivations behind it. Even if a woman would consider fashion and religion compatible, she might find the presentation of fashionable hijabs unacceptable – or she might find it defensible as long as the models are devout Muslims, or the performance is deemed modest enough. Religion’s entry into spaces of commercial fashion is contested, but so is fashion’s penetration of religious sensibilities, too. LOCAL AND TRANSNATIONAL SHOPPING PRACTICES The majority of clothes worn in Finland by both Muslims and nonMuslims are produced within the contemporary global fashion production systems. While some women make and/or modify their own clothes, most individuals’ wardrobes are largely defined by and through their shopping practices. Even with the increasing access to garments via the internet, the immediate location shapes veiling women’s access to garments, and Helsinki as a location can be relatively limiting in that regard. This is the case also for the Finnish non-Muslim population. Shopping trips to, for example, Stockholm have been popular for decades, especially among young consumers, and it is a widespread complaint among Finns that the local market offers garments that are dull and monotonous (while shop-keepers may say that this is what their clientele buys). True or not, Finns share an idea of themselves as ‘safe’ and ‘boring’ dressers. Particularly young urban people often seek to

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contradict this view in their clothing choices but are restricted by the relatively limited selection offered on the local market. I found that veiling women’s shopping practices were shaped by a variety of factors: the availability, accessibility and desirability of garments. In these practices they drew upon various capitals they possessed – the economic, social and cultural resources available to them (Bourdieu 1997 [1983]). Availability depends primarily on current fashion trends, production/distribution chains and geographical location (Aspers 2010), but it can also be increased through the use of internet shopping and travel, as well as through an individual’s social capital, as for example in using international networks in order to access desired garments. Accessibility of available garments depends mainly on economic capital (Crane 2000), but it may also be influenced by an individuals’ physical mobility and other potential customers desiring the same garments (as garments may be sold out if demand is greater than supply). Desirability of garments depends on individuals’ visual and stylistic preferences, and also on perceived physical qualities, such as material, the fit of the garment and ease of its maintenance. Here, an individual’s taste, ordained by their habitus (Bourdieu 1998 [1994]), guides their garment choices. While individual dress styles depend partly on availability, a clientele for certain kinds of garments also potentially creates production and availability (Sandıkcı and Ger 2005). My respondents informed me that, although the availability of clothes suitable for veiling women has increased in Finland as the number of hijab-wearing Muslim women has risen, there are still many restrictions and problems when trying to find clothes deemed appropriate. Significant increases in a market can only happen with the presence of a significant number of (typically middle-class) consumers equipped with certain kinds of cultural and economic capital, that is, having both the interest and the capability to spend money on particular goods (Sandıkcı and Ger 2011). That both the number of veiling Muslim women and the economic capital they possess is relatively low is likely to slow down the development of the Islamic garment market in Finland. There is also the further challenge that the Muslim population is diverse, and therefore any specific market segment is restricted in size, making the clientel less appealing to companies with large sales targets. However, this demographic situation is changing constantly, as migrant families

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become integrated and their children are able to achieve higher socioeconomic status than their parents could, and also as Finnish conversions to Islam and inter-faith and cross-cultural marriages become more common. The new generation of Muslim women dresses in a more mixed manner than their mothers and grandmothers.

Availability: Limits of Production and Distribution The dress styles of Muslim women in Finland follow lines similar to those Moors (2010: 441) has observed elsewhere in Europe: ‘combining items of dress in particular ways, such as wearing tunics over pants, longsleeved shirts under sleeveless dresses, and adding head scarves’ on the one hand, and wearing ‘more uniform and sober styles that often include a half- or full-length body veil in darker colours’ on the other. In Finland the longer body veils appear in a variety of colours and may also be accessorized in a variety of ways. For example, while some young Somali women wear light greys, blues and rose shades with high heels and showy handbags (especially in the summer), middle-aged Somali women sometimes sew their khimars themselves from colourful patterned fabrics, the fabrics more reminiscent of pre-civil war dress styles in Somalia (Isotalo 2017). While the women dressing in ‘Western’ styles face the problem of combinability of garments – in order to achieve the desired level of covering of the body, they need to wear garments in layers, and therefore they spend more time ensuring that the garments are matching – those preferring garments from different parts of the Middle East and Africa may have a more limited choice of garments, and they often rely on their international social capital to increase their dress availability through networks of friends and relatives, who send them desired garments, or bring back garments from their travels. Such drawing upon social capital is not uncommon in Muslim minority contexts where availability of garments is restricted and latest styles are almost impossible to acquire locally (Moors 2009). Most of the women I interviewed negotiated their dress choices between ‘Western’ and ‘Islamic’ styles, and even those who wore full body veils imported from the Middle East often wore ‘Western’ trousers, tops, cardigans and coats underneath for reasons that were related to both climate’s demands especially during the winter, and easy availability of

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these garments. For those veiling women who rely mostly on the ‘Western’ fashion system, changes in the fashionable figure may cause problems of availability. This often means that one must buy when it is possible, as described by a Finnish woman in her 30s: It depends on the year; in some years it’s easy to find clothes. If for example long tunics happen to be in fashion, I squirrel them into my closet. And then there are years when one doesn’t find anything. Perhaps [one can get] some turtleneck tops that can be used to hide the deficiencies of the dress, for example the lack of sleeves. It’s quite layer-dressing. The good thing is that fashion has become more diverse and one always finds some longer [garments]. But recently, many mainstream brands have started to recognize veiling Muslim women as an increasingly significant group of consumers, and are trying to win a slice of the massive $230bn Muslim fashion market (Thompson Reuters 2015). H&M featured a hijabi woman in an advertisement in 2015, and other high street brands such as Zara, Mango and Tommy Hilfiger4 are targeting Muslim consumers especially during the Ramadan. This is a trend that will sooner or later be felt also in the streets of Helsinki, and is likely to make veiling Muslim women’s shopping in Helsinki less of an ordeal (while also creating new challenges for local Muslim entrepreneurs facing increasing competition). Besides the problem of limited availability of garments, layer-dressing creates problems of combinability that a young Finnish woman described as ‘there being so many garments’ that need to match. She explained that when one needs to find matching under-scarf, scarf, long-sleeved top, tunic and trousers, the whole process becomes exhausting for someone who is not willing to spend much time on dressing every morning. She would prefer garments, especially tunics, that would cover everything she wants to cover without the need to combine so many garments, and more often than not she ends up wearing the few reliable garments she has, rather than varying her style. In this she does not differ from nonMuslim women: ‘safe’ garment combinations are typically what also other women rely on when choosing their everyday attires especially when under time pressure (Woodward 2007).

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Trusted, easy garments form the basis of a wardrobe for most veiling women. In particular, young and teenage Somali women often wear black abayas as a basis of their dress, upon which they then add garments and accessories according to their style and colour preferences. Abayas for Finland’s Muslim women are a bit like jeans for ‘Western’ youth; I was informed that every Muslim woman has at least one. Abayas are also like jeans in the sense that an infinite number of design elements can be added to them without changing their fundamental characteristic as a fulllength, black garment (Al-Qasimi 2010). Black abayas are easily combined with a great variety of colours and styles of scarves, coats and accessories. Thus they provide flexibility for the wearer while ensuring that she is always appropriately dressed. The Finnish Somali community tends to be suspicious of female trousers, and hence for many Somali women the abaya is an easy solution that satisfies their families and yet gives them flexibility in developing their own style. Particularly among those Somali women who prefer more covering styles common in the Middle East and Africa, it is often the case that women use their networks to increase dress availability. Some women import small amounts of garments and sell them in Finland to their acquaintances, thereby also increasing their own economic capital. A Somali woman in her early 20s expands her dress availability through such a network: I buy from my compatriots. The information travels, one [hears] that someone’s brought clothes [. . .] There are private [channels] that you need to know. They import clothes for the Eid celebration, a few weeks before it [. . .] Or if you have acquaintances abroad, you describe to them [the style you want and ask] if they can [help]. Many buy a lot [of clothes] when they travel abroad [. . .] Many of my scarves I’ve received from my Mother and they’ve been bought in Dubai. Abayas like this, black ones, I order. French websites [sell] reasonably priced good design abayas one can wear for celebrations. It is not an uncommon practice for women in Finland, Muslim or not, with limited economic capital, to use the internet to gain access to affordable design. Ordering from abroad is also typically cheaper than

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paying Finnish prices. However, not everyone finds internet shopping functional; with no possibility to try on the clothes before ordering, finding a desired fit is difficult, and one often needs to know the producer very well in order to find suitable clothes. Buying scarves online may be easy (although even then one must be prepared for surprises as regards colour, material and details), but buying other than accessories is more difficult and risky. One might expect that finding suitable clothes is easier in Muslimmajority countries, and this is indeed the case for many. Muslim women often travel to their or their husbands’ home countries or other Muslim countries, and while there, also invest in their wardrobe management, as covering clothes are more commonly available. The locations considered as fashion centres by my respondents in this regard were Dubai and Turkey, particularly Istanbul. Both are, indeed, widely recognized as major centres for global Islamic fashion (Akou 2007, Moors 2007b), and are also easily accessible from Finland through regular flight connections established by the tourist industry. That other major Muslim fashion centres, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, are not that commonly on the shopping map of Finland-based Muslims is probably due to a lack of an obvious connection with these parts of the world through acquaintances and family members. Yet not all Muslim majority contexts offer such easy availability. My Iranian informants told me that finding covering enough garments that would suit their taste is, surprisingly, often extremely difficult in Iran. The Iranian market is limited, and until very recently has also been secluded through market restrictions. This has made access to garments difficult and styles extremely uniform (Balasescu 2005). How the situation will develop now that things are slowly changing, and the country is becoming more connected to dress markets both in ‘the West’ and other Muslim locations, such as Turkey, remains to be seen (Shirazi 2017).

Accessibility: Economic Capital, Time and Mobility As the clientele for Islamic clothes in Finland is limited, local retailers tend to import relatively small stocks which are likely to sell, despite what many customers complain of as a limited variety of style, cut and colour. As a result, numerous customers frequently end up competing over the same goods. A Somali woman in her mid-20s described the irksome

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process of purchasing suitable clothing in Finland through the networks of her compatriots: There’s a limited number of clothes [and] you don’t necessarily get exactly the right size, colour, product. There’s no choice [. . .], you must settle for some style or colour. Because you didn’t find it. Because the best are taken first. Or some [retailers] [. . .] order a limited number and sell out soon and re-ordering might take weeks. By that time, you’ve given up already or the Eid is already gone. Eid al-Fitr in the end of the fasting month of Ramadan is the most important of Muslim festivities. Wearing festive clothes is considered important for religious reasons, and many women order their dresses well before the important day. Buying clothes for celebration differs in many ways from building an everyday wardrobe discussed above; one is restricted by time as well as availability. An Afghan woman in her 30s told me that she spends considerable time before the celebrations looking for clothes for herself and her three children: If there’s a celebration or something, it takes a week for me to go to every shopping mall in Helsinki and Espoo. But if it’s about normal clothes, when we go shopping [for groceries] we also go to the clothing store and buy. The geographic area she refers to is relatively large and travelling to the centre of Helsinki from suburban Espoo where she lives may take an hour or more – she does not drive and is therefore dependent on public transport. However, she is on maternity leave while her husband has a good income, so she has the time and the economic capital to fulfil such tasks. Many lack such capacity and are forced to cope with more limited access to garments. For many, ordering garments from abroad is also a way of saving money. Finland is not a cheap country to live in, and many of my informants clearly lacked economic capital, particularly those unemployed, with low education, working in low positions or studying

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currently. I was informed by a Somali woman who was on maternity leave while her husband was a student that the same abaya that may cost 40 euros in Finland is available, fitted, for ten euros in Dubai, which adds yet another motivation for seeking to buy more when abroad. However, not everyone needs to watch their budget closely, as can be seen from the following comment by a Finnish convert woman in her 30s: Since I work, I don’t have to count every euro. As not all the clothes fit – when one finds something suitable, one is ready to spend more money on it than [one would] if there was a wider choice. If you find a really nice scarf, oops, 75 euros! Well, you don’t know if it’s there next week so you just buy it. Such spontaneous shopping is of course much more difficult for those with a limited budget, as a Finnish woman in her late teens explained: One should try to find things within a reasonable budget. Often I notice that long tunics and long clothes in general are horribly expensive. I don’t wish to pay over 100 euros for a tunic. This particular woman had very detailed requirements for her clothes in respect to colour, quality, covering, ease, comfort and price, and her shopping was influenced by her desire to make her everyday dress practice easier. With limited economic capital and with no desire to spend much time on dressing every morning, she spends much more time on shopping. As the examples above demonstrate, the sums of money spent on clothes, and on any single garment at times, vary greatly. Yet while it limits individual choices, economic capital does not alone define shopping. Some choose to buy cheap clothes, or fewer clothes, even if they have the money. Some invest more time and effort rather than money in their wardrobe maintenance. The willingness to invest in one’s wardrobe varies between individuals, and some women also expressed environmental concerns or religious reasons for avoiding consumerism (see also Moors and Tarlo 2013). When there is willingness to invest in clothes, combined with economic capital, one is limited mostly through availability, and even that may be increased

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through travelling, which many Muslim women do to visit family abroad and for leisure reasons.

Desirability: Taste, Fit, Quality Availability and accessibility are of course not the only factors guiding the choice of garments. Customers also pay attention to the quality of fabric, ease of dressing, fit of the garment, ease of maintenance, individuality of style and desirability of the shopping environment. These factors, in my respondents’ accounts, proved to be influenced by both individual and social factors – in other words, how a garment’s ‘quality’ and desirability was defined was guided by taste. Taste, the capacity to evaluate and appreciate something, is formulated as a part of the social history that defines individual’s habitus; therefore the motivations behind it are largely unconscious (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]). Each consumer is also accustomed to certain kinds of garment markets, and foreign markets may sometimes prove to be disappointing. For example, when shopping abroad, one may experience problems with regard to the perceived quality of the garments, as described here by a Finnish convert woman in her early 40s: My husband is from Morocco and we go there at least every two years; I always think I’ll buy some Muslim clothes from there. But the sad fact is that [. . .] when one washes them for the first time, even by hand, they lose colour or shrink. While many of my informants complained that the clothes bought from Africa or the Middle East are not of good quality with regard to washability and colour permanence, one young fashion-conscious Somali woman instead claimed that although the fabrics used to be bad, nowadays the quality has improved. She wears a full-body veil, including the niqab, and when discussing the quality of materials, she focussed on her outer garments, which largely come from Dubai and Saudi Arabia. It may well be that the quality of fashionable Arabic clothes available in these locations has improved with the expectations of wealthy consumers (Al-Qasimi 2010). Certainly the availability of fashionable covering clothes has followed the demands of fashion-

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conscious middle-class customers in many Middle Eastern countries (Balasescu 2003, 2007, Moors 2007a) as well as in Turkey (Sandıkcı and Ger 2005, 2007, Go€ le 2002). Many of the women I interviewed mentioned the quality of fabric as a crucial requirement when choosing clothes. The textile industry follows a standardized definition of the quality of material, according to which the most important features are wrinkle recovery, pilling propensity (i.e., how long the textile surface can take friction without pilling) and surface smoothness after repeated laundering (Fan et al. 2004: 15 –19). However, quality may mean a variety of things to different individuals, according to their habitus and taste. Aspers (2010) argues that in the garment market, ‘quality’ is not about quality per se, but a contract between the brand and the customer: what the customer and the brand have agreed ‘quality’ to mean. Thus how the customer perceives quality of a garment will depend on her previous experiences of the same or similar brand. When buying cheap fast fashion, quality expectations are very different from those placed upon ‘classical’ brands. Yet the expectation of some level of ‘quality’ is always present. Many of my informants paid a great deal of attention to how the textile fabric falls and retains its shape – that it does not cling to the body or other garments, thus revealing the bodily shape beneath. Fabric also has an impact on comfort and ease of dressing. A Finnish woman in her 30s discussed the significance of quality in terms of ease of maintenance and long-term endurance: I find the quality of the fabric really important: that it falls well and can be washed. That it won’t need much ironing [. . .] More than anything else I hate cheap fabrics that pill after two washes. The textile industry has paid increasing attention to the maintenance ease of textile materials since the 1950s (O’Connor 2005). With an increasing number of women working outside the home, the time available for household tasks has decreased significantly, and new textile materials answer these consumers’ needs with regard to the time and effort needed for garment maintenance. Not only the perceived quality of the fabric, but also the fit of the garment influences its desirability. In every group of women there are

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those who struggle to find fitting clothes in the mainstream market – those who are taller, shorter, slimmer or larger than the average customer, or whose body shape does otherwise not respond to average measurements. When the choice of garments is limited, it is more likely that problems of fit will appear. For example, tall women found it difficult to find long enough skirts or fitting abayas, a problem faced especially by taller than average Finnish women: It depends a lot on the cut [of the abaya] [. . .] Because I’m tall I have to take a large size and they widen as they lengthen. The shoulder might be [down the upper arm] when I wear it. Of course I can fix it as I can sew, but I’m usually too lazy to fix ready-made clothes. It makes one look bigger when the shoulder is not where it should be. Thus the desirability of each garment is also dependent on how the women view their bodies and appearance, and what kind of aesthetic preferences they have. Some women sew clothes in order to solve problems of limited variation or problems of fit, and some customize their clothes; they buy, for example, a simple abaya and change the sleeves or add decoration. It is more likely that customizing is done in order to change details than to fix the fit, given that the latter requires more skill and effort than the former. When choosing how to dress, notions of individuality also come into play. While veiling Muslim women follow their understandings of religious requirements for female dress, they nevertheless want to express themselves and their distinctiveness. A Somali woman in her mid-20s explained how this complicates shopping in Finland: Many don’t want to buy [in Finland], because if someone sells here they may have three, four, five of the same dress but of different sizes. But many don’t want the same. If they happen to [go to the same event]: ‘Oh no, we have the same [dress]!’ In a small community where everyone is dependent on the same retailers with a limited choice of garments, the risk of too much similarity between individuals increases, especially if the garment has been bought

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very recently before the particular event where it is to be worn. While a boutique serving a mixed clientele in a large city may consider it a marketing point that only one garment of each size is available, a small ethnic retailer serving a close-knit community must face the possibility that providing five similar garments is too much for a style-conscious customer who wishes to express her individuality through her dress choices. Finally, the shopping event itself plays an important part in formulations of desirability. It is a well-known fact that shopping environment has enormous impact on shopping behaviour and shopping decisions (Lam 2001). An Iraqi woman in her 20s described the problems she experienced when trying to shop in Helsinki as follows: Somalis have these shops, but they have these black long robes, they have such clothes that don’t fit the young. And the shops are hard to find, they may be on the street but it’s so dark [indoors], it’s so dirty, the staff don’t speak Finnish, they can’t advise [you], it’s really difficult to communicate with them. And the garments all smell, as they have food products in the same shop It is true that the small ethnic shops in Helsinki never sell only clothes but aim to fulfil various needs of the community. Unlike in larger, more plural cities, there are not yet significant enough ‘ethnic clusters’ (Werbner 2001) that would enable shops to focus on garment sales specifically; they usually need to serve their ethnic community in a less specialized manner.5 It is also true that ethnic shops are typically small and full, and located in less-affluent parts of the city. This is partly due to economic constraints, and partly to ensure that the shops are accessible by the ethnic community that tends to be concentrated in certain parts of the city. Therefore many ethnic shops can be found in eastern Helsinki, and in locations with good public transport connections to other eastern parts of the city, such as Kallio and Ita€keskus districts. For those who are used to buying clothes in specialized stores, the whole shopping experience in this kind of shop is crucially different and may seem uncomfortable. The variety of problems this woman lists is significant; perceived dirtiness, darkness, smell and lack of space is certainly offputting if one is used to the spacious, brightly lit showrooms that are the

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rule in most of today’s high street garment stores. She also indicated that she is not the only one who feels this way: ‘Many ask [me] where I get my clothes. They know the Somali shops but they don’t like to go there’. While the experienced shopping discomfort may be very real to the customer herself, such complaints also reflect some lines of division within the community: different ethnic Muslim minorities both in Finland and elsewhere are often suspicious of each other and find foreign cultural customs unappealing and undesirable (Sa€ a€va€la€ 2008, RogozenSoltar 2012). Some of my informants explained that the various ethnic groups have very little to do with each other, and are often hostile in their relations with each other. While they lamented this fact, they often also engaged in practices that, rather than removing such distinctions, reenforced divisions between different Muslim communities. As described above, there is a variety of shopping problems related to the availability, accessibility and desirability of suitable garments, that Muslim women seek to solve using their economic, social and cultural capitals. It has been recognized previously in sociology of fashion that social capital can be gained through dress (Crane 2000), but it must be also acknowledged that social capital can contribute directly to dress availability and accessibility, especially in the case of consumers in a minority position. Entwistle (2015 [2000]) has argued that while the fashion system provides the material conditions on which our wardrobes and dress strategies are built, there nevertheless are various possibilities of improvizing within those conditions. She is mostly talking about how the clothes bought by individuals are then combined in ‘creative’ ways. What my analysis suggests is that when buying clothes, individuals may use creative strategies to enhance their access to garments. A further point to be made here is that my informants were largely concentrating on shopping problems when discussing their consumer behaviour. They described highly flexible ways of managing such problems, it is true, but their approach to shopping was often problemcentred. While direct comparisons are impossible, it must be noted that in Woodward’s (2007) account of mainstream female dress practices in the UK, the women were often focussing on successful shopping experiences: ‘bargains’ and ‘finds’. This suggests that for minorities with specific dress requirements, shopping experiences may become framed differently from mainstream shopping experiences. While the changing situation with

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regard to Muslim fashion production, local and trans-national shopping opportunities and increasing mindfulness of minority clientele by high street brands is developing the situation to the benefit of veiling Muslim clientele, it still remains the case that availability of affordable and desirable garments remains limited for many Muslim women of Helsinki, particularly those who possess low economic capital. The spaces discussed in this chapter are various, ranging from private wardrobes to backstreet shops, high street brand stores and global virtual and non-virtual market places. The significance of the analysis here is that it demonstrates how consumption, distribution, mediation and production of fashion are closely intertwined and ought to be studied in connection to each other. Similarly as African local and diaspora fashion production and consumption are both intimately linked and utterly globalized (Rabine 2002), also Muslim diaspora fashion worlds are overlapping between makers, retailers, mediators and wearers. But this is not to say that the same would not be true of other fashion worlds and fashion spaces, too. That garment production and consumption have been geographically forced apart first by industrialization and then by globalization does not mean that those spaces would not be fundamentally interconnected. This can be recognized when such connections are studied through different kinds of overlapping spaces that form the complex network of fashion markets (Aspers 2013). Although garments and the bodies that make them and wear them are physical and geographically located, fashion also operates as a deterritorial, supranational network in which each individual is more or less bound.

4

SPACES OF COMFORT AND DISCOMFORT: PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL, SOCIAL AND GLOBAL

In commercial spaces, garments are commodities. But when worn, and depending on the context, they change their character. Cultural objects may repeatedly transform their character during their course of existence (Kopytoff 1986). In the life-course of a garment, it changes from labour by those producing it, to a commodity sold to a consumer, to cultural capital possessed by an individual and further to a symbolic object indicating social locations. A garment may also re-enter the monetary or exchange market as a commodity and thus begin its circle again before, eventually, becoming a form of waste. Thus, from commercial spaces we now turn towards different kinds of physical and social spaces that dressed bodies inhabit, shape and move through. Here, I argue for a sociology that is more sartorial than sociologies of fashion often tend to be (Almila 2018): a sociology that takes objects and their material characteristics seriously, as has been increasingly the case within new sociologies of art (e.g., Griswold et al. 2013) The dressed body is both a physical entity and a social sign. Bodily techniques are culturally mediated (Mauss 1973 [1935]), but they are

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also culturally meaningful and structured (Bourdieu 2004). This applies also to individual taste; tasting is situational, located and dependent on multiple physical factors (Hennion 2007), but also culturally dividing, classed and classified (Schwarz 2013). In this chapter I seek to understand experienced forms of comfort and discomfort through dress, and how these experiences are shaped through embodied, situational, cultural and social factors. I argue that the concept of comfort, while mundane, unconscious and semiconscious, is also highly significant for the analysis of dress practices, precisely because it is such a taken-for-granted term (Miller and Woodward 2012). While the harassment and hostility that veiling women often face in Europe is a well-known and well-recorded fact, it is but one factor in the daily experiences of security and vulnerability of hijab-wearing women. Different experiences of comfort and discomfort – from the most mundane to the most politically charged – when moving in and between spaces are central for a fashion scholar to understand. To understand comfort, we must first understand the complexities of the social human body. Again, Bourdieu’s work is a sound starting point, but some additional concepts are needed, in order to understand the material realities within which human bodies operate. Bodily hexis, according to Bourdieu (1977 [1972]: 93 – 4) ‘is political mythology realised, embodied, turned into a permanent disposition, a durable manner of standing, speaking and thereby of feeling and thinking’. The body is intimately linked to both emotions and thought processes – for example, Eco (1998) has mused on the tightness of certain garments and consequential consciousness of one’s body, and how these may cause disturbance of thought processes. While bodily hexis can be transformed through diets, exercise and treatments, and is often managed by doctors and other experts (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]), it is also the case that garments shape the body in ways that are both reversible and irreversible, both intentional and unintentional (Falk 1995). Biographical ‘material conditions of existence’ come to be integrated into individual’s habitus (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]: 437), and this is equally true of the food we eat, the air we breathe and the clothes we wear. Such physical elements are also integrated into systems of knowledge: ‘[t]he cognitive structures which social agents implement in their practical knowledge of the social

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world are internalized, “embodied” social structures’ (Bourdieu 2010 [1979]: 468). Therefore, how we feel about what we wear is simultaneously physical, emotional and embedded in our knowledge about social situations. Yet Bourdieu has been criticized for not paying requisite attention to objects, materials and technologies (e.g., Prior 2008). Particularly when focussing on patterns of consumption preferences and classbased behaviour patterns, such as discussed in the previous chapter, Bourdieu’s work is sometimes considered weak on the side of lived physical realities. To overcome such deficiencies, I apply some more recent sociological ideas about taste and tasting in my analysis (Schwarz 2013). Miller and Woodward (2012) have argued for the analysis of ‘comfort’ in the case of blue jeans. They argue that comfort and fit are individually and situationally experienced, and linked to each other. Comfort can be understood as an avoidance of discomfort, but physical discomfort can also be tolerated when seeking social appropriateness and a fit with a situation, for the (imagined) disapproving gaze of others may cause intense discomfort in itself (Woodward 2005). Further, weather, temperature and comfort are connected, but may also be in odds with each other. What Miller and Woodward’s (2012) analysis reveals is that different fabrics and garments have different cultural standards of fit, tidiness, cleanliness and ageing of the fabric, and therefore comfort in the case of denim may also refer to social acceptability of a certain level of untidiness and weariness of the fabric and consequential ease of maintenance. Jeans ‘remember’ the wearer’s body, and become more physically comfortable with time and wear (Dant 1999). At the same time, garments are embodied not only by the wear but also through the bodies of their makers, which leave their marks on the seams of the garment (Hauser 2005). What I seek to do in this chapter is to take the analysis of dress and comfort a step further using a sociological framing, and by considering a number of different fabrics and garments. While such analysis can be conducted in respect to any dress phenomenon, it is also important to keep in mind that the forms of social discomfort related to veiling in minority context are creating and revealing forms of vulnerability that differ from mainstream experiences of wearing blue jeans. Such specific

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forms of discomfort and its management are further returned to in Chapter 7. COMFORT AND DISCOMFORT: MATERIAL AND THE BODY While applied physiology has paid some attention to clothing and experienced comfort (e.g., Holmer 1989, O’Brien et al. 2011), social and humanities research on dress has by and large ignored the physical experiences related to the body, dress and environment. Within the sociology of art, on the other hand, there have been recent arguments for material objects to be included in analyses (Griswold et al. 2013), as well as for using wider range of sources, including anthropology, philosophy, history and neuroscience, when analyzing art experiences (Schwarz 2013). Along similar lines, it can be argued that sociology of dress would benefit from considerations of anthropology, history, material technology and clothing physiology. In what follows, I will be drawing upon all of these where appropriate. Woodward (2005, 2007) has argued that the experienced comfort of wearing clothes is simultaneously physical and social, and that clothes both enable and prevent social participation, both succeed and fail to make the individual comfortable in a social situation. According to my analysis, both the concept of ‘comfort’ and how something ‘feels’ may refer equally well to physical or mental comfort as well as psychological emotions and sensory experiences. With regard to dress, comfort is strongly cultural and social, and different kinds of feelings are also socially organized. It is often not possible to fully separate these elements but neither is it necessary. Indeed, as my data show, feelings of comfort versus discomfort are complexly constructed in social situations, and internalized as part of an individual’s habitus through means that are material as well as moral. Comfort for the Muslim women that I interviewed had both a material/physical/embodied dimension as well as moral/religious/ socio-mental dimension. Materiality of the body, garments and environment proved to be intimately linked to how the women made sense of their social environment and to their experiences of mental

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comfort and discomfort. When the body is dressed, the fabric comes to matter in three ways. First, how it touches the skin and influences body temperature provokes sensory, tactile comfort or discomfort. Second, material underpins the shape and look of dress, and so influences how the dressed body appears – consequently influencing social and moral/ religious comfort. Third, the movement of material in relation to the body, partly influenced by physical environment, either covers or exposes the body, and therefore has significance for physical, mental, social and religious comfort. When considering how the material and the social come together, it is important to remember Bourdieu’s (2004) argument about the body as signum read by others. He argued that how body as a sign is read by others is internalized by the individual, and so deep is this internalization that a mismatch between the individual and her environment evokes an automatic consciousness of such mismatch, often involving discomfort. While Bourdieu (2001 [1998]: 64) was talking about bodily hexis, ‘the strictly physical shape of the body [. . .] and the way it is “carried”’, which ‘correlates’ with cut of clothing, dress can be understood as a sign more generally (e.g., Barthes 2006). Particularly in the case of veiling Muslim women, dress is both embodied and highly symbolic.

Comfort and Material One of the most significant factors influencing dress choices in Finland is the climate. Temperatures in Helsinki may go below 2208C in the winter and above þ308C in the summer. This causes a radical differentiation of winter and summer clothes. One extremely important defining factor of experienced physical comfort is temperature regulation, which is dependent on environment and climate, as well as on activities performed by the wearer of the garment. The pragmatic suitability of a garment for certain conditions is defined by the fibres used in the material, the structure of the fabric and the cut of the garment. From the point of view of clothing physiology, there is no way of straightforwardly claiming that a garment of certain material would be better suited for certain climate than another, for all depends on specific characteristics of the fabric, the garment and the temporary conditions (Schmidt et al. 2009).

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The Finnish extreme temperature difference between summer and winter was addressed by my respondents primarily through choices of material and cut, as well as by the means of layer-dressing. Tightness may cause unnecessary warmth in the summer, and some breeze between the body and the material often feels welcome. Yet a breeze may be treacherous and expose the body in ways deemed inappropriate. In the winter, air between layers of fabric keeps the body warm, but wind and humidity should not be allowed to get to the skin. Thus while in some contexts the difference between winter and summer garments may have more to do with seasonal appearances, in Finland such difference is largely driven by functional factors. A Finnish woman in her late 20s described the seasonal differences in her dress accordingly: [Winter] doesn’t affect [me] much. I wear the same clothes around the year. During the winter, not that there’s a winter this year, but last year I wore under my woollen skirt a couple of skirts or trousers [. . .] In the summer I may [wear] maxi-dresses or suchlike [so that] air gets through [to my skin]. Most of the women I spoke with claimed that winter and summer made no great difference to their dress, and that the only changes were related to thermal insulation and physical comfort. Yet they listed several differences that were related to materials and layer-dressing (thicker fabrics, warmer materials and more layers in the winter), and also to style and colours (darker colours in the winter, lighter and brighter in the summer). My observations suggest that winter and summer dress styles of Muslim women in Finland differ significantly. However, what remains the same throughout the seasons is the women covering their body according to their religious interpretations. It is probably this that makes these women say there is no great difference between the summer and winter clothes, although a part of it may be that some garments are worn throughout the year. As regards summer wear, many women also pointed out that they become much more visible during the warm season, because non-Muslim Finns wear fewer clothes, while during the winter almost everyone covers their head and the whole body. This change may well enhance the feeling that Muslim women’s own dress changes relatively little throughout the year.

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There were also other kinds of physical discomfort to be dealt with. Some women have problems with scarves pressing their ears uncomfortably or causing headaches. As a solution one may choose to wear soft, flexible jersey materials or bind the scarf above the ears rather than over the ears (Almila 2018). Avoiding pins and using light fabrics were favoured by some in order to prevent headaches, but pin-avoidance also served the purposes of protecting small children who may cling to the mother’s scarf and protecting the fabric against ripping. It’s good if [the scarf] stays [fastened] without pins, so that I don’t have to fix it during the day when I work [. . .] I’ve taken fancy to cotton jersey scarves; they’re really comfortable to wear [. . .] They don’t press or make my head sweat [and] I don’t need pins at all. In this Finnish woman’s account, both the physical comfort of wearing a garment and the wearability of the garment contribute to the experienced comfort. The technological development of materials changes dressing and physical comfort; soft and flexible knitted materials widely available today drape around the head snugly, increase physical comfort and, when the material is not overly slippery, also stay wrapped for a long time. Compared to accessory scarves, these types of garments are specifically meant to be worn as headscarves and thus their functional characteristics are suitable for the purpose. There is an important characteristic of ‘new’ veiling involved here. While ‘traditional’ ways of veiling in Muslim majority contexts were temporally managed, and veils were often such that they were quick to remove and replace when moving between and within domestic and public settings, the ‘new’ veil is worn by women who participate in education and work life, and require different kinds of, more securely fastened scarves and other garments (Almila 2017b, Moors 2007a). The change of spaces entered by the women has changed the requirements for their dress styles. One way of managing new functional requirements and desire for physical comfort is to use flexible materials, as described above. The flexibility of these fabrics is based on two factors: the fibre(s) used in yarns and the structure that makes the yarns into a fabric. The structure of a knitted fabric, formed of yarn loops, is flexible by definition

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(as opposed to the structure of a woven fabric where the yarns are straight). Also the flexibility of the yarn is nowadays often enhanced by using elastics, such as Lycra Spandex, in a material blend. This kind of material allows free movement through its stretching qualities, and lets the garment keep its shape due to reversibility (meaning that the material will restore its original shape when no longer under pressure). Since the 1920s, European fashion has taken material and stylistic influences from sportswear and this has in turn encouraged the development of new fibres (Gale and Kaur 2004: 22). Since the 1950s, the fashion industry has increasingly become based on casual, stretchable fabrics made of blendfibre yarns, suitable for active lifestyles (Blaszczyk 2006). Therefore the textile and fashion industries have contributed to the existence of new kinds of veiling styles, while the new lifestyles of Muslim women have required the development of these styles. Such ways of veiling increase all kinds of comfort: physical comfort through softness and wearability, socio-religious comfort through reliability when worn and consequently psychological and emotional comfort of the wearer. The experience of physical comfort is also socially and historically mediated, meaning that different groups of people in different historical moments perceive comfort of garments and materials differently (Blaszczyk 2006). Noticeably, the Somali women and the Finnish women I interviewed considered different fibres and cuts comfortable; while the Finns tended to favour fabrics made of natural fibres, and considered synthetic materials sweaty and uncomfortable, many young Somalis preferred light synthetic materials of a very loose cut, like this woman in her late 20s: [The material] should be comfortable. I don’t wear very thick [fabrics]. It must be light [and] of good quality, but it shouldn’t be so heavy that it presses [my] head, [or] that I don’t hear anything. [. . .] I wear light and [. . .] non-transparent [materials]. A thin, light material is more likely to be covering and non-transparent if it is tightly woven, of a dark colour, and if the garment in question is very loose and thus the likelihood of it touching the body and revealing the shape of it is reduced. Hence, the preference for synthetic fabrics is partly explained by the characteristics of the material and cut of the garments,

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but there is also a material cultural history behind it. Since the 1950s it has been increasingly common that clothes in the Arabian Peninsula have been made of imported synthetic fibres (Lindholm 2010). Thereafter these garments arrived in Somalia with Arab settlers, and have become increasingly popular among the locals since the 1970s (Akou 2010b). While this particular woman had also lived in Saudi Arabia, and therefore had a personal history linked to the local garment market there, also many other young Somali women preferred synthetic fibres for reasons of comfort and functionality. These women were likely to have imported their garments from locations such as Dubai. Conversely, a Finnish woman in her late 40s considered synthetic materials intolerably hot: In the summer if it’s horribly hot the material [should be] such that one doesn’t sweat. Cotton or linen would be nice to wear [. . .] Synthetic fibre is not nice in the summer. Many other Finnish women used taken-for-granted expressions such as ‘one should wear nature fibres in the summer’ and considered cotton and linen to be of ‘better quality’ than synthetic materials. The Finns were altogether far more likely to praise cotton and linen than were the Somalis – perhaps reflecting a national dress identity that is historically strongly built on cotton and other natural fibres (Lo€ nnqvist 2010). Yet such views were not shared by everyone. Particularly those Finnish women who preferred more conservative, covering garments were often fond of garments made of synthetic materials. However, they did not frame their preference in terms of the material but with reference to the cut and shape of the garment. These women were typically those whose dress styles before their conversion indicated lower-class preferences (Almila 2016a), and it did, indeed, seem that there was a class divide in style and material preferences, whereby Finnish middle-class Muslims were marked by preference for natural fibres and Finnish lower-class women by preference for certain kinds of garments, irrespective of material. Many clothes made of synthetic textile materials are also cheaper than natural fibre garments, particularly those made of linen. Thus individual economic capital may also influence material preferences, even if the

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choice of materials would not be framed in such a manner by the women themselves. With regard to economic capital and using it, the Somali women were in general far more concerned with the price of garments than my other informants, often considering a e40 abaya pricey, when middle-class Finnish women were willing to spend far more than that on one scarf if they found it desirable and comfortable. The latter were also in general in a better financial position than the former. Most of the Somali women had experienced a loss of social status in diaspora, and also their financial position had suffered. Yet, their daughters were often better educated than the older generation. However, education does not necessarily translate to better financial standing even for the younger generation, for Somalis often find it difficult to secure employment, and when employed, tend to work in low-paid positions, associated with the lower-middle-class in Finland. Thus class operates differently for Somali and Finnish Muslims, and this is also expressed through dress; a middleclass Somali may favour similar garments as a lower-class Finn, but is usually more aware of the ‘quality’ of the garment than her Finnish lower class peer.

Minding the Body Besides providing comfort or discomfort, material – the fibres used in yarns and the structure of the fabric – limits the potential cuts of clothing and either follows the body shape or hides it. The character of material defines how garments appear, and how well or not garments either hide or reveal parts of the body. Awareness of this may influence individual material preferences, such as in the case of a young Finnish convert woman: I favour linen, it’s lovely. At least in the summer it’s lovely and cool. And in my opinion, it looks really nice. And often linen clothes are, they aren’t tightly fitting, it’s easy to find good clothes [made of] linen. Linen clothes are often of relatively loose cut as the fibre is very inflexible and the fabric wrinkles easily. Linen is also a relatively robust material that hides body shapes well, as it keeps its distance to the skin. Especially the types of linens Finnish small-scale garment producers tend to use for

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their products are relatively thick, and while some of these garments may be soft and fluid, they still manage to cover bodily shapes, as is desired by most veiling women. For example, a Finnish woman in her 50s explained her material preferences: Breathable. Robust. I don’t like [materials] that wrinkle [. . .] I don’t like t-shirt fabrics, I like to wear this kind of proper fabrics [indicates her jacket made of tightly woven, thick fabric] [. . .] It has to cover this area [indicates midriff] [. . .] I don’t want every layer of fat to be visible. This [indicates her jacket] isn’t very loose but not too tight either. A woven robust fabric (as opposed to knitted, relatively fine ‘t-shirt fabric’) hides the shapes of the body, while giving the figure shape and structure. Knits tend to be more fluid than woven materials and thus follow the body shapes rather than hide them, and often knit fabrics are also used to make tightly fitting rather than loose garments. Such garments may still be worn by veiling women, but they are often combined with other kinds of materials. If a tighter cut that yet does not reveal the body is desired, the material is chosen accordingly, as explained by a Finnish woman in her twenties: This one [indicates the jersey dress she is wearing] – it’s from Indonesia, my friends sent it to me – this is a full dress but it’s so tight that I put the denim skirt on it. It’s otherwise a bit of a sausage. ‘Sausage’ here means that the dress sticks very closely to the skin, a bit like the sausage casing does to the meat. The denim skirt this woman was referring to was narrow and long, and hardly of looser cut than the dress underneath. However, the very character of the tightly woven, relatively thick and robust denim material hid the body more than the jersey dress alone would have, and thus lacked the undesirable quality referred to as ‘sausage’. Long denim skirts are indeed popular among Muslim women in Helsinki, and they are also more reliable in a windy weather than many lighter fabrics, as the fabric is less easily disturbed by movements of air. For those who choose lighter fabrics, wind may become treacherous:

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In the summer if it’s windy and [one is wearing] a light skirt, one must always consider whether one should wear something underneath. If [the skirt] rises, it feels – when one’s not used with walking with bare legs – it feels wild that the skirt might rise accidentally [. . .] Abaya-style dressing is easy [. . .] although also with that there have been situations where the wind has made it stick to the skin. That this Finnish woman in her 40s considers abaya more reliable in a windy weather than a skirt, is partly explained by the different cut of these garments. Many long summer skirts are bell-shaped, pleated or gathered on the waist, which means that the hem is wide. Such a skirt, especially when made of a light fabric, is more vulnerable to sudden movement of air than many abayas that are typically of straight cut, or cut narrower in the hem. However, this woman struggles between social acceptability and desired coverage, and stated that she cannot wear an abaya everywhere she goes, as that would make some non-Muslim Finns uncomfortable. She thus negotiates more than her own comfort and discomfort – through her dress she also negotiates the comfort zones of the Finnish society and dress culture. The movement and position of the body – walking, bending and sitting – influence how garments cover the body. For some Somali women especially, fully covering their body was of such great importance that they preferred long hems, even if coping with them requires specific bodily techniques. A Somali woman in her mid-20s, who wears the full-length khimar, is particularly mindful of the length of her hems: I wear long [dresses], preferably longer than I am so that when I walk or move, my socks don’t show. So that it doesn’t look too short. Although the dress may look long enough when one stands still, walking makes the hem move and may give the wearer feelings of discomfort as her feet and ankles are revealed. Yet when wearing such long garments, there are other problems involved that have more to do with practicality than decency of dress, as explained by a Finnish woman of the same age:

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In the winter I don’t like wearing abayas, especially with the pram. It’s really annoying when one pushes the pram in the snow and the abaya is under the feet all the time. You trip over the abaya all the time, and if there’s slush or it’s raining the hem’s always soaked. As many of the Finnish converts had not worn long skirts before their conversion, coping with the hems was a bodily technique that required some work. Mostly the women tended to choose their dress accordingly rather than to adapt their techniques. A dress that does not fit acquired bodily techniques causes practical problems and types of frustration that very few are willing to put up with in the long run. This particular point about bodily techniques was brought into even sharper contrast when I spoke again with the above-mentioned Somali woman. She was eight months pregnant, pushing a pram and wearing an abaya that certainly was longer than herself. Yet she lamented how she misses running with the pram, and how she could not wait for her pregnancy to be over, so that she could get back to her exercise. Apparently, the long hem was not an obstacle for her movement at all. Movement of the body is always situational, and whether one expects to walk, sit, bend over or practise more extreme movements has consequences for the type of dress that is chosen. This may bring additional requirements as to how garments appear and feel when the body moves, as expressed by a Finnish woman in her 50s: If I go to an event where I must sit on the floor, I prefer putting on something long rather than sitting on the floor cross-legged and [feeling that] my coat is tight and doesn’t cover my legs. In order to feel comfortable with the movement of material and the body, women develop dress strategies that take such movements into consideration, such as wearing overlong clothes or garments with ribbing cuffs, but they also manage the movement of material through bodily techniques. Balancing these two, so that one does not need to be overly careful or feel physical or mental discomfort when sitting, running or doing more extreme physical activities, is crucial for individual feelings of security and comfort.

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Dress can also betray its wearer (Woodward 2005). Some of such betrayals are intimately linked to the body; accidentally revealing parts of the body creates feelings of vulnerability. Others have argued that bodily shame and embarrassment is both situational and results from the habitual wearing of clothes (Rouse 2007 [1989]), and that clothes protect us not only against the physical environment but also against moral danger (Flu€ gel 1966 [1930]). Mundane everyday incidences where the body suddenly feels naked, revealed and vulnerable are bound up with moral concerns (Entwistle 2015 [2000]), and also result in emotional and psychological discomfort. Undressing over which the individual has no control is distressing, and this, according to Masquelier (2005: 2) ‘is true regardless of what portion of the body is being stripped or what is considered “proper” dress in the first place’. Whether one’s interpretation of appropriate dress is micro-shorts and a top, or a full-body veil, an individual prefers to be in control of her own body and its coverage. If an individual is forced to remove (parts of) her clothes under an imperative from the part of other humans, she will likely feel more violated than someone whose body has been accidentally revealed by, say, wind or a stumble. Yet if an individual is shamed for a clothing mishap by others, of thinks that she may be morally judged by others for such an incident, feelings of embarrassment will increase. Therefore developing strategies to reduce the risk of such incidents can function to increase social and psychological comfort. For example, for those Muslim women who wear trousers, the length of the top or shirt often causes concern and discomfort, as described by a Finnish woman in her 40s: Interviewee: I feel uncomfortable sometimes when I go out wearing a too short top. Interviewer: What’s too short? Interviewee: One that’s down here [indicates just below the buttocks]. When you bend over just a little your bum shows. Or, if one wears tighter trousers it shows [. . .] I’d love [a long coat] because it’s so easy, and there are very nice ones. One wouldn’t have to worry, if one bends over here and there or if one lifts a leg or an arm, that something

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would show. Sometimes when I wear a [too short] top, I have to pull it down all the time like this [mimics pulling a top down, wriggles]. That’s how it feels like. The reason she feels she cannot wear long coats, which she personally would prefer, is the social environment of her workplace. She stated that given her customer contacts, she can ‘just’ wear the scarf, but anything more would be considered ‘too much’ by her employer and the customers. She pays for the compromise through the discomfort she sometimes feels due to the experienced shortness of her tops and jackets. Most veiling women who wear trousers prefer tops to come down at least to half-thigh, while some consider anything shorter than knee-length too short. While such preferences are partly connected to religious interpretations, they are also relevant to reducing the risk of accidental exposure of the body when it moves. The construction and expression of (religious) habitus is a process where the body and the mind are deeply entwined (Bourdieu 2001 [1998]). My analysis suggests that understanding the physical elements of how the body and its material environment interact is essential for analyzing the processes of internalization of social structures and habitus-formation (see also Almila 2018). Therefore, social research on dress and fashion will benefit from the inclusion of research of material culture (Miller and Woodward 2012, Woodward 2007), but also from more nuanced understandings of how material technologies and physical, psychological and social comfort are intertwined. In the process of internalizing religious dress customs, beliefs and concepts, the internalization is embodied and material in the sense that the women come to connect comfort to sufficient covering of their body that they perceive both visually and in a sensory manner. Undesired or unexpected exposure of the body causes feelings of discomfort like it would to any individual. Many of the practices, strategies and emotions discussed in this chapter so far arguably differ very little from how any individual would manage their dress; on an everyday level, most dress practices are unconscious or semiconscious, and based on culturally and socially mediated understandings and experiences of comfort and discomfort (Woodward 2007). In the case of veiling Muslim women, there is more awareness

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of dress, certain risk of hostility and thus more conscious strategies, involved in daily negotiations of dress. COMFORTAND DISCOMFORT: SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS While some elements of comfort and discomfort experienced and managed through dress are directly related to material and physical factors of the body, garments and environment, the hijab and the hijabclad body still remain signs, often interpreted as a symbol of Islam and ‘foreignness’ in Europe. There are various factors contributing to such readings of the veiled body. Islamophobia as a form of discourse has long roots in European relations with Muslims and Muslim countries, and anti-Muslim feelings, harassment and discrimination are equally deeply embedded in European and colonial histories (Ogan et al. 2014). The rise of transnational ‘counter-jihadist’ movements which seek to stop the ‘Islamization’ of Europe (Gardell 2014) are represented in Finland, for example, in the ‘migration critical’ branch of the Finns Party, the Finnish Defence League, and the Soldiers of Odin street patrolling groups. Such multinational and globalized histories and current trends have direct consequences to veiling Muslim women in Europe and North America, often in form of verbal and physical harassment and discrimination. Everyday comfort and discomfort for these women is very much influenced by global politics and their local expressions, and the consciousness of the risk of hostility shapes daily experiences of entering public spaces for many veiled women, even when they do not meet with explicit hostility themselves.

Globalized Anti-Islam: The Vulnerability of Us and Them Muslim women living in Europe often meet with hostility and harassment. Hostility tends to increase after incidences related to radical Islamism, ‘Islamic’ terrorism, or rioting where Muslim minorities are perceived to have a central role, such as the New York terror attacks in 2001 (Allen and Nielsen 2002), the Mohammed cartoon controversy in Denmark in 2005 and 2006, the London bombings of 2005, the suburban riots in France in 2005 (Human Rights First 2007), the Charlie Hebdo attacks of 2015, and the Paris and Brussels terror attacks of 2015

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and 2016. Indeed, even after the Norway terror attacks of 2011, conducted by a white supremist, Muslims faced attacks and hostility while the international media was still speculating that the attacks were conducted by radical Islamists (Gardell 2014). After the 2001 Twin Tower attacks, verbal incidents of Islamophobia, particularly concerning hijab-wearing women, were reported also in Finland (Allen and Nielsen 2002). Thereafter the anti-immigrant attitudes of the Finns have increased (Haavisto and Kiljunen 2011), fuelled by anti-Muslim rhetoric used by the Finns Party (Borg 2012). My informants in Finland reported a variety of verbal attacks and forms of hostility, but they also had strategies to cope with such confrontations, both directly and indirectly. Different groups of Muslim women had met with different kinds of hostility. Particularly young women who do not look ethnically ‘Finnish’ felt that they were sometimes considered victims of religion by some Finns. A woman in her late teens, half-Finnish and half-Egyptian, works as a shop assistant. In her work she had met attempts to ‘rescue’ her from Islam that she discussed with her Finnish mother: Daughter: There was a man who on my cashier point started to talk – there was a huge queue behind him – that ‘is that scarf necessary?’ He was of the opinion that he was defending me, my right not to wear the scarf, even though I myself want to wear the scarf. Mother: People imagine we’ve been forced to it, oh poor creature who has to. . . [mocking tone] Daughter: He loudly preached [at me], but then the other customers were like ‘leave her alone’. It was really nice that they defended me. It seems that this woman looks ethnically ‘foreign’ enough to be treated as a foreigner, despite growing up in Finland and speaking fluent Finnish with no foreign accent. Yet more than perceived ethnicity may come in play here. It is difficult to imagine a conspicuously fashion-conscious hijabi being subjected to this particular kind of hostility, irrespective of ethnicity, and those women who reported these kinds of incidences are usually rather inconspicuously dressed. So, interestingly, these are women whose perceived sartorial difference to Finns is comparatively

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low. A Somali woman in her early 20s told a similar story where an elderly Finnish woman tried to ‘rescue’ her in a bus. In this story the ‘rescuer’ was whispering rather than loudly declaring her opinion, but the young woman considered the situation equally uncomfortable and offensive. Such attempts to ‘enlighten’ and ‘rescue’ young ethnically ‘foreign’ women – none of the older women or the women who look ethnically ‘Finnish’ reported anything of the kind – are considered highly patronizing by the women themselves. They may arise from a common assumption that young migrant girls are victims of their family and religious community (Tuori 2012), do not know their rights, and thus need to be saved from their ‘irrational’ culture and religion. As a response, the women stress their personal choice and desire to wear the scarf, thus framing themselves as free agents. Some Finnish convert women felt they were sometimes attacked as cultural traitors, as they ‘should know better’ than converting to Islam and presumably giving up their rights. Many reported disapproving facial gestures, dirty looks and quiet comments in public places: ‘a Finnish woman!’ A Finnish woman in her late 40s specified the type of people who are likely to comment in this manner: There’s all sorts of shouting and spitting when one has the scarf. [. . .] There are those who, women, especially women of my own age, they comment like ‘I can’t get it’, ‘for God’s sake a person must be stupid’, and ‘how can a woman be so brainless’. It is also my experience, both through the reactions to my research topic and through observations of Muslim women and others in public places, that middle-aged Finnish women often feel very little sympathy for female converts to Islam. Being of the generation that fought for and significantly improved women’s position in Finland both politically and in everyday life, they are likely to consider the conversion of their peers as a fundamental betrayal of the women’s rights agenda – this despite the fact that many of these Muslim women fully subscribe to equal rights for women, and some self-identify as feminists. Thus their reaction reveals their own vulnerability and discomfort. It is possible that a Finnish woman presumably giving up the secular feminist ideal of emancipated woman threatens the mainstream woman’s own cultural identity and,

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potentially, the position of women in the society. Go€ le (2002) argues that it is specifically the ‘small difference’ between the Islamic and the secular Turkish women that makes the headscarf such a domain of conflict. Similarly, one can argue that the small difference between an ethnically Finnish Muslim woman and a Finnish non-Muslim can actually increase discomfort in encounters between strangers. Openly racist or anti-Islamic attacks, which my informants faced occasionally, were attributed mostly to the type of person who attacks (i.e., elderly persons, drunken men, those with personal problems or mental health issues). A Finnish Shi’a Muslim in her 40s elaborated on this: The young comment quite rarely, and if they do they might be drunk, half joking so it’s still positive. Children usually ask are you a nun and do you have hair under that scarf [laughs]. Violence. . . once when we were walking with my ex-husband and the children in Ita€ keskus, one man almost attacked me. He was drunk and the scarf was like a red rag to him. He’s the only one I’ve really been scared of. Then of course there are people who wonder [why one wears the scarf], one gets used with it. At the workplace when we have customers and I go in the same lift, they stare. They don’t quite know how to [behave]. I get a feeling I’ve got some dirt on my clothes and then after an hour I remember, oh yeah, I have the scarf [laughs]. Particularly the people who stare at her seem to be reacting to what they perceive as a ‘stigma’ exactly as Goffman (2009 [1963]) would expect: not quite knowing what to do about it and therefore experiencing discomfort. The more disturbing situation she describes happened in a highly significant location. Ita€keskus is a relatively destitute area of eastern Helsinki inhabited by many immigrants, lower-class Finns and also Finns with a variety of financial, social and/or mental problems. In Helsinki, ethnic minorities and underprivileged Finns often live in same areas, and this has been found to cause conflicts between different ethnic groups (Virtanen and Vilkama 2008). This tendency is further strengthened by recent trend of ‘white flight’: Finnish middle classes seeking to move away from areas of Helsinki where there are large

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migrant communities (Vilkama et al. 2013). Situations of confrontation therefore tell not only about the vulnerability of Muslim women, but also of the vulnerability of the attackers. Ita€ keskus with its demographic profile is an area where one would expect more confrontation than in richer, less racially polarized areas. It was indeed the case that women living in the poorer areas, or visiting there regularly, reported more hostility than those who lived in the middle-class, less ethnically diverse parts of the city. Some women also recognized that harassment had increased recently. A Somali woman in her 40s, who had lived in Finland for over 20 years, felt that there is significantly more rudeness and mistreatment of Somalis today than there used to be when she arrived in Finland. This is in line with the hardening attitudes against migrants concurrent in the society more generally (Haavisto and Kiljunen 2011). Despite of such experiences, many veiling women persist with their dress customs. They also stress that while they meet hostility, and while such hostility is more noticeable after terror attacks associated with radical Islamism, harassment is by no means daily, and that most Finns are neutral or supportive of veiling at least in their external behaviour. It is also the case that for many women veiling has such personal religious importance that giving it up is simply no option. One Finnish convert described to me how after the New York attacks her aunt tried to persuade her to give up her scarf or to wear a less-prominent scarf for the sake of safety. The woman herself considered such a suggestion a start of a slippery slope: ‘If I give up that, what will I give up next?’ Religious conviction and its expression through dress support these women in their everyday life and help them when dealing with confrontation.

Religious Comfort, Social Discomfort? Religious comfort is often created through the conviction that one is doing the ‘right thing’ as a Muslim woman and fulfilling a religious duty. Religious comfort and social comfort may support each other, as when a woman feels that she is fulfilling a religious duty as well as dressing in a socially appropriate manner. However, there may also be a lack of balance. In such a situation, the wearer feels two kinds of pressure that clash as religious comfort and social discomfort. It is in terms of this kind

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of comfort that my informants differed most significantly from majority dressers’ experiences of social comfort and discomfort (Woodward 2007). While a woman who follows mainstream dress norms may experience occasional social discomfort due to a ‘failure’ of dress in a new, challenging situation (Woodward 2005), most of my informants needed to deal with some levels of social discomfort also in familiar situations. They often sought to balance their religious comfort and social discomfort through various strategies, some relying more on religious comfort and security than others. A Finnish convert woman, who veiled at the age of 35, over ten years previously, considered the change as liberating: When I started to dress according to Islam by putting on the scarf, my self esteem rose radically, and I felt I’m really sure of myself. Because it meant to me that I’ll be stared at and I might be shouted at, and somehow I felt that it doesn’t matter what I do and who I am as I’ll be a target anyway. This woman also claimed that she does not pay much attention to the style of her clothes, since she considers clothes insignificant as anything other than as a marker of her religion. Yet she, later in the interview, told that she avoids certain garments, such as abayas, in her workplace, revealing that she also seeks social comfort through her dress. A Somali woman in her 20s explained that religious duty is the most important aspect of dress: In my opinion the clothes aren’t the thing, but that you obey God. If a garment serves that purpose it becomes important. Not so that you’re attached to material, but you wear certain [clothes] because you’re a Muslim and you obey God and that’s it. Nothing else. In my opinion Muslims shouldn’t cling to anything worldly. You wear what you wear because Allah has told you to and you obey God, and there’s no greater reason. This woman also explained that she had ‘never been accepted’ in Finland and felt that she is a potential target of hostility no matter how she dresses, and therefore she might as well only consider religious norms

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when choosing her dress style. A rather defiant attitude to veiling in minority context, such as expressed by both these women, stresses religious comfort over social. Occasional social discomfort becomes irrelevant, or less relevant, as it is always less important than the individual’s religious conviction. Islam is practised and performed in many ways at the everyday level, prayer being one important element of this. Prayer was a gateway to the hijab especially for many converts to Islam. Muslim women are required to cover their heads and bodies while praying. For some converts, veiling became connected to positive psychological and emotional experiences resulting from prayer early on, as described by a woman who converted in her early 20s: I started first to pray and it gave me a peaceful feeling. And in the beginning, I wore the scarf [when praying] [. . .] And then came [the feeling] that if I wear [the scarf] while praying, why don’t I wear [it] outdoors? I can well wear [it] when I walk there. And that caused the leap [to hijab]. The comfort she experienced when praying was what enabled her to confront the possibility of social discomfort which had kept her from veiling before. Although two of my Finnish informants described the bodily practices of prayer and ritual washing as ‘performing’ (suorittaminen), meaning that they felt obliged to fulfil them as duties rather than always desiring to do so, many others stressed the beneficial and positive experience of prayer. Because of the strong association between the veil and prayer, this experienced comfort came also to be associated with the veil and thus facilitated the donning of the hijab in everyday life. Yet the leap was not always easy. A Finnish woman reminisced her moment of veiling, some ten years previously: When I started my maternity leave, quite soon after [my child] was born, I stared to wear the scarf. I had been a Muslim for some years already. I felt that I must start wearing the scarf: I’m a bad Muslim if I don’t. [. . .] [But] it was hard to stand [that people would] know that’s a Muslim, she’s put the scarf on. It was quite a conflict when I

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felt I must do this but I was a bit ashamed and it was hard to stand the staring – or I thought that everyone stares. And now after years I sometimes wonder, when I go on public transport, why someone is staring at me, what’s their problem, until I remember that they have a problem with this minority I represent in their eyes because I have the scarf. It’s also liberating that one doesn’t need to think about it all the time. Sweat still rises on my forehead when I think how agonising an experience it was. Through the veil, this woman was seeking to exchange her religious guilt for religious comfort, but as a consequence she had to face a degree of social discomfort. The time she refers to coincides with the New York terror attacks of 2001, which affected public attitudes with regard to scarf-wearing women and made them targets of verbal abuse (Allen and Nielsen 2002). Although this woman (like many others) got used to both her dress and others’ reactions to it with time, ten years on, her response to the unpleasant memory is still marked by intense mental, emotional and physical discomfort. Thus what was social discomfort at the time became internalized as mental and physical discomfort and later activated through a memory of a social situation. This woman was not the only respondent who described or exhibited strong emotions and physical reactions when discussing their appearance and others’ reactions to it. I observed bodily tension, changing voices, lowered eyes and other signs of discomfort when the women described unpleasant everyday incidences or their anticipation of such. These narratives were often related to hostile or aggressive reactions, but they were also sometimes caused by a sense of guilt where religious conviction was weaker than social pressure and a woman came to remove her scarf to please others. Such experiences of embarrassment, shame and guilt differ radically from those of a woman who in a particular social situation feels her dress is not fulfilling its function (Woodward 2007). She will get another chance tomorrow, but a woman who is committed to her hijab in a non-Muslim country will need to cope with social discomfort far more regularly, even if this gets easier with time and customization. One important reason for donning the scarf is a desire to ‘be a good Muslim’. Such a desire may be understood as internalization of globalized

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community standards, but the idea of how Muslim women should dress may come from outside the community, too, and be expressed in questions of non-Muslims as to why some Muslim women veil and some do not. A Finnish woman in her 20s found the scarf a central question in her decision to convert: It was a big [reason for] doubting if I can [convert to Islam]. Somehow, I had it in my head that if I’m a Muslim woman I must dress in ways that cover my body [. . .] [The question] was exactly this: Can I put a scarf on my head? If I can’t wear a scarf, how can I be a Muslim? I don’t know why I had [this idea], since there are many Finnish convert women who don’t wear the scarf. Before her conversion she had very little to do with anyone from the Muslim community, which suggests that there was no direct pressure towards scarf-wearing. It is more likely that the image of the hijabwearing Muslim woman is established and affirmed both by Muslim communities and non-Muslim mainstream society. With the ongoing public and media discourse centred around veiling, it would be surprising indeed if Muslim women were never confronted with the question. Similarly as veiling has become an important question in Muslim-majority countries in the wake of the 1970s and later veiling movements (Abaza 2007, Ahmed 2011), in minority contexts the media coverage of global political and cultural trends has contributed to an increasing awareness of veiling questions. In fact, a Shi’a Muslim who converted to Islam in 1977 told me that she only heard about the scarf after her conversion. She also described how her family’s attitudes towards her conversion radically changed from relatively neutral to hostile through the highly negative media-coverage of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979 (Taira 2008). The politicization of veiling has made the veiling question far more pressing for each individual Muslim woman. Some women, especially young Finnish Muslims, considered public demonstrations of Muslim identity a significant motivating factor for veiling. At a moment of public achievement, the representative role may be especially important, as a 19-year-old woman who recently graduated from upper-secondary school explained:

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My scarf-wearing is also motivated by people seeing I’m a Muslim, as I wear the scarf and do good deeds. When I was awarded a prize [for academic achievement], it was really nice that a hall full of people saw that a scarf-wearing girl received a prize. However, the representative role may become burdensome. This happened to a second-generation Finnish Muslim: When I was 14 years old [. . .] I had [. . .] an eating disorder and terrible perfectionism. And it strains me that people have wrong ideas about Islam, that [we are] all terrorists [. . .] And I felt somehow that as I was wearing the scarf everyone [knew] I’m a Muslim [. . .], I had to be perfect in everything so that no one could say anything bad about Islam based on [my behaviour]. [. . .] I was in hospital and I [. . .] talked with mother and said that perhaps for my own sake it’s better that I take [the scarf] off now [. . .]. I can’t be the whole world’s Muslim community’s [. . .] messenger. At that life phase, the scarf became an unforgiving signifier of her community representation and thus was linked with her perfectionism and the pressure she felt due to her recognizability as a Muslim. The borders of manageable discomfort crossed, she reacted in a manner highly harmful for herself. To recover from the eating disorder, she took time off from school and travelled to her father’s home country, where she took on the scarf again. Although she admits to still hoping that people would think well about Islam, she has become more forgiving about her own role in community representation. The negotiation of difference, consciousness of Islamophobic discourses and awareness of recognizability are potentially extremely burdensome especially for young women. Although many of my informants generally recognized both religion and the hijab as sources of comfort and consolation, in some cases the personal life story and specific life situations played a more significant role, as was the case with a Somali woman in her late 20s. At the time of her veiling, when she was 19 years old, she struggled with complicated family-related problems in her private life and felt left alone and vulnerable.

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I started to read the Qur’an. It somehow helped really, really, really a lot in my life situation. Then I decided I have to do something [. . .] I started to think, okay, I’m adult enough, now I have to take some kind of responsibility. Her veiling was a part of a larger religious transformation at the same time as it signified her entry into adulthood and responsibility. The transformation was marked also by a break-down of a significant intimate relationship: I got engaged [. . .] And my fiance started somehow, he was somehow really jealous – why do you dress like that, your clothes are really tight, and blah blah blah – and I said, hey, I’m a good Muslim, you can’t complain at all. And it somehow made it worse that he was so jealous I couldn’t convince him that these clothes are not tight [. . .] It was difficult and I said okay, that’s enough. And that further strengthened it, that I really want [to cover] – not his words that I have tight clothes, but that he transformed totally, into a monster. After breaking up her engagement, she was even more convinced about the benefits of the hijab, since she considered it something that can give her protection against incomprehensible male aggression that she had met in her ex-partner. Therefore the initial decision to veil, motivated by experiences of comfort that religion gave in a difficult life situation, was enhanced through the sense of psychological protection that the hijab gave her. In her personal history, the hijab functioned as a protector against external threat. Experienced discomfort may also be constructed as a sacrifice for one’s faith through which religious credit may be gained. In the struggle to fulfil religious duties, the hijab is often not considered the most important aspect, but the act of wearing it in a potentially hostile environment is considered a demonstration of courage and faith by many, and therefore counts as religious capital (Rey 2008). For example, donning the face veil in an environment where everyone knows it to provoke much more hostile reactions than the veil in general is admired and respected by many (although not by everyone), who consider it a

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sign of religious commitment and individual courage. Practically any kind of hijab can be providing increased religious comfort (and a sense of superiority, too), when an individual’s own veiling practices are compared to those who cover less or do not veil at all (Tarlo 2010; Siraj 2011). According to one respondent, her Shi’a Iraqi family interprets religious dress and the motivations behind it in this vein. The eldest daughter of the family, translating her mother’s words, explained how the mother interpreted the daughter’s attire: The more you make an effort for the religion, the more you work, the better level of paradise you achieve [. . .] [Mother] makes a comparison that I who wear the long robe get more, because I’m young after all, want to dress fashionable, want to look pretty but I still cover myself for God. Because I fear God and put the long robe on, I get more virtues, I get more points. But [a woman who] dresses according to fashion, she gets less. The sacrifice for her faith is framed as neither physical nor directly social in terms of comfort or discomfort. It is rather a question of a sacrifice of one’s supposed desires and vanity, and a form of self-control and avoiding worldly temptations. A young woman who is expected (or allowed) to be vain and have a desire to dress fashionably gains more religiously through her sacrifice. Furthermore, the religious status a woman gains through a more religious dress in this context is not only valid for herself but often also for her family. The mother of this woman stressed throughout the interview the fact that her elder daughter dresses in a more covering manner, while she never referred to her younger daughter’s dress – she wears trousers, tops and tunics with a scarf. How such a focus will influence the younger daughter’s dress choices in the future remains to be seen. Therefore religious comfort, respectability and status that can be gained through donning the veil, or donning a particular kind of veil, are important elements in compensating for potential or actual social discomfort. The balancing act between these often contradictory pressures is bound up with negative emotions such as guilt, shame, a sense of insufficiency and the feeling of being an outsider, as well as positive emotions such as peacefulness, sense of security, belonging and

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self-confidence. While such experiences are familiar to many nonMuslim women as well, veiling Muslims in minority contexts are in a position where their balancing act is likely to require more effort than their non-Muslim or non-veiling counterparts’. The different kinds of social and city spaces through which these Muslim women negotiate their ways in their everyday lives place complex requirements on the garments they were. From mundane concerns such as physical comfort of a garment to coping with consequences of global politics, the intimate decisions as to what to wear, when and where are linked to much more global spaces of social operation. Similarly as commercial fashion spaces are multi-layered and of various scales, so too are everyday dress experiences operating in all scales from skin to globality.

5

COMMUNITY SPACES: GLOBAL AND INTIMATE UMMAH, SCHOOLS AND MOSQUES

Dress not only shapes individuals’ experiences in relation to their social and physical environment; it also forges and expresses communities and community belonging. While it has been long established in anthropological studies of dress that forms of belonging are locally communicated through bodily ornamentation (Hansen 2004), it is also the case that trans-national and deterritorial connections can similarly be communicated through garment choices. This is often particularly clear in diaspora settings where individual garments may carry memories of the homeland, or cultural and ethnic belonging may be passed on to the next generation through dress customs (Tarlo 2010). But even more significantly for my study, global belonging can be created through garments that are not tied to any particular diaspora setting or ethnic group. Therefore in this chapter I discuss how dress creates, shifts and crosses different kinds of community borders. Dress is important for community belonging and identity negotiation; it is also intimately linked to ethnicity and ethnic belonging (Eicher and Sumberg 1995).1 Yet dress

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has the power to shift the borders of racial belonging, as has been the case, for example, for white British women converting to Islam, who due to veiling became targets of racialized hostility (Franks 2000). Dress is a form of cultural value, social connection, ethnic and national identity formation and cultural heritage (Disele et al. 2011). And indeed, as my analysis in this chapter shows, while dress has the power to shift community borders, dress alone is not sufficient for community belonging, but must function in collaboration with individual behaviour and motivations, and the surrounding environment. Muslim minorities in Europe live under specific conditions of community construction. In diaspora, community borders are necessarily re-negotiated (Saint-Blancat 2002). New forms of belonging are created, often by means of distance from both culture of origin and host culture. Consciousness of global belonging and local negotiations within Muslim communities form a part of the diaspora experience of Muslims in Europe. Religious interpretation is an important arena where symbolic boundaries are shaped and re-defined; in a new environment, there are new kinds of needs for religious guidance, but there are also increasing possibilities for comparing religious scholars, doctrines and interpretations according to one’s needs. Religious authorities are not bound to mosques and localities anymore but can be accessed through the internet and multi-national television channels. Many of these leaders are self-taught preachers and intellectuals, rather than trained within and according to a specific school of thought. At the same time, the blurring of sacred and secular and the struggle over Islamic representation in public spaces create challenges to Muslim communities (Mills and Go€ karıksel 2014). All these possibilities of religious choice and interpretation create increasingly complex diaspora communities whose borders are under constant negotiation. According to Douglas (1984 [1966]), groups aim to protect themselves against external symbolic ‘pollution’. Perceived pollution from the part of an individual group member creates disorder that the group seeks to resist. Therefore, the fear of pollution often leads to the control of others through social pressure. Ways of dealing with pollution include elimination of an individual, correction of individual’s behaviour, stigmatization, and marking the individual as dangerous (Bryson 2016). The attempt to influence others directly is one level of

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retaining order. When an individual’s behaviour is seen as dangerous, it must be interfered with. One way of managing such a threat is through communicating ‘danger-beliefs [that] are as much threats which one man [sic] uses to coerce another as dangers which he himself fears to incur by his own lapses from righteousness’ (Douglas 1984 [1966]: 3). So when a woman warns another against the ‘dangers’ of immodest dress – as happens in Muslim and non-Muslim contexts alike – she is also reassuring herself of her own safety when modestly dressed (whichever her perceived level of ‘sufficient’ modesty). But beyond the level of direct communication and coercion there lies another level. The ideas of pollution and danger reflect social order, power and hierarchy. Thus when women and men are required to follow different standards of sexual purity, this reflects the hierarchical power relations between genders in the group or society. In groups and societies, there is ever present ‘the ambition [. . .] to set forth the frontier between the sacred and the profane, good and evil, the vulgar and the distinguished’ (Bourdieu 1985: 735). The Bourdieusian understanding of social space as a map of social locations, distances and intimacies is based on the idea of borders which separate desirable elements from those deemed undesirable. Community spaces are very much about such divisions and separations, and they involve acts of protection, inclusion and exclusion. Dirt, matter out of place, is a form of disorder and morally dangerous, and therefore ‘reaction to dirt is continuous with other reactions to ambiguity and anomaly’ (Douglas 1984 [1966]: 5). Dress is intimately related to morality in terms of sexual morals and the fear of frivolity (Ribeiro 2003 [1986]). Dress out of place and ambiguous dress are morally dangerous, similar to any other condemned social customs. Symbolic boundaries, according to Douglas (1972), are formulating social hierarchies, distances and intimacies, and dress mediates such boundaries. This means that in order to avoid ambiguity, there must be correlation between forms of dress and groups of people: ‘the fit between the medium’s symbolic boundaries and the boundaries between categories of people is its only possible validation’ (Douglas 1972: 68). Yet ‘the boundaries between conceptual categories [. . .] are porous’ (Mills and Go€ karıksel 2014: 906). This chapter analyzes the variety of ways in which dress mediates such borders, and how spaces, individuals and communities are participating in such processes.

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The inclusion of ‘everyday fashions’ in the field of fashion studies has not been an obvious or an automatic development (Craik 1993). From the ideas of Barthes (2006), claiming that sociological studies of dress and fashion should analyze the connections between collective ‘dress’ (of which fashion is part) and individual ‘dressing’, to cultural studies arguments for including non-elite topics in cultural analyses (Hebdige 1979, Craik 1993), a number of scholars have stressed the importance of fashion’s operations at the everyday level. While the anthropology of dress has been interested in fashion phenomena for some time already (Hansen 2004), there are not many analyses of fashion that would seek to understand both the operations of fashion worlds as well as everyday dress practices. Therefore I consider it important to embark also an analysis of intimate relationships within communities, and how these are formulated through dress and discourses about dress. The commodities drawn from the globalized fashion industry come to play a very different role in community formation and management. MAKING THE COMMUNITY Veils and veiling are bound up with explicit and self-conscious acts oriented around the creation of senses of community. Such acts are not only about creating a sense of community at a local, or national, level, but in fact reflect certain dividing lines that are more globally felt, such as the divisions between what are considered more extreme versus more moderate interpretations of Islam. Ever since an increasing number of Muslims moved to non-Muslim countries after World War II, the deterritorialized nature of Islam has been increasingly conscious and prominent. This has led to the imagination of a new ummah: a new cosmopolitan, global community of Muslims (Roy 2004). Finnish Muslims’ practices in community construction, inclusion and exclusion very much reflect such global trends, especially within the young generation of spiritually aware Muslims. These ideas centre around the invention of abstract, universal Islam as opposed to ‘cultural’, local variants of the religion. The two major tendencies in such developments, identified by Roy (2004), are recognizable also in the Finnish Muslim community; more ‘fundamentalist’ types of interpretations which

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fervently object to any practices deemed ‘cultural’, seeking to promote universal, ‘pure’ Islam and to exclude ‘wrong’ forms of religiosity on the one hand, and ‘liberal’ interpretations of individual, politically more secular, spirituality and global belonging across borders on the other. Both these come with highly conscious, and often visible, forms of belonging.

Greeting: The Imagined Global Ummah Made Real Community borders are drawn through acts of performance. The audience of such acts are other Muslims, although there may be wider representational motivations behind the acts. Usually groups have an interest in restricting their membership and controlling the representation of the group, to present it in positive or at least in non-harmful ways (Bourdieu 1997 [1983]). As a group’s hierarchical status is defined by the status of its members (and vice versa), it would be in the Muslim community’s interest to have some power over who may declare themselves as Muslims and how they choose to represent the religion and the community. While in pre-World War II Muslim contexts, an individual used to primarily represent their family, in the deterritorialized form of Muslim existence, they come represent the whole Muslim community, the global ummah (although family connections and family representation remain important). At the local everyday level, not only can anyone who wishes to declare themselves as Muslim do so, but it is also easy to become a representative of the religion in a minority situation. Everyone dressing in a recognizably Islamic manner is often taken as a representative of Islam, and many of the veiling Muslim women are called upon to defend Islam in their encounters with nonMuslims. Therefore many (though not all) Muslims want to draw the boundaries of the community clearly, and they often use dress-related performances to protect and define the symbolic boundaries of the community as they understand them. The practice of greeting is crucial for processes of community inclusion, and it is one of the most significant performances practised by Muslims on an everyday basis. Believers are expected to greet each other, and a mutual greeting signifies that both individuals recognize each other as Muslim. Lamont and Fournier (1992: 2) remind us that symbolic

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boundaries are constructed at cognitive, communicative and political levels. Women who greet other veiling women, even though those women are personally unknown to them, are engaged within public spaces in acts of recognition which build a sense of community, but these acts also carry a global political element. Greeting a stranger who also wears a veil is to indicate a powerful sense of commonality and fellowfeeling. In line with this, a Finnish woman in her late teens found the scarf ‘a key to the community’: As long as I didn’t wear the scarf I felt it was difficult to enter [the Muslim community]. I think the scarf was [what made me] feel part of the community. If I walked in the street and said ‘as-salaam alaikum’, that’s peace be upon you, to someone, [. . .] I might have received a reply but with ‘is that a Muslim’ look. But now that I have the scarf [. . .] people realise that [I] belong to our community. The scarf was a key to feel belonging to the community [. . .] Previously I didn’t feel the community’s presence so strongly. Not only is she recognized as a member of the community by other Muslims due to her scarf, but she also feels differently about community belonging and the community itself as a consequence of wearing it. However, recognizability is not only about wearing a scarf, but also about wearing a recognizable scarf, as the account of a Finnish convert in her late 20s demonstrates: I feel that the majority of [Muslims] don’t recognise me as a Muslim as I only wear a small scarf. They might wonder why I greet [them] if they think I’m not a Muslim [. . .] No one’s ever come and greeted [me]. In order for the hijab to be a symbolic indicator of a person’s status as a Muslim, it must follow certain stylistic requirements. Fulfilling doctrinal requirements of covering one’s body and hair can be achieved through more unrecognizable dress styles as well, but these will not function well at the symbolic level of religious dress. Yet it is likely that ethnicity is highly significant here. This particular woman’s style of veiling does not differ greatly from styles that, for example, some Afghan women wear.

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Yet an Afghan woman would likely be recognized as a believer where this Finnish woman is not. Ethnic difference functions here to make different women differently recognizable. The hijab not only fulfils a religious duty but also communicates to others that one is fulfilling such a duty. One may be a devout Muslim, but unless other Muslims can see that, one might be treated as a non-Muslim. It is indeed the case that some hijab-wearing women consider their nonveiling acquaintances as non-Muslims and behave accordingly: If I walk there without a scarf and claim I’m a Muslim, people might think ‘why doesn’t it show in you that you’re a Muslim?’ Quite often I’ve met even Somali women without a scarf; I didn’t greet [them] according to Islam [. . .] because I don’t know if she’s still a Muslim. Although this Somali woman in her 20s says she does not know whether the other woman is still a Muslim, she also implicitly considers nonveiling women as non-Muslims; she practises a strategy of (soft) ‘elimination’ in order to police community borders (Bryson 2016), removing, through her behaviour, the non-veiling woman from community membership. These three accounts above reveal the importance of the hijab for processes of community inclusion. Muslim women are aware that others may judge them to be members of the Muslim community if, and only if, they wear recognizable hijab. Hence their scarf becomes both an indicator and a means of claiming membership in the Muslim community, and this is a form of membership considered as crossnational and cross-ethnic in character (despite of ethnicity playing part in one’s recognizability as a Muslim). One young Finnish Shi’a woman in particular found her scarf a powerful indicator of belonging during her travels in both Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority countries, a symbolic tool which guaranteed her sense of belonging, and a warm welcome from other Muslims irrespective of the national context. Conversely, some acts aim at excluding from the community those whose hijab is perceived as inappropriate or less appropriate than one’s own (see also Tarlo 2010). When a veiled woman refuses to greet another veiled woman whom she encounters, that is a highly political

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act, for it sends out a powerful message about her refusal to recognize that woman as a co-religionist. In so doing, the lack of greeting is a way to demonstrate various forms of negative emotion, such as sectarian chauvinism and disapproval of the (presumed) religious affiliation of the woman who has been refused acknowledgement. A Finnish Shi’a woman told me that she does not greet women wearing the niqab, as she considers face veiling un-Islamic. She also expressed a dislike of women wearing ‘rags and sacks’ – meaning long khimars and niqabs – and men in ‘too-short’ trousers. Such styles are often considered to indicate conservative Salafi-affiliations,2 and are also associated with hostility towards Shi’a Islam, so it is hardly surprising that a Shi’a Muslim would reject such styles. This Sunni/Shi’a division is present in Finnish Muslim communities although it is not often discussed by the Sunnis. Yet one Sunni woman called herself a ‘heretic’ for thinking that Shi’as are Muslims too, and some Finnish Shi’as admitted that they avoid referring to their affiliation when socializing with Sunni Muslims. Thus while the sectarian politics are not always visible through dress styles, the global politics are felt at the local level and cause potential friction in individual relations. The Sunni/Shi’a divide is not the only political distinction felt in interpersonal relations. A Finnish Sunni convert described her experiences in a situation where she was denied entry to an unofficial religious meeting, according to her because of her dress: Some Finnish sisters wear the niqab and dress even more [. . .] modest: no special scarves but the khimar and abaya. Their behaviour shows they don’t like me [. . .] If someone’s interested in the religion or religious teachings or so, in my opinion one shouldn’t say you can’t come. In my opinion if you were a good Muslim you’d say: of course, come to study with us. This woman, who at the time of the interview was clearly feeling deep resentment against the Muslim community, had a strong sense of being criticized not only by non-Muslim Finns but also by other Muslims. This gave her a sense of disappointment, not unlike those sentiments that Roald (2006) has described as the second phase of conversion to Islam; she argues that converts typically go through ‘love’, ‘disappointment’

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and ‘maturity’ during their conversion. This particular woman expressed her resentment specifically against women who wear forms of highly covering abayas and khimars: They may be worse, nastier people. They might be dressing in order to show others [. . .] There are Muslim women [who] compare [themselves] to others, the more they cover they’re supposedly better Muslims; there’s horrible competition. And then one notices that those who dress really neutrally, and covering so that no shapes are visible, they’re their own gang. And then again, where I probably belong, [. . .] those who cover a bit less – though in my opinion I cover enough – they’re their own gang. And then those don’t want to have anything to do with us. You see it everywhere, it’s useless to even try to make friends with them since they’ve judged you already when they see your dress. Arguably, one of the purposes of dress is that it can be quickly judged to determine who an individual is (Kaiser 1985). While such means of forming an idea as to who a person is or what their role in a situation is can be beneficial when easy recognizability is necessary, such as in customer service, this kind of recognizability also serves to make erecting boundaries easier for those who wish for such borders to exist. Disagreements within Muslim communities – against more conservative dress on the one hand, and against more liberal dress on the other – are performed in a more or less subtle manner in everyday communications between individuals. Although it seems a minor act to neglect greeting another Muslim one is not acquainted with, in the frame of inclusion in, or exclusion from, the Muslim community, it is a performance of one’s political opinion, just like the more direct act of rejecting the company of those one considers inappropriately dressed.

Gift-Giving: Material Inclusion As is well known in anthropology (Mauss 1967 [1923]), a gift is never just a gift but a mechanism for forging social relations and obligations. When a woman receives a scarf or other kind of Islamic garment as a gift, the person who has given her the gift is sending messages about various matters, such as that she should veil, or that she is recognized

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as a member of the particular religious and ethnic group, or that she should veil in a more or a less covering way. The veil-gift is therefore a means of communicating, and to some extent enforcing, morality, drawing the individual recipient into webs of collective expectation (Almila and Inglis 2018). In gift-giving activities, community boundaries are enacted and performed between individuals through material means. A Finnish woman who converted to Islam at the age of 18 told me how she, after reading the Qur’an and believing it to be ‘the truth’, learned more about the practicalities of Islam. Through an internet discussion forum, she made the acquaintance of a Muslim woman of her own age and learned more about everyday life as a Muslim. I visited her a couple of times and she showed me how to pray and gave me a scarf and then an abaya [. . .] So, I actually started to wear them and pray before I had said the declaration of belief. As Muslim women should veil when praying, such garment-gifts have a practical value for the new convert when she learns religious practice. The gift serves the purpose of encouraging her to veil, and as a welcome to the community. Such gifts are often easily given and considered neither too personal nor too valuable to accept. However, a gift is always given and received under obligation (Mauss 1967 [1923]). In this case, it can be seen as a covert attempt to convert someone (or at least to encourage her conversion), and one of its purposes is to bind the receiver, if not to the gift-giving individual, then to the Muslim community as a whole through a sense of gratitude and obligation to return the favour. The new converts who are on the receiving side are expected to contribute back to the community later on. Rather than creating a bond between two individuals, the gift therefore aims to create a bond between an individual and the community. Given that there are different kinds of hijab styles, and almost all of them are representative of the community through recognizability, garment gifts may also serve the purpose of encouraging a certain kind of hijab, and thus a desired kind of representation of the community. Such gifts are given under specific conditions, and usually follow the receiver’s desire to change her dress (and the giver’s desire to support her

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decision), rather than as a general encouragement for veiling. A Somali woman in her mid-20s explained: Just this summer I gave up a scarf I’ve worn for many, many years. It was very dear to me [. . .] But [. . .] I got migraine and I couldn’t [wear it anymore]. Someone else wanted to start [wearing] the [khimar], which is a great thing if another Muslim wants to cover herself more. I was very glad [and] I gave it to her. Such gifts as this are not simply about person-to-person links either, but may be considered more as expressing, forging and maintaining networks within the community. The gift also indicates an invitation to be included in a particular sub-group of veiling women. A garment gift may also signify a new family bond through marriage. Many of the women I interviewed mentioned scarves and other garments that they were given by their mothers-in-law. These may come with no verbal indications as to what the bride should wear, or there may be more explicit requests made by the new family. An Iraqi woman tells: When I got married, my mother-in-law gave me clothes; she had bought them abroad [. . .] At that time I didn’t yet wear a black long robe, I had trousers and a top down here [indicates below mid-thigh] and then the scarf. This robe I started to wear when I got married. It was [my husband’s family’s] wish and I said why not. In marrying into another Iraqi family that has much stricter religious dress codes than her own family, the bride found her previous dressing style inadequate for her new position. The marriage in this frame was not viewed as a union of two individuals, but as a union of two families, and thus the bride’s belonging to the husband’s family was marked through a change in dress. The marriage was also organized through families, rather than between two individuals, and the bride consented to the marriage because of the good reputation of the husband’s family. In this frame of Shi’a Iraqi marriage, reputation, as well as status, is something that a family holds as a unit, and thus every individual’s behaviour is judged as part of that unit. Therefore, a family unit holds a position

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within a community that defines each family member’s status in the community in question, but at the same time an individual contributes to their family’s status position. In a ‘traditional’ Muslim view on marriage and women, a woman’s honour is directly connected to family honour – and therefore the women of the family also control family honour through their actions, including veiling (Webster 1984). A gift may also carry a message of acceptance and approval. A scarf given as a present to a convert woman might signify acceptance by the woman’s own family of her conversion, as happened to a Finnish woman in her late 20s: I didn’t tell [them about my conversion] directly; they’ve been left to deduce it from the changes that have happened to me. They’ve not said anything about it, and my mother even wanted to buy me a scarf, which was really nice. We were at Porvoo [open air] market, they have handmade woollen scarves there, and it was really kind of her because I think they think I’ve converted because of my husband. In a situation where the family does not communicate through expressing themselves in verbal and direct ways – not all that untypical a situation in a Finnish family – a garment-gift may gain considerable significance, for it says that one’s choice is accepted and even supported by one’s family. This indicates a continuity of the family bond rather than the formulation of a new bond. Interestingly, the kind of gift-giving between family members that indicates both continuity and recognition of new position is significant among the Punjabi in Pakistan, where a brother may gift his sister a protecting garment upon her marriage when she leaves the family home (Alvi 2013). Thus material objects, when passed between individuals, create individual, familial, group and community bonds and a sense of inclusion, while also having functional purposes for the receiver. They draw symbolic community boundaries, and together with other performative acts, such as greeting, they establish alliances, inclusions and exclusions. While these interpersonal communications happen at the local level, they also have wider political significance, and are influenced by global trends of divisions, inclusions and exclusions.

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SEEING THE COMMUNITY As the hijab has become such an extremely visible and recognizable indicator of religious belonging and membership, concerns related to such representational visibility have also grown in Muslim-minority contexts (Moors 2009a). Particularly young veiling women perceived to behave in an undesirable manner are target of criticism, critics often arguing that these women should either behave ‘well’ or not veil at all (Bendixsen 2017). While female behaviour in this regard is important for representational reasons, there are also other types of requirements to do with integrity placed upon veiling women. Both the internal – that is, motivation and perceived honesty – as well as the external – behaviour and appearance – are targets of monitoring, criticism and control (Moors 2009a). Ultimately these struggles aim to protect the community, both through committing individuals to the community and through managing how others view the community.

Honesty: Motivation and Behaviour Control of the internal aims to ensure that women’s motivations for wearing the hijab are ‘pure’, and that their external appearance is in balance with their internal religiosity, expressed in their behaviour. In the Muslim diaspora, ethical behaviour and purity of intentions are considered equally important as doctrinal observance (Saint-Blancat 2002). Koskennurmi-Sivonen et al. (2004) have argued that Muslim women in Finland are expected to be ‘honest’ in their motivations for veiling. My data suggests that there are two kinds of concepts of honesty at work: a motivational honesty (wearing the scarf out of individual religious conviction) and a behavioural honesty (acting and thinking according to one’s dress). A Finnish convert to Islam in her mid-40s and her adult daughter both considered modesty in behaviour and pure motivations for veiling as key elements of veiling woman’s mind-set. They specifically talked about women who, according to them, wear very covering dress and behave in an extremely modest manner when in public, but reveal their dishonesty in virtual contexts. The mother explained:

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There are these Muslim websites. Some people write there something but when you see them in real life it’s a completely different thing. You see this person and she’s not saying anything, like she doesn’t exist, and then she writes obscenities online. In my opinion that’s so wrong. The external appearance and behaviour in public is expected to reflect the internal character in ways that are not hypocritical. Those perceived to be dishonest may be subjected to criticism, their behaviour deemed ‘un-Islamic’ and their religious sincerity doubted. In addition to behavioural honesty, honesty with regard to motivation was required. The daughter added the following to her mother’s comment: And about the scarf and pretentiousness, it’s also sad that it seems that many are believers only because of their husband, or wear the scarf for the husband’s sake. And when they divorce they take the scarf off. One wonders why [they] wore it. Consistency in veiling is considered important by many Muslims; after donning the veil, one is usually expected to stick to it, which makes the initial decision highly demanding for many (Smith-Hefner 2007).3 Especially in the case of unveiling after a divorce, the purity of intention is thrown under serious suspicion. Since many of the Finnish convert women had doubts cast upon their religious sincerity by non-Muslims, the topic seemed to be particularly touchy. Indeed, some Finnish women explicitly argued that remaining a Muslim and sticking to veiling after their divorce proved that they are sincere, authentic Muslims. Removing one’s veil after a divorce not only caused a woman’s religious sincerity to be doubted, but her initial conversion became suspect as well. Due to their perceived dishonesty, these women threatened the community, and particularly the position of those convert women who perceived themselves as honest converts who had chosen Islam for pure reasons – that is, not because of a marriage. To deny the status of authentic Muslim for such women is to control community boundaries against an individual perceived to behave in a polluting manner (Bryson 2016). Here it is important to consider two specific characteristics that the conversion narratives of Finnish Muslim women revealed. While the

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majority of the women had been introduced to Islam through marriage, they all stressed strongly their personal decision to convert, which came only after considerable intellectual search, study and consideration. With a few exceptions, they stressed elements of continuity and integrity over those of change and difference, and this was true also of how they described their conversion-related clothing transformations. This is not in accordance with what is typically considered as characteristic of a religious conversion, including a conversion to Islam: a break from the past (Allievi 2006). Instead, in the context of Finnish female conversion, continuity and intellectual search were considered the signs of honesty and integrity required of a true, pure Muslim. Interestingly, such elements are usually missing from Finnish male conversion narratives, which typically stress an uncontrollable life, often including heavy alcohol consumption, before the conversion, and a total transformation as the result of finding Islam. The requirement of integrity and motivational honesty was not exclusive for convert women only. All Somali women I spoke with said explicitly that one should only wear the veil out of individual choice. Yet there was serious community and family pressure to wear it, and many women also stated that one has to wear the veil–there is no alternative for a Muslim woman. Apparently these two positions were not considered contradictory, and nor was it considered problematic to tell family members explicitly that they should veil, or indeed that they should veil in a more covering manner. Such attempts to directly influence an individual are partly linked to perceived threat in the form of polluting behaviour, and seeking to retain order in face of pollution (Douglas 1984 [1966]). But it is also the case that in the Somali community, family reputation is highly significant, and veiling demands from the part of family members often have far more to do with how the reputation of the family is perceived than with how Muslims in general are viewed (Isotalo 2017). Yet also the Somali population is nurturing more global ideas about Islam, particularly in the diaspora. Especially those young Somalis whose doctrinal interpretations were clearly Salafi-influenced sometimes criticized the older Somali generation for Sufist religious beliefs and practices, and for a lack of what they themselves considered proper religious knowledge. Yet it is the case that after coming to Finland, the older generation of Somali women have typically donned more

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conservative dress styles very different from what they wore back in Somalia before the civil war (Isotalo 2017), and indeed many women have only veiled in diaspora (Koskennurmi-Sivonen et al. 2004). A stricter form of hijab in diaspora is a trend observable also elsewhere (Ruby 2006), and such changes in cultural forms of expression in diaspora are connected to collective memory-formation on the one hand and to unifying consideration of religious scripture on the other (SaintBlancant 2002). It is important to note that the older generation in Finland was not criticized for their dress, but for their perceived lack of culture-free religious reasonings behind it; in other words, for a lack of religious knowledge and appropriate motivation for behaviour. While integrity is required of a veiling woman, veiling women often also come to see veiling as integral part of their self in ways which would make removing the veil highly stressful. Where veiling is not allowed, such as in university campuses in Turkey, retaining internal integrity becomes a struggle for religious veiling women (Kejanlioglu and Tas 2009). One of my informants had experienced such a struggle in her life while living abroad: We lived in France. I haven’t much spoken about this because I have regrets. In my husband’s workplace we were led to understand [. . .] that if your wife wears the scarf you won’t have clients. And our survival was dependent on my husband’s income. And so I, crying, gave up the scarf for some time. And it was terrible in the beginning. Then I got used to it but I always missed it; I felt I wasn’t honest with others. I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I still wore long clothes, just lacked the scarf – even tops with high collars as I was trying desperately to stick to [the covering of my body]. Years afterwards, the memory was still extremely painful to her as it contradicted her sense of honesty and integrity, as well as her ideal of trust in divine care. I first didn’t want to talk about this since it’s very painful to me. I’ve regretted I wasn’t strong enough to say I’ll wear the scarf no matter if we have customers [or not]. We’ll eat grass then. But we had four

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children. Somehow my faith should have been stronger, I should have trusted that my husband will get customers and God will take care of our income. I was too weak then and I wouldn’t want to admit that. Therefore while students who would be banned from their studies if they veiled may draw consilience from doctrinal interpretations which allow unveiling for a higher religious principle, such as education, bending under external social pressure may cause deeper emotional stress and anxiety, for it contradicts one’s sense of integrity and forces the individual in a position where her honesty is at question.

Internal and External Beauty Honesty was intimately linked to interpretations of beauty too. Far from rejecting the idea of inner and outer beauty being linked, many Muslim women stressed the representational connection between them. However, they did not claim that beautiful equals good or vice versa, as the ‘beauty mystique’ – ‘the equations of beauty as goodness, and goodness as beauty’ – assumes (Synnott 1989: 608). Instead they argued that (1) there is God-given physical beauty that should not be visible to everyone; that (2) public appearance reflects the inner beauty of one’s character; and that (3) one’s external behaviour should correlate with the internal character. While goodness and beauty are not directly equated in such accounts, they nevertheless are related, and both are enacted in an individual’s behaviour. The link between external appearance and internal character was reflected in perceptions of beauty especially in the case of Finnish converts to Islam. Beauty was also discussed in more secular terms. Some of the women framed their personal aesthetic standards according to the standards of the hijab – the covering dress worn by anyone is beautiful, as expressed by a Finnish woman in her late 30s: In my opinion any human dressing in ways that cover is beautiful. It pleases my aesthetic eye if I have any. I think it gives [. . .] dignity that one doesn’t show everything. I believe that dressing protects the inner self. But the covering dress doesn’t

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need to be ugly [. . .] I think a human’s faith reflects onto the surface [appearance]. Some women stated explicitly that their beauty ideals had changed since they themselves took on the hijab. A Finnish woman who started veiling more than 20 years previously said: My perception of beauty has changed so that when I see a young Muslim girl who’s dressed really beautifully, I think it looks so lovely compared to someone who isn’t wearing a scarf. Therefore, not only is the external appearance viewed as reflecting internal beauty, but the external could be seen as aesthetically satisfactory in itself. Yet it was a widespread agreement among my informants that the hijab liberates women from appearance pressure. A Finnish convert woman in her late 30s felt that the hijab protected her inner self, but also brought her some credibility: I don’t think that if people have to dress very revealingly, that it would be a means of liberation. It creates more expectations. Like, over-weight is viewed negatively: the quaking flesh isn’t according to all the beauty ideals. I believe it’s one of the reasons why many women start to consider [the option of] a covering dress. Such secular-feminist statements are expressed by many Muslim women around the world (Moors and Tarlo 2013). But in contrast to claims that veiling functions against appearance pressure, some women framed their refusal to wear revealing clothes very much in terms of mainstream ideals of thinness, like this middle-aged Finnish woman: If I look at people in the summer here, of my own age [in their 50s], they wear tight leggings and [. . .] horribly short tops. They might be younger too, but fat. Of course small sexy clothes look beautiful on a good-looking young woman, but when you are normal, you have too small tits and a too-big behind, it doesn’t look good.

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In a less secular vein, an aesthetically pleasing outfit was considered a religious duty by some. One Finnish Shi’a woman referred at length to Prophet Mohammed, and how he had the reputation of being a handsome man who also took care of his appearance, tidiness and hygiene: The Prophet [. . .] was himself always mindful of his appearance and wore white, which is difficult to keep clean, and groomed his beard and combed his hair and wore perfumes and eyeliner. She argued that since Mohammed is an example for Muslims, it is every Muslim’s duty to mind their appearance, too. Similarly, an Iranian Shi’a woman in her 20s considers ‘helping nature’ a religious duty and an act of pleasing God: I want to wear something that [in addition to] cover[ing], also has some appearance other people can tolerate. They do like it [laughs]. You should help the beauty of nature to [the] best [effect]. I believe all Muslims, I don’t know [if] others also, mention this sentence that ‘God likes beauties’. So, the creator also wants you to follow beauty and care about beauty. Particularly Shi’a women often considered beauty as a religious duty, while for many ethnic Finns, both Sunni and Shi’a, aesthetic appearance served representative purposes; a veiling Muslim should dress aesthetically and tidily in order not to confirm stereotypes of Muslim women as oppressed and uneducated. A more controversial question is how much nature should be ‘helped’. Dress can be used to change the body shape, enhancing some parts rather than hiding them. One debated issue linked to fashionable hijab styles is binding the scarf in a manner that adds volume to the shape, either with a large bun of hair or artificial additions such as scarves or large hairclips. Such artificial means of creating fashionable scarf styles are also used elsewhere, and they are controversial from a doctrinal point of view (Go€ karıksel and Secor 2012, Moors 2013). In Finland such binding techniques are sometimes used for particular physical reasons; Finnish women’s hair tends to be fine and silky rather than voluminous. When I

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first visited a shop selling various Islamic clothes in Helsinki, I was taught to drape a scarf by a young Somali woman. She started by showing me how to make a fake bun of small scarves to give an impression of long thick hair, and how to alter the shape and balance of the head. However, not everyone approves of these buns and some express fierce criticism of them, claiming that they ‘miss the point of hijab’. A Finnish Shi’a woman in her early 40s is aware of this but prefers enhancing her head shape a little: There’s been a huge fight all the time I’ve been a Muslim. There’s a hadith4 that it’s an apocalyptic omen that women wear [scarves] like camel’s humps. Some are of the opinion that [a bun] shouldn’t be visible [. . .] and some think it’s ok if it’s a bit visible, there are extremities [. . .] But as I’m a Finn, [my hair has] no volume [. . .] When one wears the scarf, it looks better if there’s little something. I wear some filling. Sandıkcı and Ger (2005) describe similar scarf-binding techniques among Turkish middle-class women. They argue that the scarf in many ways takes the role that hair has for uncovering women. As techniques of draping the scarf are often aesthetically motivated – a majority of the women I interviewed choose their scarf styles according to the shape of their face and their aesthetic preferences, even if they do not specifically enhance their scarf – it seems reasonable to suggest such a connection. In this frame, those women who wear scarf styles with no added volume or decoration are also making a choice of not enhancing their ‘hair’ – rather like women who choose to wear their hair in simple, inconspicuous manners. Therefore Muslim women negotiate their veiling and aesthetic standards according to various elements: religious doctrines, community pressure and beauty norms of the wider society. Ultimately, their concept of beauty is connected to both their perceptions of sincerity and honesty, as well as to their aesthetic preferences. Since internal beauty is primary, a Muslim woman who behaves badly cannot be considered beautiful. Jones (2010: 105) has argued with regard to veiling in Indonesian consumer culture that ‘Spiritual Beauty explicitly frames piety as an inner state that compels outer modesty but does not prevent also creating a beautiful

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exterior’. Through internal modesty and integrity, external beauty is made acceptable.

Corruptive Spaces: Schools and Pubs Hijab’s visibility and symbolic significance make it function differently in specific kinds of spaces, too - those potentially profane, such as schools and bars, and those considered sacred, such as prayer rooms. Finnish schools usually practise a liberal dress policy; pupils are allowed to choose their own clothes and it is extremely rare for individual dress choices to be censored by the school.5 By and large, scarf-wearing of multiple forms is allowed, and different facilitation strategies are in place to allow for children of religious families to participate, for example, in physical education. To my knowledge, only one school has formally practised a general anti-headgear policy, but when challenged, the policy was changed to allow exception for religious reasons (Mattson 2010). In Finland schooling is compulsory for every child under the age of 16. While parents have the right to home-educate their children or to send them to private schools, there are very few cases of home-schooling and private schools are extremely rare. The overwhelming majority of children are educated in the nearest state-funded school. While there are some Islamic kindergartens, no Islamic school exists. Therefore school is necessarily a space where Muslim children socialize with non-Muslim children outside parental control and observation, and many Muslim parents fear the results of such interactions in a secular, mixed-gender space over which they have little influence. Finnish school architecture is guided by the National Educational Board and thus is influenced by the educational ideology (or hidden curriculum) defined by the state (Jetsonen 2011). Therefore, Finnish school architecture is ideological architecture that concretely influences school practices and how school is perceived by citizens, at the same time as it reproduces state ideology through the socialization of individuals and definitions of citizenship; Finnish school architecture can be seen as a representation of space that serves to create and reproduce forms of hegemony (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). When school is seen in this manner, it is not surprising that a minority community feels the need to protect its young members from potentially undesired influences.

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Such protective activities are targeted especially at school-aged girls. Flu€ gel (1966 [1930]) has argued that one of the purposes of clothing is to protect individuals and groups against ‘magic’ – that is, against external corrupting influence. Considering the local schooling system as such an external influence, some families react by dressing their daughters in scarves as soon as they begin school, which in Finland happens at the age of seven. Requiring girls as young as that to wear the scarf (when the vast majority of religious interpretations do not require it) is often framed as beneficial for the child herself, as she will avoid greater trouble later on, but at the same time such arguments never question whether or not she should wear the scarf when she grows up. Similarly as it is considered by many acceptable to pressure family members to veil, despite claiming that veiling is an individual choice, many (though not all) viewed imposing the veil on young children as a positive course of action, for it was considered to protect the child and facilitate her growing up in a nonMuslim society. Community and family pressure and surveillance make it difficult for some young women to give up the hijab should they wish to do so, and therefore unveiling in secret especially during school days also happens. But at the same time, many veiling women explicitly condemn the coercion of individuals towards veiling, and especially defend the right of a child or youth to unveil. A Finnish woman who has three school-aged sons, and therefore has no direct need to make decisions in this regard, had nevertheless considered the matter of veiling in school: Of course I’ve thought that if I got a daughter I’d wish she’d wear a scarf later on. And I’d put the scarf on a daughter in the first grade. Just because it’d be easier for the girl. So that the friends get used to and accept the girl looking like that. Because if in the puberty one starts asking [for it], it’s really difficult. There’s a lot to think and the body changes and the mind changes. If one has to change also one’s dress rather radically and there are not many Muslim girls in the community around, in my opinion it is too difficult. It’s asking too much from someone of that age. This woman, herself a teacher, is more interested in the child’s role in the process and the scarf’s potentially stigmatizing character, than in the

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school environment per se. For some, however, it is the school as a compulsory entry into the wider society that may seem threatening and potentially corrupting. A Somali woman in her late 30s, with three daughters, explained that unless the girl learns the habit of veiling early on, she will likely refuse the scarf later: Sometimes they ask why you put [the scarf] – if it’s a small girl, they ask. If one doesn’t put [it on] when she’s small! Before [coming to Finland] we didn’t, [but now] we must teach, so that she’ll know. If she doesn’t wear it now when she’s small, she’ll say I don’t want to. But then she’ll have to wear [it], she’s a Muslim. [. . .] But if she doesn’t take [the scarf] when she’s small she’ll say she doesn’t need to. She’ll ask ‘why, mother?’. While this woman stated explicitly that a Muslim woman has to wear the hijab, one of her teenaged daughters has different views: ‘My girl said slowly she will take it, but it’s not a must’. She recognized also that peer pressure plays a significant role in veiling practices: If we were in Somalia, Arabia, it’s not necessary because every girl of her age will be the same. When she’ll get her periods, everyone will say you’re a big girl now and [can’t go] with your hair free. She will listen and take [the scarf]. But now, Finland is free, she won’t listen. She really won’t listen. She says girls don’t need it, ‘mother, I’m in Finland, it’s a free country and I don’t have to’ [laughs]. It is significant that the corrupting influence is considered to start when the child enters the schooling system. This is partly due to different childminding practices in Somali and Finnish families. While the majority of Finnish children participate in pre-school education, many Somali children are taken care of at home until they reach the school age. School is therefore perceived as the first environment where the child meets her non-Muslim peers. It is a potentially polluting space against which the hijab functions as a protector. But with an increasing number of schoolaged Muslim girls, veiling practices are being increasingly integrated into the spatial practices of schools, thus facilitating the veiling of individual

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girls (and potentially increasing peer pressure towards veiling, too). However, where there is a lack of peer support, many Muslim girls come to feel the majority pressure too strong even if it were not directly expressed. A Somali woman in her early 20s told me that when her family still lived in a northern Finnish town, where there were no other scarf-wearing girls in the school, she always secretly took off her scarf during the school day, but once her family moved to Helsinki and she had veiling peers, she was quite happy to wear the hijab. Other young women referred to temporary unveiling in secret as a relatively common practice among Muslim teenagers. On the other hand, a Finnish secondgeneration Muslim told me that when she made the choice of veiling at the age of ten, two girls in her class followed her example soon thereafter. Peer support is enormously important for school-aged girls, and contradictory pressures from family and peers put them in precarious position in terms of their dress choices and practices. Muslim women engage also in acts of spatial self-control, both for representational reasons, and for the purposes of self-improvement. In such practices, the hijab fulfils the purposes of a reminder and a facilitator. In particular, the scarf serves to protect an individual against spaces that are perceived as polluting due to the major spatial practices, such as alcohol consumption or potential sexual relations. Since the women do not want to be seen in such spaces, the scarf effectively prevents them from going there (Moors 2009a). A Finnish woman in her 30s explained the effect of veiling: There’s a lot of wisdom in wearing the scarf. One doesn’t go wearing the scarf to a place where one doesn’t want to appear with it. It creates choices; if a friend calls that I’m in a bar here, come here to wait for me and we go then together, one’s like no, let’s meet in the coffee shop next to it. When something’s visible, one makes perhaps less conscious choices that may be better for one’s life. It is interesting that in Muslim majority context, veiling can do exactly the opposite; instead of keeping the woman out of spaces considered corruptive, full veiling renders the woman unrecognizable and therefore removes social pressure connected to her family’s reputation and allows for more freedom of behaviour (Moors 2007). But in Finland the veil is a

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protective tool through visibility, as indicated by another Finnish convert woman: Maybe [the scarf] also protects one’s own behaviour. One considers what kind of image one gives. Normally one doesn’t put oneself in such places, [or] seek such places where people mix [sexually]. And one’s behaviour is more official, overly flirting has been left after becoming a Muslim. Therefore the scarf is a protective tool that functions both spatially and behaviourally. While the protection of the image of Muslim community or family reputation is usually the main factor motivating such selfregulation, the self-regulation itself can also be viewed as self-protective.

Sacred Spaces: Mosques and Prayer Since mosques and prayer rooms are widely considered as sacred spaces, there is a variety of dress and purity requirements that need to be fulfilled when entering them. For example, entering a mosque wearing shoes is considered impure, disrespectful and inappropriate. Mosques typically practise segregation of genders in the sacred space. The space is perceived as ritually pure, and spatial practices are in accordance with this, ensuring the purity of the space and religious practices happening within it. Through spatial behaviour, a space is both produced by, and shapes, human action (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). Therefore there are spatial demands in respect to dress within particular spaces, while appropriateness of dress also constructs the purity of space. Dress demands vary from one mosque to another. Thus, for example, when visiting a certain Sunni mosque where conservative religious interpretations and outfits are popular, I always wore a small scarf, bound behind my neck, that covered my hair fully, in order to indicate that I was not a Muslim, yet respected their sartorial rules. In the Resalat Shi’a mosque, on the other hand, I wore a loose scarf that left part of my hair visible – a style that many Afghan women especially prefer. The women I interviewed had various dress practices related to both mosques and prayer, and many were framed with respect to perceptions of sacred space. A Shi’a Afghan woman in her early 20s, who outside the mosque wears ‘similar clothes to the Finns’ and a scarf, views mosques differently:

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When I come to the mosque, I have this on [indicates her abaya], I don’t always wear this [. . .] One may wear what one wants. I wear this, since this is a holy place. But one may also just come wearing a scarf, no need to be like this. In her account, a woman’s entry to the mosque requires a scarf, but there are no other restrictions. She also veils outside the scared space, albeit in a different style. Another young Afghan woman who unveiled when she arrived in Finland at age of 16 – despite being ‘religious internally’, she prefers not to show it ‘on the surface’ – only wears the scarf in a mosque. She stated explicitly that she puts the scarf on in the mosque because of the place itself, not because of other people in the space. The sacredness of space is more significant for her than the users of the space and their perceptions of her dress. In fact, some of my Shi’a respondents considered a dress style like hers to be inappropriate for the sacred space of a mosque, yet they argued that it is more important to welcome people to the mosque than to regulate their garment choices. Therefore the principle of managing the sacredness of space through the exclusion of profane bodies may be in conflict with the principles of inclusivity and openness of the religion and its sacred spaces. Veiling is also deeply connected to the experience of prayer. Many of my respondents stressed the spiritual importance of prayer in their daily lives – those minutes alone with God five times a day were often a ‘lifeline’ in an otherwise busy life. Prayer, an embodied act of submission to God (Winchester 2008), is also a spatial act whereby space is temporarily marked sacred and private through ritual (El Guindi 1999). Given the sacred nature of prayer, the veil protects the act of praying against corporeal and worldly impurities. At the same time, it secures the sacred space against corruption. The body must be ritually pure and covered during prayer. It is also important that the garments used to cover the body are clean. Many Shi’a women used large pieces of lightcoloured fabrics which they wrapped around themselves when praying in mosque – a style that had no specific meaning beyond purity of the veil – and many women had specific prayer clothes which they would don quickly before praying, especially at home. Using specific garments dedicated to prayer ensures the cleanness of the veil and therefore the purity of the prayer.

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The intention to visit a mosque may also influence one’s daily dress choices. A Finnish woman in her late teens chooses her clothes according to whether she will be visiting a mosque where she will pray: I’m actually wearing this robe only because it’s Friday and I’m going to the Friday prayers. I don’t wear this otherwise [. . .] I might go also in a skirt and a sweater, but this is somehow so easy, one just slips this on and everything’s covered [laughs]. I just always pray in an abaya. Therefore for her it is not so much the place of prayer itself, but rather the act of praying that defines her dress practice in this regard. However, she also said that the dress styles she prefers prevent her from entering some mosques. She stated that there are mosques where, when one wears a skirt and a long-sleeved top instead of an abaya, other Muslims may come to remark that one should not come to a mosque dressed like that. Consequently, she chooses only ‘welcoming’ mosques where such censure does not happen. Another Finnish woman, in her 40s, also described similar experiences: It’s happened to me several times that some woman has come to tap my shoulder and say that ‘hey, you can’t come to a mosque wearing trousers’ [. . .] I have to say that if it’s the Eid prayer, or I know I’m going to a mosque, I don’t normally wear trousers. But I don’t stay out either if I’m for example somewhere on the road and wearing trousers. But then I think, ouch, someone’s prayer’s spoiled now, when they think ‘why does she do something like that?’. Because in her opinion I’m in the wrong, almost sinning, and insult the prayer room by going there indecently dressed. In such acts of protecting both sacred spaces and the sacredness of prayer, community borders are constructed. Different communities in different mosques have different interpretations as to what kinds of outfits are profane, and whether more stress should be laid on inclusion rather than protection of the sacred space. The act of prayer links the visible act of worship to the internal state of the believer. Therefore sacred spaces where prayer is performed are sometimes fiercely defended against

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polluting influences. However, many women also stated that mosques should be welcoming and open; places where anyone interested in Islam may enter and where no barriers are erected. A mosque in minority context is not only a place for worship, but also a representative space for potential or new converts and interested non-Muslims. Whether openness is considered as the primary purpose of prayer rooms, or whether protecting the sacredness of space is perceived to be more important, influences what kind of garment practices are tolerated in each mosque. Many of the ways in which the Muslim community is constructed, represented and protected are intimately connected to dress and space. Types of dress indicate and provoke community inclusion and exclusion, motivations for veiling and behaviour while veiled are linked to integrity, honesty and beauty, and the veil can function to protect both an individual and space against polluting influences. My analysis here has sought to demonstrate the intimate connection of dress to multiple levels of social belonging, but also to stress that dress never functions alone. Dress is never a pure sign or a symbol that can be donned by anyone, but is instead a mediator of community values, behaviour and space. While the concerns of visible minorities may be more underlined in terms of dress, it is nevertheless the case that majority dress is similarly connected to morality, purity, belonging and spatial structures. This is necessarily so, for one characteristic of dress is that it only has meaning due to human interaction, due to more or less shared ideas of the wearer and the spectator (Kaiser 1985). The spaces discussed in this chapter all link to the idea of community, be that local or global, concrete or imagined. Different kinds of spaces where individuals operate with other Muslims and non-Muslims alike are central to formulating, imagining and shaping the Muslim community. Through inclusion and exclusion, rejection and welcoming, protection and openness, different kinds of community spaces are forged. But spaces are also viewed as requiring the protection of an individual against the space, or calling for protection against polluting practices themselves. Spaces, bodies and garments operate together and are operated in the management of impurity, sacredness and profanity.

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SPACES OF ADAPTATION AND INTEGRATION: CITIZENSHIP, WORKPLACE AND SPORT VENUES

While the politics of dress operate at a highly contagious level when individual veiled Muslim women face harassment in the streets after well-publicized jihadist terror attacks, there are also other levels of political enquiry that should be involved in analyses of dress. Whether an individual is aware of it or not, local legislation restricts their choices of attire (or, especially, no attire) to certain extent. How a state seeks to control its subjects is communicated through means such as individual’s rights versus others’ rights when engaging in certain activities, like performing work duties or leisure times activities. Local and state regulations also interfere with dress practices in various rigidly defined spaces that serve specific purposes. Spaces of work and leisure are very particular kinds of spaces. Constructed through hegemonic, often regulated, spatial practices (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]), workplaces are environments where an individual is not an individual but an employee with duties towards the

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employer. Also, the employer – public or private – has duties towards the employee, and these duties are regulated by both national legislation and international decrees. The employee’s occupational role and the workplace’s organizational structure define what kind of practice, appearance and behaviour is expected from the employee in the work environment (Dellinger 2002). Dress codes, either directly enforced or indirectly indicated, are part of such occupational and organizational expectations. An important realm for integration and practising citizenship, the workplace appears as a space of negotiation for veiling Muslim women. While considerable attention has been paid to veiling in workplaces and the law (Greene 2003, Edmunds 2012, Marshall 2008, McGoldric 2006), the dress strategies of working Muslim women have received less attention (for exceptions, see Lewis 2013b, Omair 2009). In the first part of this chapter, I offer an analysis of the multiple factors influencing working and veiling Muslim women in Finland: the nature of the work space, contacts with other employees and customers, formal and informal dress codes, individual religious interpretations, individual aesthetic preferences, and religious and ethnic communities. Ultimately the workplace emerges as a space where the state, employer and employee together establish some conditions for veiling women’s public citizenship. Another important realm of integration is that of sport as leisure. In Finland, legislation declares every resident’s right to access spaces for exercise, and every municipality’s duty to arrange and protect such access; therefore sport is an interesting target of analysis when seeking to understand citizenship and participation in Finland. Public services typically provide venues such as swimming halls (i.e., indoors swimming pools), different kinds of sports fields, winter sport facilities such as ice rinks and skiing tracks, and gyms. There is also a wide range of private gyms in Finland. While pedestrian and bicycle roads are the most popular venues for physical activity among the Finns, the gym’s popularity has been significantly increasing especially during the twenty-first century; the most popular leisure sports are walking, cycling, gym exercise, crosscountry skiing, jogging, swimming and gymnastics (Kunto 2010). Thus sport is practised in public and semi-public spaces and comes to be framed and practised differently in each type of space. Sport in a public space can

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be seen as a means of claiming rights and spatial access, while sport in semi-public spaces for exercise is connected to both spatial rights and spatial adaptations. Sport practices are also framed by local and multinational laws and agreements which sometimes come to influence Muslim women’s participation at the local level. Therefore, in the second part of this chapter, I build upon existing literature on Muslim women and sport, and illuminate the complex motivations for and limits to participation, and the challenges of adaptation that shape Muslim women’s sport practices. Again, multiple actors are involved in such negotiations: the women participating in sports, those providing spaces for exercise, international organizations, the state and municipalities, and ethnic communities. Dress provides and denies spatial access, and shapes the realm of possible for veiling women. WORKPLACE AND PARTICIPATION Participation in work life can be viewed as practising public citizenship (Yuval-Davis 1997), and it is considered a key means of integration for immigrant women in Western and Northern European countries, including Finland (Lister et al. 2007, Ma€kisalo-Ropponen 2012). Finland considers work-life participation as an essential part of female citizenship and such participation is both encouraged and considered as unquestionably positive (Julkunen 2010). However, there are often various problems when migrant women try to enter paid employment, such as a lack of recognized educational qualifications, language problems and family duties. Islamic veiling may also become a source of trouble. In Finland, there are in place certain general principles that frame workplace dress practices. The employer is considered to have a right to demand certain things of their employees, but at the same time the employees are protected by certain legislative regulations. Thus while employers may restrict workplace dress code, they are not allowed to introduce a dress code that may be considered either directly or indirectly discriminatory, except for health and safety reasons. In this, the Finnish stance differs radically from, for example, states which follow a principle of secularism, such as France and Turkey. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly granted a wide margin on appreciation to the rights

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of the state to restrict religious dress in state institutions. On the other hand, the UN Human Rights Committee has taken a different stance that is less allowing to the state rights in this regard (Kortteinen 2013, Westerfield 2006). Finland has ratified both the European and the UN Human Rights Treaties. However, in constitutional interpretation, Finland is committed to following that international treaty which gives strongest protection to individual fundamental rights (Kortteinen 2013). Therefore workplace discrimination cases within the national legal system are considered in the light of narrow margin of appreciation for the state, and wider appreciation of the rights of the individual. A few years back, a study found that 78 per cent of Finns working in human resources considered expressions of religiosity not to belong to workplaces. The percentage had increased from the previous study conducted in 2007, corresponding to a more general change in attitudes towards ‘foreignness’ since 2008. The research report suggested that while the respondents wanted to see diversity as a positive resource, concrete expressions of diversity were not welcome in the work context (Toivanen et al. 2012). Such attitudes are likely to make seeking employment difficult for veiling Muslim women, but there are also protective measures which seek to enable employment irrespective of religious faith and its expressions. Workplace conflicts over the hijab have four kinds of actors: employers, employees, third parties with formal power, such as state officials, and third parties with no formal power, such as customers. In workplace clothing, defendable practices are framed through health and safety regulations on the one hand and individual’s religious rights on the other. The official stance, according to the Ombudsperson for Minorities, is that an individual’s right to adapt their work attire to fit their religious sensibilities must not be restricted unless it concretely hinders performing tasks, making contact with customers or colleagues, or is against safety and health regulations. Garments that may be banned when the work task so requires are considered to include face veils and dysfunctionally loose or long clothes, depending on work tasks. However, such garments are by no means automatically banned. For example, the city of Helsinki only restricts workplace attire for hygiene and safety reasons, and therefore allows covering of the face for its employees working in education and pre-education (Vehkasalo 2016).

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As the headscarf (or the Sikh turban) cannot be considered as hindering work performance, it cannot be banned by referring to workplace dress code. Such practice would be considered indirectly discriminative (ESAVI 524/2013, see also Lewis 2013b). However, if the employer provides a work outfit including a scarf, the employee does not have an automatic right to wear her own scarf instead. Such interpretation of employer versus employee rights can be expected to cause problems for those women who consider the scarf provided by the employer as not sufficiently covering. However, as we shall see, most Muslim women are willing to adapt their dress in order to participate in working life outside the home.

Regulated Environments: Employer’s or Employee’s Clothes? Spaces of labour provide different levels of privacy and control over space for different kinds of occupations. Generally, femaledominated, lower-level occupations tend to operate in spaces that offer very little control over whom one is likely to encounter and when (Acker 1990). These kinds of occupations also often come with very specific workwear requirements and, in the Finnish context, such workwear is typically provided by the employer. Many Muslim women work in low-paid positions in environments such as hospitals, retail and kitchens, which all create certain kinds of requirements that they must consider when adapting their workwear to match their religious beliefs. Many veiling women adapt the workwear provided by the employer to fulfil religious requirements. But some workplaces also adapt their selection of workwear garments according to their employees. For example, some hospitals particularly in southern Finland provide employees with optional scarves. The high levels of hygiene requirements of a hospital environment are generally dealt with through restrictions to the wearing of one’s own clothes by both patients and staff, and leasing laundry-owned garments instead (Iltanen and Topo 2005); therefore providing scarves to the employees is easier than allowing the staff to wear their own scarves. Large retail companies are also increasingly accommodating veiling employees; for example, the large supermarket chain HOK-Elanto announced in May 2013 that

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it was in the process of introducing scarves as a voluntary part of customer service staff’s workwear. The most common adaptation of the workwear provided by the employer is simply adding a scarf when such garment is not provided by the employer. However, there are other features as well that may cause Muslim women to adapt their dress. A Finnish nurse in her early 30s adapts many details of her work attire: Interviewee: I’ve worn my own scarf everywhere. Then [in terms of] the work clothes, I have a long coat and trousers just like everyone else but I wear – as the tops are shortsleeved – I wear a coat to cover my arms, a coat that comes down above my knee. Interviewer: Do you have any specific requirements for wash[ing the scarf]? Interviewee: Well, it’s perhaps because I’ve been in places where it’s not so particular, I’m not in the operating rooms or anything, I’m in an outpatients’ ward. Just as people wash their hair, I wash my scarf. She normally wears an abaya, long coat and a scarf. Wearing trousers is an adaptation to the workplace dress requirements, while wearing her own scarf and opting for a knee-length coat over her short-sleeved shirt function to fulfil her interpretation of religious requirements. It is in fact the case that, depending on the workplace, also non-Muslim nurses may accessorize their workwear according to their taste, and in this regard Muslim women’s dress adaptations are not necessarily very different from their non-veiling peers. While this particular woman has no problem with wearing trousers at work, not everyone considers them unproblematic. A Somali nurse in her 30s wishes she could wear a skirt for work: If one has studied here to be a nurse or a dental assistant for example, one’s required to wear trousers. That’s a bit difficult [. . .] Everyone wants to work, but it requires one to [make a choice]; if one needs to remove [some clothes] or not, one needs to [determine] which is more important, religion or work. I’d like it

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if we were given the chance to work here in Finland. We’re [religiously] recommended to wear a skirt and a scarf. This woman wears the full-length khimar but not the face veil. At the time of the interview she was on maternity leave and therefore workplace dress requirements were not directly relevant to her. Her reluctance to wear trousers must be seen partly in this light – the only two women who expressed resistance to workwear regulations were not in work life themselves. They were exceptions in this regard; most women saw their workwear as something that simply had to be adapted to, as long as they had the right to stick to the minimal level of principles of their interpretation of the hijab. While trousers are a common element of Finnish female workwear, dress practices vary from one workplace to another. Some employers allow their employees to wear a skirt, provided that their work clothing is otherwise appropriate, as has been the case with a Somali student of pharmacy in her 20s: [At work] one must wear a [lab] coat, and somewhere they have trousers too, for example in the University Pharmacy. They have green trousers. But where I’ve been, in Herttoniemi pharmacy, it was only a coat and I was allowed to wear my skirt. This woman, while pleased that her employer allowed her to wear a skirt, nevertheless was willing to adapt her clothing according to each workplace. She normally wears an abaya or a skirt, a coat or a cardigan and a scarf. There is a variety of nuances in the three quotes above that demonstrate how differently the women themselves interpret the adaptations they (are required to) make; all three women wear abayas, skirts or dresses outside work, but there are differences with regard to how reluctant (if at all) they are to wear trousers at work. This question is typically more sensitive to Somali women than it is for Finns, given that many members of the Finnish Somali community consider trousers unacceptable for women while mainstream Finnish women wear trousers very commonly, as was the case with a Finnish ancillary nurse in her 40s:

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In everyday life, if I go to work I wear jeans or other relaxed trousers, a shirt that comes down to my buttocks, but I don’t wear horribly long clothes [. . .] I often put a sleeveless long jersey top underneath, because [our] work shirt is short. So that the jersey top comes lower. While she personally likes wearing an abaya, she avoids such garments both at work and outside, for she feels that abaya is seen as too ‘foreign’ by many Finns. Other regulated environments include, for example, kitchens. Governed by health and safety regulations, workwear restrictions apply to all workers. A Somali woman in her late teens studies catering and works in kitchens both at school and in restaurants: Interviewer: When you work in the kitchen, do you wear work clothes? Interviewee: There [. . .] I have a long apron that covers [me]. Otherwise it’s trousers, and then a scarf like I’m wearing now [wrapped around the head but not around the neck; fastened up]. Interviewer: So it’s bound behind [the neck] there? Interviewee: Yeah. I can’t wear anything long. Her scarf is wrapped like a small turban, and she would be covering it with another, longer scarf outside her workplace, in addition to an abaya or a dress. In kitchens, it is typically forbidden to wear anything that would hang down and potentially interfere with work tasks. But such styles are worn also in other contexts; for example, I have seen similar scarves worn by employees in the Helsinki Airport security check. The colour of the scarf is typically black, in order for it to be as inconspicuous as possible with the dark uniform, and while the scarf covers its wearer’s hair fully, it is still often a compromise between workplace and religious requirements as it does not cover the neck. Rather predictably, the most controversial garment in the Finnish work environment is the face veil. As stated above, wearing the face veil is not considered an automatic right in Finnish workplaces, nor is it considered a religious duty by the majority of Muslims. Many women give up the face veil completely when they enter paid labour, but others

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may still continue to wear it outside the workplace, like this Finnish convert woman in her mid-20s: At work I show my face. I fortunately work in a female-dominated place where we actually don’t have male workers. Of course there might be customers’ parents or delivery drivers, those situations come up, but that’s what I live with. This woman works as a cook in a hospital kitchen, and her work environment is largely female. She normally wears a full-length khimar and a niqab, but gives them up while working, relying on long aprons and coats. Many of my respondents considered participation in work life when wearing the niqab as practically impossible. Interestingly, this is not only the situation in a Muslim minority context. According to Omair (2009), face veiling female managers in the United Arab Emirates have experienced discrimination due to their dress choices, and many consider work life and face veiling as impossible to combine. It is indeed the case that face veiling has created controversies in a number of locations – not only where Muslims are in minority position – and a number of countries in the Middle East and Africa have either partly banned, completely banned or considered banning face veils (Almila 2017a).

Ethnic Majority and Avoidance of Conflict: Adaptation of Style and Space Omair (2009) has argued that Arab women in managerial positions in the Middle East negotiate religious, cultural and professional identities in their clothing choices. Similarly, veiling women in minority context manage a number of identities when choosing their workwear. Where no specified kind of workwear is required, there are nevertheless expectations related to appropriate and acceptable dress in work environment. For example, women who work with customers, or are otherwise in contact with unfamiliar non-Muslims, often told me that they on purpose adapt their workplace dress style into a ‘neutral’ direction, in order to facilitate the contact situation. This was particularly noticeable in the accounts of Finnish converts to Islam. A Finnish woman

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in her 40s, working as an IT consultant, explained how her customer contacts create often implicit expectations for her garment selection: I of course have to pay attention to my dress because I work, and I have projects with clients, too. I have to aim at being rather neutral [. . .] I feel I quite consciously dress so that anyone could dress like that, but the scarf makes the difference [. . .] If I could choose, if I wasn’t in work [outside the home], I’d wear an abaya and a [long] coat. Despite her stated personal preferences, outside the workplace she usually wears clothes that she could wear at work too, thus making her wardrobe management easier. In her attempts to balance her desire not to spend much time on her clothing, yet to satisfy varying social demands on her dress, her workplace becomes a defining sphere that influences her dress everywhere and in all contexts. Alternatively, some may seek to avoid customer contacts and choose their employer accordingly, as was the case with a Finnish woman in her 40s: I’m in a hospital pharmacy as a pharmaceutical worker. I chose the hospital pharmacy consciously, so that I wouldn’t need to be in customer service. So that I’d get less nasty comments. In her current workplace the customers are other hospital staff members. Such an environment provides her with a sense of not risking harassment during her working hours. Here the workplace is a space protected by professionalism, rather than a space of potential conflict and challenges. One’s colleagues can be expected to get used to one’s appearance, but when one needs to meet new people every day, the risk of conflict increases. Not everyone feels that avoiding customer contact makes their work environment more secure. A Finnish woman in her late 20s, despite wearing a small, inconspicuous scarf, had concerns to do with her manager in this regard: In respect to this scarf, only in the workplace [have I felt uncomfortable]. I’ve got a manager who’s a few years older.

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He hasn’t said anything but I can see he looks at my scarf like ‘what’s that thing?’ But otherwise no-one’s said [anything]. The above examples illustrate the everyday workplace reality that these Muslim women manage through their dress strategies, and by trying to manage whom they meet during their working day. These women’s class position as (lower) middle class, relatively low-paid employees with very limited power over their work environment makes the workplace environment’s impact on them continuous. This may, indeed, extend beyond the direct workplace environment, and come to influence their dress choices and adaptation strategies more widely. In addition to everyday workwear, there are also work-related special occasions that require specific kinds of dress adaptation. A primary school teacher, who ordinarily tries to have a balance between physical and social comfort with as little effort as possible, was met with a particular dress dilemma when she needed to participate in a more official event: We have next week – I’ve been [in a committee] writing a school book – a book-launching event in the Ministry of Education, kind of semi-official. Horrible stress, what will I wear since I can’t go wearing jeans! I might have to leave the bicycle home if I have to wear [formal] trousers. Both the special nature of the event and the specific perception of space she has in respect to the formality of a Ministry building influence her sense that she must ‘dress up’ for the occasion. Since she does not feel quite up to this, she gets stressed and laments that she needs to break her pattern of activities because of the formality of her attire. Her discomfort with the situation is not far removed from the experiences of an academic woman Woodward (2005) describes in her study. Due to not having, or wanting to have, formal clothes, this woman ended up refusing invitations to social events that required dressing up. Those women whose work life is less directly restricted by their employer, are more commonly in a situation where they need to adapt their style according to both everyday spatial perceptions and particular occasions. Such dilemmas do not differ greatly from those dress problems facing their

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secular or non-veiling peers, and are related to elementary problems of wardrobe maintenance, that is, the wardrobe resources one can draw upon (Woodward 2007). The interview extracts above demonstrate two essential factors of workplace relations. First, the veiling women perceive their workplace in light of their understandings of the expectations of others, namely customers, colleagues and superiors. Second, these dress-influenced relations are reflected in their perceptions of the workplace and its accepted dress practices. Therefore the coherence of spatial practices – the fact that we tend to behave in a manner that conforms to ‘mainstream’ ways of using particular spaces (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]) – frames these women’s workplace dress strategies. Yet they stick to their religious interpretations about what are appropriate Islamic dress rules, and therefore negotiate their dress strategies between Finnish society’s dress norms and how they are expressed in the occupational and organizational culture of their workplace on the one hand and religious doctrines on the other. Both of these frames can be considered primary for these women, since they often are willing to tolerate certain amounts of individual discomfort in order to balance these sometimes contradictory demands.

Ethnic Community and Work Life: Negotiating Religious Limits Some women, such as those who commute relatively long distances, or whose work involves travelling with public transport in sometimes difficult weather conditions, often adapt their everyday attire for workrelated functional purposes. This was particularly common among Somali women working in positions where the workplace made no particular requirements with regard to dress, but practical requirements of their work would prevent them from wearing certain kinds of garments, such as a long khimar. A Somali woman in her late 20s, who worked as a research assistant for a public health research project, paid a great deal of attention to the functionality of dress and mobility it enables: I don’t wear the [khimar] [. . .] People can of course choose freely what they wear, but it’s a bit more practical for me as I work and go around; I don’t have a car or anything, so I think it’s more

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functional to have a scarf. It’s only said that if one covers oneself, so that the shapes of the body aren’t visible, that’s most important. And then, although people talk about the [khimar] that it’s obligatory. . . I don’t wear it. It is a relatively new interpretation among the Finnish Somali community that the khimar would be a mandatory element of veiling, and it is also a view not shared by everyone. Some would consider such a view conservative, and particularly some Finnish converts would consider it a Salafi-influenced interpretation, and therefore would disagree. While this Somali woman stated that her personal preferences are more significant for her dress choices than the expectations of others, she nevertheless sought to justify her choices through arguments of functionality, mobility and religious interpretation, which demonstrates her acute awareness of the standards of her ethnic community. Her justification and interpretation of the hijab differs from that of another Somali woman, in her 20s, who wears stylistically very similar clothing: Interviewee: [Dress should be] according to Islam. And then, that I can work and move better. Not any full [veils], it’d be more difficult to move and perhaps more striking if I’m the only [Muslim woman in the place] [. . .] That it’s easy and according to Islam. Interviewer: What’s according to Islam to you? Interviewee: That it’s not horribly tight, doesn’t show more than these [indicates hands] and this [indicates face]. Then that it’s not translucent [. . .] There are really colourful scarves, blue, pink, I don’t dare to wear them. And it’s not according to Islam, to wear something that draws attention [to oneself]. Her point about colourful garments is interesting, and potentially contextual. While Islamic scriptures do not forbid certain colours or colourful garments per se, she refers to a religious idea behind the hijab, that of not attracting attention. Here it is important also to remember that particularly in the Finnish context colourful garments can indeed often

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be considered as attention-drawing, and this may influence individual interpretations of their suitability. She is also talking of two different forms of inconspicuousness in her dress choices: in respect to her peers, and in respect to drawing attention to herself more generally. Yet she actually finds her garments wanting in a religious sense: But I’m not perfect according to Islam when I choose [my clothes] because according to Islam one should have a large [khimar] and I only wear this [draped scarf]. I hope it’s acceptable. Because no man admires me [. . .] And I hope – I have heard [a hadith] that God says ‘I’m what my servants think of me’. So if I think that God is merciful, and I don’t do anything bad to anyone [and I] follow the five prayers, then I don’t think this tight coat [condemns me]. Thus while stating that her attire is not fully religiously appropriate, she nevertheless defends her choice with a religious argument. As these two examples above demonstrate, even a similar dress style does not necessarily mean that the individuals’ interpretations of Islamic dress rules would be the same. It may well be, as these two extracts indicate, that the women have different reasons for choosing the same sort of dress, and different interpretations with regard to doctrinal appropriateness of their dress. However, as both these women are part of the same Somali community, they are both aware of how their dress will be interpreted by the other members of that community. It is, indeed, this that makes their expressed workplace dress motivations different from many Finnish converts to Islam; while the Finnish converts expressed far more consciousness of the non-Muslim Finns they encounter in their work life, the Somali women showed awareness of their community’s dress codes and expectations, also when they worked in environments where there were no other community members. Their primary reference groups were different, and therefore also the strategies they arrived at were different, too. Also those who wear the khimar both at work and outside work sometimes engage in adaptations for the purposes of functionality. A Somali woman in her 40s works as a cleaner and wears a particular kind of khimar for work:

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Interviewee: I’m never without the scarf outdoors, this is always on, and the hair is not [visible]. Because the religion demands [this]. This [khimar], it’s a bit short. [. . .] I like to wear a long one, this is only for work. When I leave work, [I wear] a longer one. Interviewer: Do you wear a full-length [khimar]? Interviewee: Here, [down to] knee. This is for work and it’s really short [the garment reaches mid-thigh]. As her chosen length of the khimar usually is down to the knee, physical work would indeed be restricted by it. Given that according to the dress customs and expectations of her ethnic community she is fully veiled also in the shorter khimar, she showed no concern in respect to her Somali peers (many of whom in fact wear a shorter khimar in all situations), but was concerned primarily about religious rules. Also those Somali women who do not veil regularly are fully aware of their ethnic community’s dress expectations. An independently working Somali woman in her 40s was aware of her community’s views, albeit in a different manner; she told me that when she needs to deal with ‘older men’ of her community she must wear the scarf, since otherwise those men would ‘not take her seriously’. In order to have working relations with the male community leaders, she therefore felt she must veil temporarily when dealing with them. Thus while a working Somali woman may take liberties in respect to her dress, she will also be conscious of how such liberties are viewed among the members of her ethnic community, and that her dress strategies will have an effect on her relations with other Somalis. In these women’s dress negotiations religious arguments, arguments of functionality and mobility (as a key to working life) and arguments of decreased conspicuousness in respect to non-Muslims are used. When considering such negotiations, it must also be remembered that there are cases where a failure to conform to community dress expectations has resulted in exclusion from the community and from one’s family. Such exclusion does not happen to every unveiling Somali woman – I have myself spoken with non-veiling Somalis who still are active in their ethnic community – but it may be an acknowledged risk to some and therefore is likely to influence decisions to veil and unveil.

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So, depending on the workplace and the woman herself, there are different kinds of dress adaptation strategies. Those who are provided workwear by their employer typically use a combination of their own garments and workwear in order to fulfil at least the minimum requirements of religious doctrine while still following the workplace dress requirements. The adapted hijab becomes their key to the realm of paid labour. Those who work in environments where the dress code is about style rather than particular garments often end up managing their wardrobe according to their workplace and thereby negotiating both the expectations of Finnish society and the workplace, and also religious doctrines. However, even those who for work-related reasons choose certain kinds of clothing may have different doctrinal interpretations as regards the appropriateness of veiling practices in general, and they will also be aware of their peer group’s opinions on these matters. These dress adaptations demonstrate two things clearly: first, a great many Muslim women are willing to adapt their dress to a large extent in order to participate in paid labour – that is, such participation is considered crucially important by them. Second, the dress adaptations practised in order to participate in working life further blur the distinctions that can be made between various dress styles. As discussed above, the dress compromises made by the working Muslim women were in a complex manner connected to their specific religious interpretations, community sensitivities and personal preferences. Given the interplay of such negotiations, drawing conclusions about religious affiliation based on the style of hijab would be questionable indeed. There is yet another functional factor related to veiling in the workplace. For a large number of Muslims, daily, repeated performance of prayers is of great importance, and often requires specific arrangements with one’s workplace. Again, it is important to remember that a vast majority of working Muslim women are in low positions with little privacy in their work environment, and very limited control of space. Yet, interestingly, none of these women reported any problems with regards to praying, and many stated that their workplace was very accommodating, appointing a small space for them to perform their religious worship. It is highly likely that veiling actually facilitates such negotiations, for it makes these women’s faith visible and therefore makes it clear to the employer that they would wish their religious

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practice to be accommodated. While praying in public has occasionally provoked controversy in Finland, in workplaces religious practice is reasonably well facilitated. This is also the case with large kitchens, such as in hospitals and schools, accommodating a pork-free diet – again, it is reasonable to expect that the hijab makes requesting such a diet easier in the first place. Therefore, where the veil is allowed and accommodated, it also potentially makes the work environment less hostile and more manageable for a practising Muslim woman. INTEGRATION OF LEISURE: SPORT AND PHYSICAL EXERCISE Sport, physical education and physical activity are considered important strategies of socialization of individuals in Europe. Many countries have national strategies with regard to physical education both in school and throughout life (EACEA 2013), and governments often consider sport and physical activity as crucial means of integrating especially nonEuropean migrants (Pfister 2000). While the European Charter of Women’s Rights in Sport mentions Muslim women as one specific target group for which sports opportunities should be provided (Karlsson Minganti 2013), applications of this general rule and interpretations of relevant strategies vary from one country to another. For instance, only Spain mentions ‘immigrants and girls’ as a specific target group of national physical education strategy (EACEA 2013), while some other countries address the issue, but in a less state-centralized manner (Dagkas and Benn 2006). The realm of sport – both competitive and non-competitive – offers opportunities for individual dress statements and performances. Sport is both a means of personal body maintenance and a set of statements made through performances. As McCrone (1988: 2) has argued, ‘sport has considerable potential for social disruption, since it can operate as an important channel for underprivileged groups to challenge existing social arrangements and express hostility to and deviance from established norms’. Thus a Muslim woman may use sport as a tool of resistance within her ethnic and religious community as well as in the wider non-Muslim society, too. But sport can also operate as a

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presentation of ‘normality’ if a minority is perceived as abnormal by the majority. In highly patriarchal settings, such as in Iran, Muslim women’s sport activities may be restricted by social and legislative regulations, and women’s claims to the realm of physical activity often operate as forms of resistance (Shirazi 2009). In minority contexts, where mainstream media tends to exclusively represent Muslim women’s sports activities as resistance to such presumably patriarchal and oppressive Islamic order (Toffoletti and Palmer 2015), the multiplicity of sport performances is illuminative of the hybrid everyday politics many Muslim women have to deal with. Performance always aims to influence others, either consciously or unconsciously (Goffman 1990 [1959]), and there is indeed a variety of dress and spatial strategies that veiling women engage in, in order to influence others’ perceptions of them in everyday life.

Competitive Sport and Scarf Regulations: Global Politics, Local Consequences Competitive sport in particular is a global and globalized realm where local practices are at least to a certain extent controlled by international bodies and organizations. While Muslim women have been participating in international competitive sport at least since 1936, when Turkey sent its first female athletes to the Olympic games (Amara 2012), it is only during the recent decade that sports scarves have become a globally debated issue. One well-known case is FIFA – the governing body of world football – which after banning the scarf in 2007, partly revised their decision in 2010 allowing the covering of the hair but not neck. After a highly publicized banning of Iran’s female football team from playing unless the players remove their scarves in 2011, and consequential enormous international pressure, including the United Nations making a pro-scarf statement, the ban was lifted in 2012 (Joseph 2013). The availability of safe and functional sport scarves was a key factor in the decision, since the ban was justified on health and safety grounds as well as on the grounds of religious neutrality (Ayub 2011): Dutch designer Cindy van den Breman had introduced a sports scarf that was considered fulfilling the safety requirements for competitive football (Joseph 2013). While such decisions as these open the doors for religiously observant Muslim women to participate in global competitions, there have also been other

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solutions for veiling Muslim athletes, such as participating in the Islamic Games in Iran. Competing in all-Muslim teams is often easier for veiling women than trying to adapt to a team that may not understand all the requirements of religious observance (Ahmad 2011). The focus of these veiling debates has been on banning or not banning the hijab (Amara 2012), and thus on the politics of exclusion, integration and accommodation. Where the hijab is specifically allowed, there is no risk of exclusion (unless the rules are changed and a ban is introduced), but where rules concerning veiling are not in place, a hijab may either be allowed or not allowed, creating a sense of insecurity for veiling athletes; where there is neither a ban of the hijab nor a decision to allow it, there is no certainty if one is allowed to wear the hijab or not (Ayub 2011). Hijab bans, as well as potential discrimination against veiling women, influence which competitive sports hijab-wearing women participate in, as can be seen in the following example. A Finnish woman in her late teens has been active in martial arts for years, but scarf regulations have had an effect on her competitive career. She started karate as a child, and had a successful career in it both in national and international competitions, until she decided to veil: I wanted to start wearing the scarf, and since the World Karate Federation has banned the scarf in competitions I thought that’s that, that was my career. I had a year-long break and then I started Thai boxing [. . .], but I didn’t really like it ‘cause it’s kind of a male sport. It’s a bit difficult to be there training as a Muslim woman. And now someone I know, a Muslim girl – they have their own gym and she organizes taekwon-do only for girls. I’m a martial arts person [laughs]. The International Taekwon-Do Federation allows the hijab in competitions. Integral for the decision was the sports scarf designed by Canadian Elahm Seyed Javad. The specific statement of the hijab being allowed has encouraged this young Finnish woman to re-consider her decision not to compete in martial arts. She says she might participate in competitions in the future, and that in any case it is good to know that she can do so if she wants.

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We’ve printed it out and it’s on the dressing room wall highlighted that the scarf is allowed in competitions. It’s really cool in my opinion, since the scarf really doesn’t interfere [with the movements], as one’s wearing a helmet anyway [. . .] Now that there are sport scarves available I really don’t understand why one couldn’t wear a scarf. The enormous symbolic importance of such decisions of international sports federations is reflected in the fact that the rules are printed out, highlighted and displayed in this gym in question. In this manner, international organizations and globally sold commercial products alike have direct consequences for the choice and practice of a sport at the local level, but also for the experiences of acceptance and inclusion of individuals wishing to participate in the sport in question. In a moment when international sportswear producers are increasingly starting to recognize veiling Muslim athletes as a significant target group – Nike announced in March 2017 that the company’s sport hijab, ProHijab, developed in collaboration with hijabi athletes, would be in market before the 2018 Winter Olympic Games – sports opportunities for hijabi women seem to become increasingly realized.

Swimming Halls, Beaches and Burkinis: Local Politics across Europe and Beyond The Finnish Sports Act (Liikuntalaki) states that Communes must promote opportunities for exercise, and thus promote health, for all citizens (Aaltonen et al. 2009). It states that in terms of sport and exercise facilities, individuals should be treated equally irrespective of their gender or cultural background. The question for interpretation that arises here is what ‘equal treatment’ is taken to mean. For example, in Switzerland in 2008 it was ruled that students have no right to be exempted from swimming in mixed-gender groups due to religious reasons, for such exemption would be against the national policy of equal rights and integration (Amara 2012). Finland, as we will see, has taken a different stance. Finnish state has enacted legislation and encourages activities aimed at preventing discrimination as regards access to sporting facilities. What

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this has meant is that many publicly funded sporting venues have brought in special procedures for veiling Muslim women, allowing them to participate in particular sporting activities in ways that are intended not to clash with religious requirements – women-only swimming hours in public swimming halls are one example of such adaptations of spaces for exercise.1 Gender segregated swimming emerged in a number of countries, such as Sweden, Norway, the UK, the USA and Australia, in the 1990s, and was not always linked to religious concerns, but was instead a feminist claim for sport and leisure space secured against male harassment (e.g., Verhoeven 2009: 93). In Finland, such developments in feminism were not apparent at the time, and the only swimming hall where gender segregation was and still is in place had a long-standing ban on swimming costumes, only allowing nude swimming. This swimming hall in Helsinki still operates a policy of women-only and men-only swimming, but swimming suits have been allowed since 2001. However, since the majority of women still swim nude, this particular space is not appealing to many veiling women, who may consider also others’ nudity as undesirable. It is also the case that staff members present at the venue may be both male and female at any given time, irrespective of whether it is women’s or men’s swimming time. With increasing Muslim migrant numbers, Finnish government and sporting authorities have attempted to re-create swimming halls as places of inclusion and integration. For their part, veiling Muslim women have taken advantage of such developments, with sporting facilities which cater to the needs of these women having become very popular. However, the very success of these developments in recasting sportive space to meet veiling Muslim women’s needs, has itself created a backlash amongst some sectors in non-Muslim Finnish society, which consider special provisions being made for veiling women as themselves a form of discrimination against the non-Muslim ethnic majority. Similar controversies have also arisen in other European countries, such as Germany, France and the UK. ‘Muslim swimming hours’ are considered to interfere with secular space in France, creating pockets of ‘Islamic’ culture. In the UK accusations against such practices have included claims that they hinder integration and harm community relations. Segregated swimming hours are also considered as preferential treatment of one specific group and a misuse of non-Muslim tax payers’ money

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(Shavit and Wiesenbach 2012). Strikingly similar rhetorical responses to Muslim minorities can be observed across the continent, and also in Finland. In this way, the Finnish right-wing reaction to integration strategies in sporting spaces can be understood as one expression of wider discourses promoted by far-right-wing movements across Europe. During 2008 communal elections in Finland – elections that are widely considered as the turning point in anti-Muslim and antiimmigrant sentiment – a National Coalition candidate wrote about Muslim women’s swimming hours in her campaign blog. At that time, three swimming halls, in Helsinki, Vantaa and Turku, each had a weekly two-hour session dedicated specifically for Muslim women, who, due to religious reasons, cannot swim with men (EOAM 208/2008). These were called alternatively ‘Muslim women’s’, ‘immigrant women’s’, or ‘women’s’ swimming hours. The blog post brought this to public attention and provoked a great deal of controversy and a debate about how publicly funded exercise places are to be used. As the short weekly sessions when the swimming hall was closed to men can hardly have had much practical importance – in fact one of the swimming halls in question stated explicitly that they chose the quietest hours for these gender-segregated swimming sessions, and its management pointed out that there were several public swimming halls in the area that were available for men during these hours (EOAM 208/2008) – the debate can be seen as a clash over perceptions of public and publicly funded space. The arguments against this practice were made in terms of equality, with positive discrimination being considered unfair. There were also arguments about how taxes should or should not be used (including claims and assumptions that migrant women, and migrants in general, would not pay taxes). The Parliamentary Ombudsperson declared that segregated swimming hours can be considered positive discrimination that support integration. Therefore they are a legitimate practice that cannot be banned (EOAM 208/2008). Here we see the fundamental difference as to what is considered beneficial for integration, and how the limits and extensions of ‘equal treatment’ can be seen in; while Finland considers positive discrimination as a force of integration and therefore acceptable for the reasons of equal treatment, for example Switzerland considers such special treatment to be against both equal treatment and integration.

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Similarly, in Denmark, the city of Aarhus decided to ban the popular women-only swimming sessions in February 2017, as the sessions were considered a ‘disservice’ to integration initiatives by the city council (The Local 2017). Conversely, for example in Australia, while women-only swimming is considered to be against anti-discrimination laws, an exemption can be granted by the state to carry on such activities where they are considered to enhance integration and cross-cultural contacts (Australian Leisure Management 2012). In the USA, in June 2016, a complaint was made against a swimming pool in Brooklyn, stating that women-only swimming hours in an area inhabited by a large number of Orthodox Jewish people amounted to exclusion from a public facility based upon gender, as well as contradicted the principle of separation of church and state. The pool continues women-only sessions despite the complaint, but disagreement as to whether such practice is beneficial (for other than religious women, too) or anti-secular continues (Melton 2016). Another swimming-related and much-debated veiling question concerns the burkini, the modest swimwear worn by some Muslim women. International media coverage of this controversial swimwear has made the burkini a focus of attention in many non-Muslim countries, with media stories circulating between different national media (Fitzpatrick 2009). Across Europe – in France, the Netherlands (Shavit and Wiesenbach 2012), Sweden and Italy (Karlsson Minganti 2013) – burkinis are either specifically allowed or banned in individual locations. For example, in the town of Alfeld in Germany burkinis were allowed after a veiling woman requested such a decision from the town council in 2013, and public bathing rules were changed to accommodate the new policy. Arguments included individual’s right to freedom of religion, that the burkini was not offending any rules of ‘decency’ and that longsleeved swimming suits were already allowed for some competitive swimmers and divers. The town council pointed out that a burkini would probably cause some stir in public bathing areas, but that it was the woman’s own choice to face this (Stadt Alfeld 310/XVII). Conversely, in summer 2016, a number of attempts to ban the burkini on French beaches occurred. Statements related to the bans typically claimed a connection between recent terrorist attacks and modest swimwear, and referred to public order, which the burkini presumably threatened. These bans were not upheld with French courts, for no proven risk to public

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order could be found. Also the UN interfered, calling the ban ‘a grave and illegal breach of fundamental freedoms’. Despite this, some cities persisted with their ban (Al Jazeera 2016a). There have also been cases in the USA where pools have banned covering dress or covering swimwear, but these policies have often been overturned as discriminatory and on the basis of civil liberties (ACLU 2005; ACLU 2006). Yet modest swimwear continues to stir emotions as well as local and international politics. In Finland, different towns take different stances in terms of the burkini in their swimming halls. The burkini is allowed in Helsinki and Espoo, but was banned in Vantaa in early 2016. Both stances are often justified by referring to ‘equal treatment’, but Vantaa’s decision to ban burkinis was allegedly due to hygiene concerns; other patrons had complained that burkini-wearers do not shower before going into the pool.2 However, as the burkini is still allowed during women-only swimming hours (Savolainen 2016), the position seems somewhat contradictory. Some contra-burkini arguments in public debates try to frame the swimwear in question as being against ‘Finnish equality’ (Jokiniemi 2016), and especially the rather common ban of male shorts in swimming halls as discriminatory. The usual rules where the burkini is allowed are as follows: the burkini must be made of swimming suit fabric, and be of a ‘tight’ cut – too-loose fabric is considered a safety risk. Further, no underwear must be worn under the swimwear, and the burkini must be put on only after showering. Swimming halls in Espoo also offer burkinis to rent for both adults and children (Savolainen 2016). However, the differences between swimming halls, sometimes also within the same town and area, cause confusion and discomfort. For example, the Students’ Sports Federation has expressed their concern about such practices that they consider discriminative against specific minorities (Jokiniemi 2016). The debate is very much ongoing and causes difficulties for accessing spaces for exercise particularly for those Muslim women who are unable to attend the women-only swimming sessions. While the local politics and debates about swimming are often centred around public pools, the burkini’s media fame came on the beach. Designer Aheda Zanetti’s response to need in Australia where many women’s swimming hours were banned and swimming ‘in clothes’ was

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frowned upon, the BurqiniTM became a commercial success in 2007. Zanetti’s co-operation with the Surf Lifesaving Australia organization resulted in the first veiled lifesaver graduating wearing the Burqini in 2007. International media coverage and massive global sales followed (Khamis 2010). While the beach is central to Australian identity, in Finland its significance is different. Swimming in the sea, lakes and rivers is a legal right that cannot be restricted, except in the direct vicinity of habitation. Therefore there are practically no private beaches in Finland, and it would probably not be possible to impose a specific garment ban on a beach. The beach is often seen as a sexualized environment, and this is what makes the media accounts of the burkini on the beach particularly juicy, playing with the presumed contradiction (Fitzpatrick 2009). Especially for youth from conservative families, the beach may be an environment where to socialize without parental control, allowing them more liberties, and potentially causing concerns in their families (Walseth and Strandbu 2014). A further controversy is connected to the fact that not all Muslims approve of swimming in mixed-gender environments even when wearing the burkini (Karlsson Minganti 2013). Aware of this, a young Finnish woman justified her potentially controversial swimming practices as protected by her mindfulness of modesty: Last summer I made myself a burkini [. . .] Of course some say [they] wouldn’t swim in public beaches even if they wore the burkini. Ok, it does glue to the skin when you get up from the water, but [you] simply pull it so that you get air there [between the fabric and the body], so that it won’t be completely stuck onto you. But she also had another justification for her sports practice, that of educating her children. Maternal care is highly respected within the Muslim community and thus such motive is likely to a certain extent to protect her against the judgements of others. I want to teach [my children] to swim and I can’t do it from the beach waving my hands, I have to go [to water] myself to teach them. [. . .] You don’t need to restrict your life that much even if you’re a Muslim woman, you can do everything as usual. I can’t think of anything I couldn’t do; I have a burkini, I can go

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swimming. There’s always a way to do normal things even if you’re a Muslim woman [. . .] I want to get to do things with my children that are important to learn and show my children that we can live a normal life. This woman prefers swimming in lakes and the sea, and thus is not limited by access to swimming halls to take her exercise. However, unlike in swimming halls, where a veiled woman may find gendersegregated spaces, a beach is a public space where anyone may see her. Therefore her burkini becomes a tool that guarantees her access to the beach and to swimming. Her dress is framed as a solution to a potential problem that increases her possibilities, in terms of both access to spaces and what she can do within them.

Sport in Public Spaces: Politics of Resistance Sporting activities do not just happen in specified venues but also in broader spatial contexts. Activities such as jogging and cycling in public spaces while veiled are highly ambivalent; Muslim women report that ‘audience’ reactions vary markedly from one religious and ethnic group to another. A veiled jogger or cyclist in Helsinki tends to feel very selfconscious, with members of her own community and the Finnish ethnic majority both openly staring at her as she passes. However, these visual reactions, and what the veiled women impute as to their meaning, are complicated. A veiled jogger may excite the attention of ethnic-majority people, but she may interpret their attention as ‘positive’, insofar as she believes that they are thinking that she is ‘modern’ and ‘liberated’, precisely because she is engaged in what they think of as a ‘Western’ practice. On the other hand, a veiled woman cyclist may experience what she takes to be the negative gaze of her co-religionists, but she knows that their condemnation can neither be verbalized nor concretely acted upon, because her wearing of the veil while cycling makes her relatively immune to criticism, and thus the veil is felt by her to act as a way of neutralizing her community’s understanding of cycling as potentially polluting and unbecoming. In these sorts of cases, the veil is variously an object of attention and discussion, and a tool for women to appropriate and utilize particular spaces and activities that otherwise would be closed to them.

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Religious capital, involving visibly pious practice and doctrinal knowledge (Rey 2008) can be used as tool for gaining liberties in performances of visible rebellion. While patriarchal religious leaders may be suspicious of female sports, sportswear and tools for sport (Shirazi 2009), physical exercise is considered as either allowed or indeed required by Islam by many highly religious women (Walseth and Fasting 2003). Thus a Somali woman in possession of high religious capital may defend breaking cultural rules concerning a physical activity – for example, riding a bicycle, which is not usually done by Somali women – by referring to her dress and behaviour as doctrinally acceptable. This Somali woman in her late 20s apparently enjoys taking such liberties: I just lift my skirt and mount my bicycle, and everyone stares [laughs] [. . .] Also my mother wondered in the beginning what I did with a bike [. . .] In the summer with my sisters and a cousin we always cycled to Ka€ pyla€ and Kumpula [city districts], just for fun. Sometimes we passed [a field] where Somali men come from the mosque to play football. They stared with their mouths open: ‘What is that?’ when I passed them. I don’t care, I’m not naked, I’ve got clothes on! The religion doesn’t forbid women to cycle. In Finland, bicycles are a popular form of transport. This woman, however, does not use the bicycle primarily as means of transport but as a tool for enjoyment and pleasure. Cycling is not only a physical activity, but also a public act that increases the mobility of an individual, thus providing her with new spatial possibilities (McCrone 1988). When this woman said that ‘everyone’ stared at her when she cycled, she also expressed frank enjoyment in this. Negotiating between a number of significant others, she effectively uses her dress, as well as her knowledge of religious doctrine (as opposed to cultural customs which she is challenging), as a means to take spatial and behavioural liberties that are questionable in her culture yet not according to her religious views. Perceived deep religiosity and religious dress may provide a woman with resources that she can use when arguing against cultural norms, without risking fundamental condemnation from the ethnic community. This particular woman often constructed herself as rebellious and

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individualistic, and also as someone who encourages others to break cultural rules. I heard her often advising younger women how they can resist the norms imposed by their families by using religious arguments against them. However, she is outwardly very pious, stressing her modesty both verbally and through wearing conservative garments, and never questions the authority of religious rules (as she understand them). Arguably it is her religious capital that allows her to break cultural norms, and she is exercising resistance within the community and against some community rules with the aid of knowledge of Islamic doctrine. Cycling has played a role historically in women’s liberation. McCrone (1988) considers it the single most significant activity to provide women with means of access to public spaces, spatial mobility and spatial liberties. Yet the female cycling pioneers of the late nineteenth century were often not seeking to change their social status as respectable women despite their rebellious behaviour, but rather argued that their dress and behaviour when cycling was ‘appropriate’ and ‘ladylike’. We can see here an interesting parallel to the case of this particular Somali woman, who does not seek to question religious doctrine per se, despite her rebellious behaviour. Nor is she willing to lose her status as a pious Muslim woman. To be appropriately dressed therefore becomes the key to activities that may otherwise either be completely forbidden or result in the loss of social acceptability; similarly as appropriate dress and behaviour partly enabled radically widening spatial access and mobility for the female cycling pioneers, the hijab and perceived religiosity may create opportunities for spatial access and spatial mobility for veiling women. Depending on the intended audience of the performance, sport can also be used as a presentation of normality. This can be seen in the case of jogging. A public, visible act, it uses spatial performances to present Muslim women as both ordinary and liberated individuals. A Finnish woman in her 50s goes jogging with other veiling women: I went jogging in the summer. It was really cool, we wore sneakers and long trunks and light t-shirts that came down here [indicates below the buttocks]. And then we had scarves on our heads and water bottles in hand and we jogged. And when some Finns saw us, they all [gave us the thumbs up]. [laughs] They urged us on.

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This woman was highly conscious of the Finnish non-Muslim audience of her public sporting act and took pleasure in the impression she was giving. Through her public engagement in physical exercise, she was simultaneously constructing herself (and thus Muslim women more generally) as an ordinary individual engaging in ordinary activities, while also claiming public space as her own domain of activity. She was both breaking stereotypes and using public space for her own purposes. Turner (2008 [1984]: 168) has argued that ‘[t]he right of women to jog in the streets without interference from men is a political right, symbolic of their freedom to operate within the public domain’. Thus, a Muslim woman practising this right is claiming a right to express herself in public spaces and, more fundamentally, to exist in the public sphere more generally.

Sport and Gender Segregation: Politics of Accommodation While veiling women are often constrained by space, in part because of their veiling, the veil also allows them to adapt such spaces to their own uses. Many sport-related problems were brought up by my informants, and these often had to do with a limited number of training places for those who prefer to not cover fully while exercising. The problems, in short, had to do with how space is organized in gendered ways in Finland, and how Finnish society’s perceptions of space differ from Islamic perceptions. Therefore certain acts were required in order to create spatial adaptations, whereby Muslim women could engage in sports without compromising the principles of religious doctrine. Gender-segregated spaces for exercise were preferred over mixedgender spaces by the majority of my informants. Yet they encountered specific practical problems even when a gym was supposedly femaleonly. An Iraqi woman in her 20s described a number of difficulties: It’s really difficult to do sport [. . .] Now I go to Lady Line. It’s really wonderful that there are places for women only. But there’s a male trainer so that’s difficult. You need to always check from the weekly programme if he’s around [. . .] But the Lady Line in Malmi has treated us really well [. . .] They always open the elevator for us and we go downstairs with the elevator – there’re windows in the

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staircase so we can’t use them [. . .] And if there’s a man there they’ll take him away and we can pass through. Lady Line is a women-only wellness and fitness centre chain. They have over 30 premises around Finland, and they offer a variety of sport and nutritional coaching services. Several of my respondents mentioned that they use the Lady Line services regularly. By a negotiation of space, and aided by the gym staff to whom this woman has communicated her specific needs, she manages to exercise without running the risk of being seen by men in her sports attire. However, she indicated further problems in the dressing rooms that needed to be managed carefully: It’s weird that the bathroom doesn’t have shower curtains. It’s a large bathroom for everyone that all the women use together, but for us that’s wrong. We aren’t allowed to see other women, either; another woman isn’t allowed to see the private parts. So we must always wait that [the other clients] take their showers and when they’re ready we go separately. Shavit and Wiesenbach (2012) describe similar spatial adaptation problems in Germany. In particular, they discuss a case of one womenonly gym where such religious requirements had been taken into account in dressing rooms and bathrooms. According to my data, the two primary problems for Muslim women in Finland were the same as in the German case. First, in a gym that follows a ‘European’ conception of women-only spaces, gender segregation is understood differently from the Muslim interpretation; thus men can still be hired as trainers. Indeed, if men were not hired at all in these gyms there might be legal issues related to anti-discrimination laws. Another problem is that there are rules in Islamic doctrine, followed by some women, that regulate against displaying nudity in front of other women, and therefore showering in shared bathrooms can be difficult (Karlsson Minganti 2013). However, according to my data, there was also a third problem that has to do with architecture; gyms are in buildings that are not built to protect women from the gaze of people outside the building and thus there may be spaces where Muslim women do not wish to enter in their exercise clothes. Overall, the spatial solutions used in Finnish gyms reflect a

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certain concept of nudity (i.e., nudity in mixed-gender groups is perceived differently from nudity in female-only or male-only contexts). In the lived space of the Muslim women, however, alternative practices were created as a solution, as described above. The spaces I have discussed in this chapter are both very specific and very commonplace. Moving between spaces requires creative dress strategies in order to keep the body appropriately covered under all circumstances. Similarly as the harem in eighteenth-century Egypt was a spatial concept constructed by the female body as it moved within and through space (Fay 2012), the hijab in twenty-first-century Finland follows the female body and is adapted according to spatial requirements, thus stretching space around it. Yet while workplace and places for exercise are fundamentally important for integration and for fully practising individual’s citizenship, there are many problems that veiling women face when entering such spaces. Yet again it is the case that how space is constructed and produced is intimately linked to dress practices, each creating the other. Bodies, spaces and clothes are not separate elements but rather are co-created through various socially and culturally specific practices. Through the consideration of the accounts of individuals unfamiliar with local spatial practices, more can be learned of how these aspects of social existence come together and formulate each other.

7

‘PUBLIC’ AND ‘PRIVATE’ SPACES: VISIBILITY, FACE AND GENDERED HYBRIDITY

Dress and space are both always ideological to certain extent. Whether their ideological character is quietly hegemonic and thus hidden, or whether they are more openly political and debated, depends on the context and the nature of the political regime. Hegemonic principles are represented in architectural spaces of representation, the most dominant realm of space (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). It is also the realm most deeply connected to the fields of power – politics and economy. Yet spaces allow for resistance and alternative narratives. In what follows, I discuss how ideology and power are expressed in and practised through the built environment, and the more or less subtle strategies of conformity and resistance that Muslim women engage in through their dress in terms of hegemonic space. ‘Traditional’ veiling has been understood as a form of invisibility enforced upon women in public spaces (Mernissi 2003 [1975]). Veiling can also be considered as a means of creating permanently sacred space for the female body in order to allow its entry into public spaces and the public sphere (El Guindi 1999). But such a manner of seeing the female

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body as isolated ignores the disturbances which the veiled body creates in these spaces, and how it transforms the space around it (Secor 2002). Spaces are plural and heterogeneous. They are constantly constructed and created through more or less conscious mundane everyday activities (Go€ karıksel 2012). State politics and policies and social norms together may create formal and informal veiling regimes: areas where veiling is either the norm or not, or, in cases, formally forbidden or enforced. When a state operates a measure of anti-veiling policy, such as in Turkey, moving between different ‘veiling regimes’ in a city space may become challenging (Secor 2002). Entering areas where veiling is forbidden, such as university campuses, becomes either impossible or highly stressful for women who are required to unveil in order to enter (Kejanlioglu and Tas 2009). On the other hand, where veiling is enforced by law, such as in Iran, unveiling publicly would be a serious risk for a woman (Shirazi 2017), yet moments of occasional unveiling in spaces where women are unlikely to be discovered, such as backyards and back streets, may be of minor importance (Balasescu 2007). Thus veiling and unveiling regimes are formal, informal and temporal. In a European context where the visibility and surveillance of an individual in public spaces is a hegemonic and usually accepted norm, the visibility of veiling women is unavoidable (Tarlo 2007). Yet, while the visibility itself is unescapable, a woman may control what of her person is visible (Tarlo 2010). This is not only done by veiling Muslim women, but is an everyday practice of many women who wish to be in control of the visibility and accessibility of their bodies. Also fashion design has occasionally been used to protect individuals from surveillance, to provide anonymity and shelter (Crewe 2010). In line with these considerations, this chapter analyzes the levels of visibility and invisibility, as well as the forms of privacy, which are created through dress choices and strategies in particular built environments. This is where the ideological nature of the built environment becomes highly visible. The ‘wrong cord’ played by an ‘unfitting’ attire in a specific architectural setting is like an exclamation mark, screaming its inappropriateness. Just as high fashion attire is inappropriate in farm work, and sports attire is inappropriate at a classy wedding, forms of veiling ‘clash’ with certain kinds of built environment. But, and this is

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important, this is not a ‘flaw’ on the side of the veil, instead I argue it is merely a misfit between different dress-spatial understandings. The analytical point here is not to look only in the visible element, but also to analyze that which is ‘invisible’, that is, the ideological assumptions communicated by the physical environment and narratives about it. TRANSPARENCY AND VISIBILITY IN CITY SPACES It is certainly the case that veiling Muslim women have become increasingly visible in Europe during recent decades. The hijab makes the veiling women visible as Muslims in public spaces, in a manner that is unavoidable and often underlines difference (Tarlo 2007). The headscarf controversies in Europe are often framed as clashes of values, such as secularism versus religion, gender equality versus patriarchy, democracy versus radicalism and freedom versus oppression, and the hijab is often considered as a symbol only. However, it is the material presence of hijab-clad bodies that concretizes the presence of Islam in public spaces. Also the debate itself has concrete consequences, in the form of hostility, harassment and Islamophobic attacks, to the veiling individuals themselves. Go€ le (2002: 101– 102) claims that the unease that ‘Islamic visibility’ provokes is due to it being at the same time ‘corporeal, ocular, and spatial’. Therefore it is no surprise that Muslims praying in public places is a particularly touchy topic in the political battle over the construction of space in Europe. Attempts of Muslim communities to gain access to the realm of representations of space in Europe by building mosques and Islamic centres have often been met with hostility. In the most extreme case, a state ban on minarets was introduced in Switzerland in 2009 – a ban that was more symbolic than anything, as it actually had very little effect on city space regulations that already were likely to forbid the building of high constructions such as minarets. In the infamous right-wing campaign poster before the national vote on the initiative, a drawn image of a fully veiled woman was presented with a background of minarets as missiles. The ‘burqa’ was made a symbol of war, aggression and the ‘threat of Islam’. In Finland, the Finns Party and the Change 2011 Party have attempted to use rhetoric and images similarly hostile to Islam, and to face veiling women in particular. Such rhetorics

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never happen in a void. Instead, they have often dire consequences for those women who practise face veiling.

Rhetorical Politics of Face Veiling The importance of the face for communication has been noted by behaviourists and neurophysiologists; visual cues from faces are important for recognition of individuals and their emotional states, as well as for sexual attraction1 (Tate et al. 2006). It is also the case that in certain cultural contexts, for children over nine years old, as well as for adults, covering the lower part of the face hinders identification more than covering only the eyes, for example with sunglasses (Roberson et al. 2010). However, the negative reactions to the face veil happen also in situations where there is no direct need to communicate with the wearer of a face veil, and therefore the controversy over face veiling cannot only be interpreted as a communication issue. For example, Moors (2009b) argues that in the Netherlands, through political and media discourse, the face veil has been turned into a threat to national identity. Already before the colonial times the face veil was a potential fetish for Europeans, a signifier of the Oriental ‘exotic’, erotic and ‘hidden’ female. This mythical harem woman was represented in the minds of Europeans in the bodies of dancers, prostitutes and working-class women – the only women the Europeans had access to – who due to their low status had very little to do with harems (Grace 2004). Also those travellers to ‘the Orient’ who intended to break stereotypes about veiling practices, public baths and the harem often ended up enforcing these ideas (Lewis 1999). According to Moors (2007b), a particular kind of journalism today serves to fetishize the face veil even further, namely an attempt by some journalists supposedly to ‘understand’ life as a Muslim woman (or to evaluate others’ reactions) by wearing the full-body and face veil for a limited time. These journalists, she claims, are particularly fond of the Afghan burqa – a symbol of Taliban rule, but also a highly unpopular garment among the European Muslims. ‘In fact’, Moors (2007b: 5) states, ‘if one were to encounter a woman wearing the [burqa], this is far more likely to be a journalist or researcher checking the reactions of the public – a style of reporting that has become a genre in itself – than

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someone wearing it out of religious conviction’. Such journalism has occasionally also appeared in Finland, and it is a testimony to misunderstanding rather than understanding of Muslim women’s life and faith. For example, two articles in the free-of-charge magazine City published in Helsinki both insist on mixing alcohol and the face veil, presumably for a shock effect.2 Given that any veiling Muslim woman would avoid not only alcohol, but often also spaces where alcohol is served and consumed, this is extremely insensitive. Both journalists – one male who wore the burqa for a week and one female who wore the niqab for a day – also draw conclusions from wearing the veil for a short time, and based on their own discomfort while wearing it, without considering for a moment that their point of view might be culturally constructed. Thus we see many potential reasons for the controversies, such as political rhetoric, communication problems, fetishization of the veil and misunderstanding of its individual religious significance. But in the next section I argue that in order to understand how the face veil in particular has become such a point of provocation, aggression and controversy, it is also necessary to understand how public space is organized, and what it is about that organization that makes the niqab particularly contradictory and controversial.

Space, Dress and Ideology While the official stance of the state in Finland is that individuals have the right to wear what ever they please, in practice there are both political and socio-spatial limits to such apparent freedom. These become apparent when veiling Muslim women participate in public life. In many European countries, a rhetoric whereby visibility (of the face) becomes equated with openness, honesty and transparency is used to argue against face veiling practices (Baehr and Gordon 2012, Moors 2009b). Face veiling is often opposed on grounds of safety, wherein the ‘hidden’ individual is constructed as a criminal, a terrorist or other malevolent entity (Magnet and Rodgers 2010). I wish to suggest that such rhetoric is in fact built into the architectural environment of Northern and Western European countries, including Finland. Public spaces are not neutral locations where human interaction happens, but

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historical entities that are both produced by and productive of human action. Nor is such action neutral, but embedded in knowledge and ideologies, in other words, embedded in power structures (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). Representations of space, according to Lefebvre, are both ideological and hegemonic, as well as necessarily in balance with spatial practice. Since dress exists in an intimate relation to spatial practice – perceptions of appropriate dress will depend on perceptions of space, the gender of the wearer and gender of the others present, among other things – it follows that dress must also be in accordance with the architectural space. It is indeed the case that architecture and fashion have historically tended to follow parallel or co-dependent patterns (McLeod 1994). Moreover, the built environment, perceptions of it and dress practices usually need to be coherent, in order for individuals to manage their everyday activities without great effort. For example, Arab houses have traditionally been built to function together with local dress customs that demand that men and women be segregated in certain ways through spatial and material means. Such segregation is expressed through architecture and through spatial practices where both men and women have responsibilities to ensure the continuance of segregation (Ahmed 1982, 1992). Indeed, it has been argued that in such a setting, the veiled female body and the harem space are intimately linked, and that the veiled body creates a harem space around it when moving through public spaces (Fay 2012). However, European architecture and fashion have historically been more about seeing and being seen by others. Consequently, fashionable individuals have become not only visible, but also at the same time rather like chameleons that fit their environment and thus can hide themselves – indeed, Simmel (1904) argued that being fashionable is a means of invisibility as well as visibility. Therefore it can be expected that the ‘traditional’ Arab veil that is meant to function in a completely different ideological system of spatial practice and representation of space is not well fitted to the Finnish spatial system, which in large part follows European architectural and spatial ideals (Almila 2017b). Moreover, one characteristic that persistently is considered to make a difference between ‘Western’ dress and others is a divide between tailored versus sewn/wrapped forms of dress (Rublack 2010). This

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presumed divide reflects ideas of levels of civilization, whereby tailored fashionable dress comes to be viewed as both unique and more developed than non-Western ‘folk costume’, which is considered to remain outside the realms of fashion and ‘modernity’ (Niessen 2010). Therefore not only is the sewn Arabian veil spatially unfitting within ‘Western’ spatial context, but it is also visually and ideologically unfitting in Finnish socio-spatial reality. In her study concerning female Muslim dress in London, Tarlo (2010) analyzes the social interaction between face veiling women and others in light of Goffman’s (1966 [1963]) theory of everyday communication and interaction in public places. She argues that the discomfort experienced and expressed by many observers of the full-body and face veil are connected both to the negative historical associations – ‘ghosts, burglars, prisoners [. . .] and untrustworthy disguises’ (Tarlo 2010: 133– 4) – linked to a covered or hidden face, and also to ‘architectonic’ reasons: there are simply not enough cues for us to read in the large surface of fabric that hides the female body and face, and small gestures and glances usually providing comfort in co-presence are absent and hidden behind the surface of the fabric. Such a difficulty of interpreting the full-body veil, I claim, is partly based on the fact that the contemporary European fashion system historically constructs the tailored dress as modern, European, individual and familiar, and the sewn dress as foreign and uniformalizing (Rublack 2010). The difference between these two dress-making techniques, tailoring and sewing, is that the sewn dress is based on simple pattern shapes such as squares and rectangles, while tailoring uses much more complicated patterns and closely fitting cuts. A sewn garment fits the body loosely and typically has fewer seams than a tailored garment that follows the body shape more closely. Both the shape and the number of seams have consequences to how a garment appears. Seams cut the surface of a garment thereby creating a different rhythm of shapes and surfaces. Tailored garments ‘divide’ the body, while a loose sewn garment often hides it. Therefore, Tarlo’s explanation can only fully be applied to certain kinds of face and full-body veil, namely to the sewn dress of the Arab or Middle Eastern tradition. I have observed, for example, in London that many women today choose to wear a lightcoloured face veil with relatively large area for the eyes, combined with a

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dress or a relatively slim jilbab instead, a style which is by no means a ‘rhythmless’ surface but indeed often tailored, and also allows eye contact more than many styles of niqab do. A further characteristic of the Finnish architectural and spatial system relevant for this discussion is transparency – both at the ideological level and at the level of pragmatic consequences in the form of surveillance. ‘Architecture of transparency’ as a general architectural trend dates back to the early twentieth century. Ideologically, it is supposed to represent openness, honesty and accountability (Whiteley 2003). Philosophically speaking, transparency refers to ‘the ability of the light of the mind to pass through a concept so that its true nature, or hidden essence, is perceptible’ (Ascher-Barnstone 2003: 3). This, of course, assumes both that there is a hidden essence and that that essence needs to be revealed. In other words, transparency is built on the assumption that hiding something is dishonest and suspicious, and therefore to reveal what is hidden is legitimate. Transparency can also be viewed in a spatial-material sense – that is, in the sense of what it enables, namely surveillance and power (Foucault 1977 [1975]). Therefore the architecture of visibility both enables and ideologically justifies surveillance of individuals, and at the same time puts demands of visibility onto the individuals surveilled. In this context, one should also remember that visibility of the face is particularly important to European understandings of public citizenship and equality (Baehr and Gordon 2012). Through representations of space (the ideology of transparency) and spatial practice (surveillance), an atmosphere is created whereby an individual who covers their face is viewed as dishonest, suspicious and a potential threat to equality and openness within the state. At the same time, a demand to uncover the face becomes acceptable and legitimate, not only because of the presumed dishonesty, but because transparency (and therefore honesty) is considered a legitimate demand the state can make of an individual. It then follows that when the national visual culture and spatial structure are based on transparency and visibility, the dress styles that fail to fit that culture are made doubly visible. Consequently, the niqab and the burqa, which are untailored garments and hide the face, are the most strongly rejected forms of Islamic veiling in Europe. They add to the discursive level of ‘oppression’, ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism’ often attributed to

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them (Moors 2009b) yet another, visual-spatial-ideological, level of threat and non-belonging. But there is another side to the story. Foucault (1977 [1975]) argues that an architectural arrangement where the observed cannot know whether they are being watched or not at any given moment, makes the power involved in surveillance automated. The power is always located at the invisible end of one-way visibility. Hence the one-way visibility that face veil-wearing women enjoy can also be considered threatening in its potential for power (Baehr and Gordon 2012). Alloula (1987) discusses such power in his example of the nineteenth-century French male colonial photographer becoming an object under the gaze of the veiled women in Algiers. Not only is his gaze restricted but he is also the object of invisible gaze himself. Hence, he reacts with what Alloula (1987: 14) calls a ‘double violation’: unveiling the veiled and giving ‘figural representation to the forbidden’ by producing nude photographs of colonized women. It is crucial in the operations of power relations who has the ‘right’ to look and the ‘right’ to remain invisible. In contemporary ‘Western’ societies those who hide behind darkened glasses – be that in limousines, offices, hotels or by wearing expensive sunglasses – tend to be the rich and the powerful. Hence, the face veil in ‘the West’ is not only an act of hiding the face, but also a disruption of social hierarchy; those holding a low status in society may be thought to be making claims to the realm of the rich and the powerful. It is of course the case that similar association with status has for a long time been connected to both full veiling and the harem in Arab cultures, and in the early Islamic society such privacy was granted only to the wives of Muhammed (Ha€meen-Anttila 2004, Mernissi 1991). In this light, the face veil in Europe can be viewed as an extreme form of agency and resistance that seeks to disrupt the established social hierarchies.3 Perhaps it is because the gaze often equals power, that it is often the gaze, and what it does to those beheld, that seems to be the focus of analyses (e.g., Fredrickson and Roberts 1997, Mulvey 1999 [1975], Urry 2001). However, concentrating only on the gaze and its consequences puts the emphasis of the analysis on the spectator-agent. Such a focus potentially misses the point that the one observed may be an active agent managing the gaze too. Just as the subjects of colonialist photographs were not merely passive objects and reduced represen-

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tations (Eileraas 2003), similarly as those subjected to tourist gaze in their homes can also become the gazers of tourist ‘others’ (Urry and Larsen 2011), gaze in everyday interaction is not a simple process of imposing social norms in a one-way manner. Instead, gaze can be rejected and resisted. While individuals’ visibility can be marked by such factors as racial segregation of living areas (hooks 2003), re-imagining spaces and spatial practices allows for questioning such hegemonic principles. Gaze is not only guided through the built environment, but is also dependent on social customs, such as whether the beholder considers gazing appropriate (see Goffman 1971: 46, Tarlo 2010: 131– 2). The Qur’an (24: 30– 1) stresses not only the importance of modest clothing, but also the importance of controlling the gaze: Say to the believing men that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions. That is purer for them. Surely Allah is aware of what they do. And say to the believing women that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions and do not display their adornment except what appears thereof. What is important in these lines is that there are two agents in each potential act of gazing: the beholder, who can actively decide not to look, and the beheld, who can restrict the gaze through her dress. This is, indeed, the character of everyday visual interaction; the one looked at is in the position to restrict or accept the gaze and to communicate this. This can take the form of, for example, covering one’s breasts with a jacket in the work environment (Entwistle 2015 [2000]). Thus while there are intrusive acts of gazing, there are also acts that disrupt the gaze, and these may feel uncomfortable too. In her study of female Muslim dress in London, Tarlo (2010: 134) quotes one of her anonymous (presumably non-Muslim) informants: ‘the less you can see, the more you try to see. You somehow need to look harder to reassure yourself that there is a person under [the full-body veil] there’. Therefore the reasons often stated as legitimation of restricting the use of the face veil, such as security, communication, or ‘living together’, are

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only one part of how the face veil operates in public spaces. The importance of the built environment and its relationship to dress, as well as social status, human gaze and its management, are at least equally important when trying to explain the extremity of anti-face veil rhetoric and reactions in Europe. MANAGING VISIBILITY IN PUBLIC SPACE So, architecture and spatial practices together create an environment where a certain kind of hijab is less acceptable than others. Yet every veiling Muslim woman is visible to a certain extent in European public spaces. Such visibility is a potential source of confrontation that may lead to social discomfort in respect to daily dress practices. There are ways of managing such visibility, however; while some choose to attempt to reduce visibility, others seek to establish increased visibility as representing and involving courage and sacrifice in hostile environment, and therefore as a form of religious capital (Rey 2008). Cultivation of such capital in the case of face veiling is based on the idea that stricter and more visible religious practice indicates deeper commitment to religious over worldly values than a dress style that is more adapted to social environment. Such capital has symbolic value only in the eyes of some members of Muslim community, while others dismiss and oppose it as a sign of ‘extremity’ in religious interpretation, or as a practice contradictory to religious principle of modesty in terms of not drawing attention to oneself. Strategies of reducing visibility not only appear in Finland. Muslim women in Denmark, particularly those participating in mainstream Danish media, engage in strategies of not appearing ‘too Muslim’ (Christiansen 2011), while Muslim women in Canada and France sometimes attempt to don hijab styles that would not be immediately recognizable as Islamic (Mossiere 2012). Whether such strategies actually function to reduce visibility or draw attention away from the wearer’s Muslim identity, depends on the context and the strategy.

Reducing Visibility – Successful or Not? Most of us only notice our clothes when they betray us physically or socially. For many hijab-wearing minority-Muslim women conscious-

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ness of dress is present every day through others’ verbal and gestural reactions. As different kinds of hijab styles are differently visible, in order to be less conspicuous, women may choose colours and styles that fit the surrounding visual culture, like this Finnish convert in her 20s: If you’re wearing a black abaya in the summer and a black scarf too, people stare at you quite a lot. But if you dress in a more Western manner but wear a scarf [. . .] there’s less negative feedback. Perhaps it’s because of that that I feel safer when I wear ordinary clothes than when I have the black abaya. This woman was not the only one who felt potentially threatened because of her dress and tried to control others’ reactions through less conspicuous dress styles. For her, inconspicuousness was framed in terms of colours (avoiding black), a particular style (‘Western’) and the season (black is more visible in the summer when most Finns favour light colours). In fact, it is slightly ironic that wearing black can make anyone particularly visible in Finland, where black is considered a ‘safe’ colour, and is favoured by many women across social occasions and social classes. Yet as it comes to the hijab, black is not only more visible during the summer, but it is also associated with certain kinds of veiling. There are persistent images in the Finnish mainstream media of Muslim women wearing all-black, all-covering Arab or Iranian dresses (Ma€nnisto€ 2002), and many of my respondents were of the opinion that the Finns generally take such images to be a true representation of Muslim women. These images directly influence social interactions between Muslim women and non-Muslim others, and many of the women I interviewed told me that they face questions about whether they have to wear clothes of specific cut, or of certain colours, such as black. Many women are keen on discrediting such stereotypes. One of my Finnish informants told me how she stopped wearing black after her neighbours asked her if it is a compulsory colour for Muslim women – despite having always preferred black clothes prior to her conversion to Islam. Another strategy of reducing visibility is wearing tailored garments instead of sewn or wrapped ones. Choosing trousers over an abaya is such a strategic choice in a context where the majority of women rarely

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wear skirts or dresses. The framing of such selective dress strategies was significant; many of the women used the word ‘Western’ in a variety of contexts when describing garments considered more appropriate by non-Muslim Finns. Thus they framed their statements according to the ‘Islam versus West’ rhetorical divide, while drawing from both sides of that divide. What was significant in the language they used was that their dress was rarely framed as ‘Finnish’. Instead, dress styles were seen as part of global dress systems, rather than as part of the particular national context (while, for example, factors influencing dress practicalities, such as the climate, were often framed in national context). Yet visibility can only be reduced so far. A perceived difference between veiling and non-veiling women persists irrespective of garment choices. Conscious of this, a woman may use garments considered ‘Western’ in an alternative manner. Several Islamic online companies offer t-shirts with a variety of messages such as ‘Muslim & Proud’, ‘Born 2 Be Muslim’, ‘Born-2-Die Muslim’ and ‘My Name is Mohamed And I’m Not A Terrorist’. Horton and Jordan-Smith (2004: 427) argue that from the 1970s onwards the t-shirt has become a message-board upon which verbal and visual messages could be written. A t-shirt is then a declaration of belonging within the ‘Western’ garment culture in wider sense – a 40-year continuum of statements of ‘individuality’ and group-belonging proudly printed on one’s chest – but at the same time a statement of difference within that wider frame. Therefore some dress choices that aim to break stereotypes are outright resistant. A Finnish Shi’a Muslim in her 40s had a somewhat insurgent attitude in respect to her clothes: In an online store there’s a bag that reads ‘I’m not a Terrorist’, a women’s bag, and I thought I’ll buy that. And at some point [when] I was really annoyed I bought a t-shirt that reads ‘Educated Muslim Woman’, because I was so annoyed with these stereotypes. Defiant acts such as wearing an Islamic statement t-shirt are acknowledgements of stigma and resistance to it at the same time. Through a statement t-shirt, an individual’s appearance becomes verbal in part, and comments upon political discourse not only through a passive image,

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subject to others’ interpretations, but also through an explicit verbal statement. Another significant point with regard to managing visibility was that very few Somali women consciously engaged in strategies of reducing visibility. Most of them took their visibility for granted, and some argued that it was a factor they could not alter if they tried; their visibility is racialized rather than exclusively based on religious belonging. Conversely, all the Afghan women I spoke with repeatedly stressed that they wear ‘normal’ clothes (which they buy from ‘normal’ shops), similar to clothes that any Finns would wear. In the Finnish racial hierarchy (Puuronen 2011), it can be expected that Somalis have less ability to manage their visibility than Afghans, whose ethnic difference to the Finns is not quite so underlined, and perhaps these differing preferences of dress styles are not very surprising in light of this. Therefore, while there are means of reducing visibility in a hegemonic environment, the success of such strategies can never be guaranteed; ethnic difference and perceived religious difference, as well as environment, will influence how visible or not an individual becomes.

Extreme Visibility and its Discontents Not everyone chooses to reduce their potential vulnerability to hostility through accommodation to the local visual culture. For some, extreme visibility – of which the face veil is the most controversial form – becomes a source of self-esteem and comfort. The face veil can therefore be viewed as resistance to hegemonic spatial perceptions (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). As Finnish society (or indeed European societies more generally) often constructs the face veil as frightening, threatening and undesirable, it becomes necessarily extremely visible; the niqab-wearing Muslim woman is made visible through the invisibility of her face in a context where contemporary ‘Western’ urban dress leaves the face visible, except for the most extreme weather conditions. Therefore Finnish society, through its hostile reaction, constructs the face veil necessarily as social discomfort and religious capital, that is, the society’s definition of the face veil as suspicious, undesirable and threatening creates an atmosphere in which wearing the face veil becomes a source of extreme public discomfort and thus a sacrifice for

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one’s faith. However, such discomfort may lead to face veiling women restricting their spatial and temporal mobility, as explained by a niqabwearing Somali woman in her mid-20s: If someone berates you, of course it’s difficult to be quiet. One day you’ll explode if you can’t retort, especially if you speak the [local] language. But I’ve tried to avoid [this]. For example, if I go out in the morning, I prefer to take care of things during the day, preferably not in the afternoon. And I’ve thought about it this way: the people who comment are probably not the smartest, and I don’t want to lower myself to that level. The Qur’an says that if uninformed people say something to you, say ‘peace’ to them. So I’ve learned to restrain myself. It’s really good to learn selfcontrol, self-moderation and so on. But of course there’s always someone saying something when one has the niqab. While this woman has found some of the consequences of her face veiling good for the purposes of self-improvement, she nevertheless restricts her personal spatial mobility temporally in order to avoid confrontation. Since she is on maternity leave, she is able to do so, while those who participate in labour outside the home have much less control over when they must go out and whom they are to meet. Secor (2002) has argued that in Istanbul, the city space is constructed such that the mobility of veiling (and unveiling) women may be restricted according to whether it is acceptable or desirable to veil in certain spaces and parts of the city. In Helsinki, the difference is more specifically between different kinds of veils that are either acceptable or unacceptable in all parts of the city, although the chance of direct and indirect hostility increases in more impoverished parts of the city, where many of the face veiling women live. For many women such a continuous threat of confrontation becomes too heavy a burden. For example, while some Finnish convert women embrace the face veil particularly in the early stage of their conversion career, many also give it up when the pressure feels too much. There is a general consensus among Muslims that the face veil is not compulsory, even among those who would consider it better than wearing only a scarf or consider it as a fundamental element of their faith and religious practice.

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The face veil is also seen as temporally and geographically flexible garment; some wear it in specific social occasions, and some wear it when travelling in a Muslim country. For example, a young Finnish woman considered the face veil a desirable garment in Arab countries where her light skin draws undesired attention. Thus in a different context, the face veil can provide a form of invisibility for a visitor, as well as unrecognizability and therefore more liberty for local women (Moors 2007a). As already discussed above, within the Muslim community there are those who consider the niqab an undesirable practice. These women typically connect the face veil to conservative spatial practices, and especially to the segregation of genders. A Finnish woman in her early forties stated this as a reason why she disapproves of the niqab: I don’t personally support segregation between genders [. . .] I rather suffer from it; I consider it embarrassing and demeaning. [. . .] I’m strongly against it [. . .] and related to this I don’t support [the niqab] at all. [. . .] And I was quite shocked when my daughter a couple of years ago seriously thought [of wearing the niqab] – she’s now 16. A couple of years ago when we were in Morocco the last time, there was a wife of a relative, a German who wears the niqab and doesn’t go much outside the home. And she wore the niqab and that looked somehow hip and cool, and [my daughter] speculated aloud that perhaps she [will], too. And I tried to my best ability diplomatically express why it in my opinion isn’t reasonable especially in Finland. Not only is the niqab, in this woman’s account, connected to gender segregation, but in her view, it is also connected to women staying at home and not participating in public life. Hence, her daughter’s interest in what to an adolescent may seem simply an exciting and exotic dress style, was viewed very differently by the mother who saw it in the light of contesting religious interpretations, as well as spatial and gendered practices she disagrees with. Another Finnish woman, in her late 40s, particularly mentioned how ‘shocked’ she sometimes feels when realizing how conservative the younger generation of Muslims in Finland often is. She claimed that the community is polarized between those who support more modern interpretations of Islam, and those

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who are conservative or ‘Salafi’. The niqab is one, though not the only, indicator of such a divide. However, not every niqab-wearer is a conservative; some simply feel more comfortable when covering their faces or find safety and security in the privacy it provides. One Finnish woman particularly framed the face veil as a rejection of objectification of women, and as a source of comfort in the early phases of her conversion career: Suddenly I didn’t want to wear make-up outdoors anymore, and couldn’t, as that was the nature of my conviction [. . .] I had worn a lot of make-up and that gave me self-confidence. So, suddenly I felt somehow naked, and I felt I looked vulnerable and sensitive without the make-up. And I didn’t feel as self-confident anymore. Consequently, she chose to wear the niqab that gave her a sense of protection and reduced vulnerability, albeit also making her a target of hostile comments. Therefore there are important spatial elements connected to the niqab, in the form of visibility, disruption of the gaze and the segregation of genders. One may add that the fact that the religious struggles in Europe happen primarily over the management and governance of bodies and buildings in public places is highly significant in light of what Lefebvre (1991 [1974]) claims about fundamental social change (or revolution, as he puts it) only being successful if it creates new kinds of spaces. The struggle must be over the nature of public space. In this sense, the claims of different groups of Muslims are radically different. Those who, say, want to build mosques that conform to European norms of space, wish to be included into the existing architectural space through the principle of extension of religious rights, whereas those who want to create permanently gender-segregated spaces are much more revolutionary in Lefebvre’s terms. A ‘discreet’ spatial integration of Islamic prayer rooms and centres into the pre-existing European space has happened in many European cities without much resistance or notice (Saint-Blancat 2002: 146), while highly visible, voluble and ‘different’ Islamic architecture is more likely to create controversy. Yet one must not assume that a particular dress style can be automatically affiliated with a particular school of thought or particular socio-spatial demands, or that those

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Muslims who seek to follow different gender-space norms would wish to change the whole society according to their own preferences. I have highlighted here how representations of space are ideologically constructed to require both visibility in spatial practices, and a ‘fit’ with the local visual culture. Thus particularly face veiling Muslim women are made doubly visible in the Finnish public spaces. The women react to these spatial pressures through either aiming to reduce their visibility by wearing more ‘Western’, inconspicuous styles of hijab, or alternatively by increasing their visibility through more conservative forms of veiling. The latter, however, may lead to restricted spatial mobility due to increased (risk of) harassment the women often face, and is often only possible for women staying at home with children. As many Muslim women participate in paid labour outside home, they must make different kinds of compromises, adapting to the mainstream norms of the society. Through their dress choices, these women also contribute to the construction of space. Conformity, resistance and avoidance are all ways of reacting to spaces constructed through certain informal norms and customs (Secor 2002). Bodies and spaces together construct the conditions of social existence in urban space, and thereby create, transform and re-enforce dress norms within these spaces. Part of such construction is the construction of relative privacy in different kinds of spaces. SPACE AND PRIVACY On a November Friday in 2011, I was due to interview an Afghan woman in her home, in a new area of single-family houses, most of which were still under construction. As I rang the doorbell, my hostess came to open the door, peeking around it cautiously. On her head she was wearing a large knitted cap that she had clearly put on quickly to answer the door. She took the cap off as soon as the door was closed behind me and invited me to the living room – a handsome, large room with a facade wall of large windows. I could see construction workers building another house not far from the curtainless living-room windows. Later, I asked my hostess whether she ever felt that she is too visible to outsiders because of the windows. The woman told me that the men in Finland do not look into other people’s houses and hence she

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does not need to worry about the windows, even if she is not wearing covering dress. She also stated that in Afghanistan it would be quite another matter. According to her, if the Afghan homes had large windows, every passer-by would peek in. The explanation for her lack of concern may not be as simple as to whether passers-by would look in or not. Rather, it probably had partly to do with the fact that there were no passers-by. The area where she lives is relatively affluent, and there is quite a lot of space between houses, and no paths passing right next to the main windows. Those living in lessaffluent environments, or in the city centre, will be facing very different risk of visibility in their homes. For example, in sub-urban terraced houses, the path leading to neighbours’ doors is usually nearer to one’s own apartment, and in block houses there is often another block house facing one’s windows. Consequently, I had visited many Muslim homes where the possibilities of seeing in from outside had been effectively blocked by thin light curtains, thicker curtains or both. According to Virtanen and Vilkama (2008), Somali families living in Helsinki prefer to have two kinds of curtains in all the windows: light curtains that during the daylight hours let the light in, and are kept closed at all times, and thicker curtains that are drawn for the night. Such arrangement ensures both that the light from outside can enter the rooms, and that privacy of the apartment against gazes from the outside is ensured. Thus, homes in an urban environment are not as private as one might assume. There are windows that provide visibility – and in Finland those windows are surprisingly wide given the unforgiving climate – but there are also people who request admittance and are indeed often admitted, such as friends of family members and deliverers of goods. Consequently, veiling Muslim women manage the front door of their houses or apartments with various strategies using tools such as peepholes or phones, as well as strategically deployed garments.

Public in Private and Privacy in Public For veiling women, domestic spaces change from private to public according to who is present. At home when men are visiting, the hijab needs to be worn, and also visiting women will need to consider whether the hostess’s husband or sons are at home. The doorbell needs to be answered

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with caution as well. The home transforms from private to public, and vice versa, according to who is present (or may potentially be present). Architecture and technology create different kinds of private spaces and different means of entering them. In Europe front doors are closed or locked, a doorbell or a knock indicates a visitor behind the door and the gender of the visitor is fairly irrelevant – the only thing that matters is the familiarity of the visitor. Conversely, in many Arab houses, entry happens via a bending corridor, and men indicate their entry to a female space with coughing, while women may enter male spaces protected by their veil (Ahmed 1984). Such architecture and spatial arrangement aims to provide two kinds of privacy: privacy for the family and its guests, and more specific forms of privacy for the women living in and visiting the house (Webster 1984). Lefebvre (1991 [1974]) has argued that different realms of space must be somehow in accordance so that individuals can move between them. One may therefore expect that for the purposes of managing a spatially ‘foreign’ dress style in the Finnish spatial system, specific techniques of management must be adopted. Veiling is a practice that initiated in the Arabian type of spatial system, and therefore managing it in a space foreign to it requires specific arrangements (Almila 2017b). A Finnish woman in her 40s indicated a variety of strategies to ensure privacy when necessary: If I go to visit either friends or relatives, close relatives, [I take my scarf off]. If my friends’ husbands are not at home – and they normally don’t invite [me around] if he is, [I take my scarf off]. Though a friend of mine, she has teenage sons so it’s a bit [different]. I said last summer when I visited her on a really hot day: ‘Are your boys at home, I’d like to take my scarf off?’ So she shouted upstairs that they mustn’t come without announcing they want to come, that I can remove my scarf. And she telephoned the other son: ‘Ring the doorbell when you come.’ [. . .] Interviewer: If your doorbell rings and you don’t know who it is, do you check? Interviewee: I check through the peephole. If it looks like it’s a woman I open [. . .] Sometimes when [I expect] things [to be] delivered [. . .], I’m quite a long time before it [already wearing] my scarf. Or I shout behind the door ‘wait a bit’ and put it on.

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Since I was an expected quest, the woman in question opened the door without a scarf – the likelihood of other people passing at the same time would have been very low. As this account also demonstrates, private spaces are managed differently with other Muslims – who know and understand relevant dress rules – and with non-Muslims. While a variety of means – human voice, phone, doorbell – can be used without additional explanations among those who ‘play the same game’, Muslim women must take care of managing their private spaces differently with non-Muslims. Strategic preparations, such as placing a scarf near the door and being otherwise appropriately dressed, help the managing of the front door in case of expected visitors, while surprise calls must be dealt with by other means. In case there is a peephole, the task becomes that of recognizing whether the visitor is male or female, but in the absence of such tools – as was the case of the Afghan woman in the earlier example – one may need to keep appropriate garments always near at hand. Within a Muslim family matters are handled differently. Since every family member knows that there are special requirements for the woman’s attire particularly, her needs are respected by male family members. A Finnish woman in her 60s described it as follows: If a Muslim wife wants to invite friends, the husband arranges something for himself to do [elsewhere] and announces earlier on when he intends to come back, so that the guests can leave. In that way, the home is protected for the wife’s needs. Such strategies are particularly important where local architecture does not correspond to particular dress customs, as is the case between Finnish flat architecture and veiling. While temporarily gender-segregated spaces can be created by closing doors – a Muslim man would think twice before opening the kitchen door, lest the wife has a friend visiting – and through other means described above, it still remains the case that the suitability of Finnish domestic architecture is not always ideal for Muslim purposes (for example, open kitchens are very common and create challenges for families where it is customary for women to have kitchen as their own, protected space), and dress strategies come necessarily to be intertwined with multiple strategies creating and ensuring gendered privacy.

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On the other hand, some public or open spaces may be temporarily partly private. In an environment where there is little chance of a man appearing suddenly with no warning, the rules of the hijab can be temporarily relaxed. This can happen, for example, in a forest where the likelihood of an accidental meeting is low, as described by a Finnish woman in her late 20s who usually wears abayas and khimars: A couple of times I’ve gone to the forest somewhere to pick berries or mushrooms. If I’m almost 100 per cent certain that no people will come there, or at least I’ll hear from afar if someone’s coming, I might push the hem of the abaya in [the waist of] my trousers and just wear the trousers. This woman relaxes her dress for functional reasons when she can be certain that she will not be surprised. In a forest the warning of someone approaching would be aural, but there are also spaces where visibility is such that a woman may feel temporally protected because she will see if a man approaches. Spending time in a public playground in a residential area with a Somali woman who often brought her small children there, I noticed that she liked lifting her niqab when in the playground. While playgrounds are almost exclusively female spaces, this particular playground also had a relatively large area of sparse woods around it that enabled her to see around. Also the paths around the playground were located quite far from the playground itself which meant that no one would be passing very near by. Thus she enjoyed a wide visibility that enabled her to decide flexibly whether she needed to lower her face veil or not. There are also means to adapt gendered forms of privacy in semipublic spaces, that is, in spaces that anyone may enter, but that are indoors and protected from the gaze of passers-by. These would include local resident houses and community centres, for example. A gatekeeper in a semi-public space mostly occupied by women may manage the space so that especially face veiling women will know whether they can lift their veil or not. Simple hand signs are used to indicate to face veiling women as to whether there are men present in the place, or if a man is about to enter. Such pre-arranged signals and warnings are necessary in the absence of culturally agreed spatial warning signals that are in use in many Muslim-majority societies.

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All these examples show that the borders of private and public are not as clearly drawn as is often assumed. There are ways of creating temporary privacy in public, and at the same time homes are also partly public. However, privacy in public is only applied to those parts of dress that can quickly be re-arranged, such as face veils and hems. Fully removing one’s scarf would be much riskier when the wider society functions on the basis of different interpretations and uses of space. Only in the privacy of Muslim homes or other Muslim-only environments can dress be loosened more. The idea of different levels of privacy and intimacy of spaces is of course not exclusive to Muslim understandings of spaces and gendered dress practices. We could, for example, consider spaces and their social uses in terms of the concepts of front stage and back stage by Goffman (1990 [1959]). His ideas indicate a certain flexibility in terms of how people perform their roles in terms of who is present, and how spaces are protected against outsiders in order to secure a level of privacy (although his early views on this topic can also be seen as overly cynical and too focussed upon people trying to make impression on others). On the other hand, the nature of urban spaces can also be seen to be in transformation in terms of public and semi-public space. From public spaces accessible and usable to all, through ownership, design, staffing and technology, certain spaces are emerging that are in practice open only to certain kinds of, ‘desirable’, citizens. The removal of undesirable individuals from spaces presumably public is a sign of hybridization of ‘public’ towards semi-public, partly exclusive spaces (Nissen 2008). So the borders of public and private are never strict, either in terms of space or in terms of an individual. Yet what is specific in terms of dress and space, and perhaps veiling in particular, is that dress has the power to stretch space. Dress is not only a response to a situation and an environment according to the individual’s knowledge of the conditions; dress can also be understood as something that manages space, creates privacy when needed and provides visibility when desired. Spatial practice, and how spaces are lived, create space as much as architecture and urban planning (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). Thus dress is not only related to space, or subject to spatial logic, but it may in fact contribute to its creation just as much as urban planning does.

8

CONCLUSION: ON POLITICS, VEILING AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF FASHION

I have argued in this book that an analytical focus on different kinds of spaces is crucial for new sociological understandings of dress and fashion phenomena. This is because in a globalized and globalizing world, dress and fashion are always operating in both micro- and macrolevels, and to analyze such connections, understanding the diverse spaces in which they occur is crucial. I have argued that garments operate differently in commercial spaces, intimate spaces, community spaces, state-organized spaces, religiously organized spaces, public spaces and private spaces. I have also shown how all these spaces bring together individual experiences and various global forces – ideological, economic, religious, political. It is precisely because of such diversity of forces that dress phenomena bring together that I believe that dress and fashion also offer exciting opportunities for new sociological readings of the individual-socialglobal relations more generally. The importance of how objects mediate our existence has been recently increasingly recognized (e.g., Griswold et al. 2013). It has been my aim in this study to demonstrate how fundamentally important dress is in such mediations. Partly for the obvious reason that we cannot escape dress, but also for the more specific

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reason that we are equally unable to escape the globalized fashion industry, the garments worn by individuals in their immediate social environments (and beyond) must be taken seriously by the social analyst. Beyond its contribution to veiling studies and sociology of fashion respectively, this book also has certain political implications. These are primarily relevant for the Finnish context, but they carry connotations beyond that one national setting, too. My personal standpoint as regards the politics of dress is simple: I believe individuals should be restricted as little as possible in terms of their dress choices, be the restrictor a state, a religious institution, a specific social setting, a family or a community, or a society constructed in a particular manner. I further consider it any state’s responsibility to guarantee an individual’s rights to self-definition in this regard, and also to protect an individual against discrimination and harassment that may occur in relation to their dress choices. I will first discuss the implications this study suggests particularly for politics and policies in this regard. After this I shall come back to the fields of veiling studies and sociology of fashion and reflect upon the future of both these fields in the light of my study. POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS While veiling is intimately connected to state politics and policies, there is another field which must be briefly considered in relation to the topic, namely the politics of academic representation. Studies of Muslims in minority contexts have been accused of potentially essentializing and isolating their research subjects and marking Muslim minorities as ‘different’ through contextual framing (Mills and Go€ karıksel 2014). I hope my analysis has at least partly managed to avoid such a trap. I have sought to analyze veiling in minority context as I would have analyzed any dress or fashion phenomenon, while yet recognizing its specificities and visibly politicized nature in current historical moment. It has been my intention throughout this study both to give voice to Finnish Muslim minorities – in the plural – and to show how they are not only a minority in a specific national context but are in fact bound to other communities and groups across multiple locations, as well as being internally diverse, whereby the nature and extent of communities is

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contested. Moreover, the diversity within Finnish Muslim communities is not a local phenomenon that can be isolated and studied as an entity in itself, but is instead part of much larger fields of communication and coexistence. Finland’s Muslim communities are obviously not separate parts of society but are integral to the society, for they shape and construct what Finnish society is today and will be in the future. I hope to have managed to communicate these views in my analysis. The strongest realm enabling integration and equal citizenship for Muslims in Finland is legislation. Finnish legislation protects individual rights to a very high degree, and the principle of ‘human rights friendly’ interpretation of international treaties and the Finnish Constitution significantly improve the legal position of minorities in Finland. The recent changes to the Parity Law have sought to strengthen the law so that it would give similar protection to individuals as the Equality Law does. Management changes have also sought to facilitate filing individual complaints, and making the handling of them more consistent, by making the handling of complaints nationally centralized instead of happening at the municipal level. Despite the strong legislative protection, Finland’s current sociopolitical atmosphere is very challenging for minorities. While the neoliberal austerity politics driven by the right-centre coalition government weaken the position of many marginalized Finns, global crises, such as the civil war in Syria, have caused new waves of migration and an increase in the number of asylum seekers in Finland. Such changes are occurring in a political climate where racist and racialized hate speech has been legitimized by certain political actors for a decade, unsurprisingly causing hardening attitudes and increase in racist crime. Similarly as the neo-liberal politics during the economic recession of the early 1990s contributed to increasing xenophobia (Puuronen 2011), the austerity politics of today stir unrest and dissatisfaction which often takes immigrants, and particularly Muslims, as their explicit target. Yet the increasing racism in Finland is not only the government’s fault. While openly racist statements are widely allowed and often legitimized by political decision-makers, it is also the case that such attitudes existed in the population already before they became politically legitimated (Kestila€ 2006). That discrimination against minorities, hate speech and racist crime persist, is because they are deeply embedded in the fabric of the society and

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cannot be attributed to recent political changes only. Indeed the strong legislative protection of individual rights also protects the freedom of opinion, and expression thereof, to a high degree. As can be seen from all of this, there are persistent challenges in Finnish society for the integration and acceptance of Muslim minorities, and often those visibly Muslim, such as veiling women, are in particularly precarious position. Yet many members of these minorities have integrated in the society highly successfully and are encouraging and helping others to integrate. A variety of actors within Muslim communities, including youth organizations, media, mosques and Islamic associations, seek to facilitate communication, encourage education and provide opportunities for integration and mutual understanding. These individuals and communities, together with state-level and local initiatives, are helping to formulate integration policies and influencing to what extent the processes of integration are successful or not. Further, the nature of Finnish schooling system can be highly beneficial for integration policies, not only as regards the integration into society of future generations of immigrants’ children, but also in terms of educating every child about cultural differences and acceptance. Recent changes to the national curriculum have indeed sought to recognize and support the diversity of students – not only in terms of ethnic or religious background, but also in respect to diversity of genders and sexualities. Therefore the future challenge for Finland is to ensure that integration policies continue to improve, and that resources are directed to support these policies. The gap between legislative protection and everyday freedom from structural discrimination and open hostility of individuals remains wide. While legislative protection is crucial, and its importance cannot be overestimated, if necessary resources are not channelled towards the enforcement and encouragement of integration and antidiscrimination policies, the situation of Muslims in Finland will keep being precarious in many ways. In this, it is crucial that different kinds of actors seek to develop mutual, inclusive understandings as to how intergration and equal opportunities can be fully realized, also in the case of women who choose to veil of their free will. At the same time, the opportunity of choosing differently must also be acknowledged and allowed by religious communities, families and individuals.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR VEILING STUDIES According to Mills and Go€ karıksel (2014: 903), ‘what it means to be Muslim is in fact produced through socio-spatial relations, cultural practices and materialities, and political contexts, as well as religious interpretations, meanings, and performances’. In accordance with this view, I have sought to bring together such different realms as law, politics, religion, media, cultural industries, fashion and everyday life. It is also, I believe, necessary to consider communities as not only local in nature, but rather as globally connected (beyond diasporas) through a variety of spaces and networks. While what counts as normative Islam in respective public spaces is a contextual and territorial struggle (Mills and Go€ karıksel 2014), it is also a struggle with far more global connotations (Roy 2004). The bodies of veiling women are (or certainly have been made to be) central to such struggles, and consequently are one key to understanding these attempts to extend, claim and shape public and other spaces. From a marginal field of enquiry in the 1970s and 1980s, veiling studies have grown to be a significant body of knowledge production, fundamentally interdisciplinary in nature. With hundreds of articles, book chapters and books, the field has grown along with the political, economic and cultural significance of veiling (Almila 2017a). Characteristic of recent key contributions to the field is a multi-faceted, trans-national consideration of the veiling phenomena (e.g., Ahmed 2011, Lewis 2015a, Tarlo and Moors 2013), but there is also a large (and ever-increasing) number of analyses exclusively focussing on specific locations and narrower areas, such as sport, legislation and state politics. Given how the field has expanded and matured recently, it is likely that the studies of a more comprehensive kind will increasingly come to shape the field. This is a desirable development, for it is through such studies that the complexity of the phenomena can be accessed and understood more clearly and fully than before. Yet another key element of veiling studies must be the demystification of the subject matter. The unfortunate histories of precolonial, colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial narratives about veiling may be overcome in large part of academic literature, but are not so in popular imagination. It is also the case that locations such as Finland,

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with very limited historical consciousness of veiling, seem to be prone to pick up the least sophisticated narratives about veils. In the pressure of fast journalism and populist political discourses, the need for scholarship that is both locally relevant, conscious of global connections and developments, and recognizes the diversity and complexity of the subject matter without fetishizing it further, is greater than ever. This means that there is a particular need for scholarship across locations that are not a ‘usual’ focus of veiling studies, but also that the analyses must be aware of, and contribute to, a rapidly growing body of literature within the field itself. IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIOLOGY OF DRESS AND FASHION Sociology’s historical importance for fashion studies is undeniable (Almila 2016b). While fashion studies span a range of disciplines, such as philosophy, economics, geography, history and cultural studies, the contributions of classical sociological thinkers remain influential for the field today (Aspers and Godard 2013). A fundamental question, then, for a sociologist of fashion, has to do with the disciplinary and interdisciplinary borders of knowledge production: ‘to what extent should sociologists integrate knowledge from other disciplines into their own research?’ (Aspers and Godard 2013: 179). As must be clear to the reader by this time, in my epistemological position, I find it legitimate to draw upon everything and anything that helps to explain and analyze the phenomena I seek to understand, while my framing and analytical approach are fundamentally sociological. Fashion and dress for a sociologist are necessarily embedded in forms of power and social struggles. What I have sought to demonstrate in this book is that such structures and struggles are far more than symbolic battles. Instead they are embodied, material, spatial, cognitive, emotional and deterritorial as well. I believe that considering all these elements of a particular dress phenomenon – in this case veiling and Muslim women’s dress practices – is necessary for pushing the sociological enquiry of dress and fashion further on. As stated above, I argue for a sociology of dress and fashion that is both more spatial and more sartorial than has hitherto been the case. Such an

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approach brings Bourdieusian considerations of habitus, capitals, taste and the human body together with other scholarly stances, such as more recent considerations of tasting techniques (Hennion 2007, Schwarz 2013) and more classical considerations to do with techniques of the body (Mauss 1973 [1935]). Furthermore, this approach recognizes the importance of global connections and globalizing forces, and analyzes such influences in the diverse spaces where garments operate. Therefore, because materiality can be understood to mean material objects as well as the characteristics of their materiality, multiple sources across disciplines such as history, material technology and anthropology, can aid sociological enquiry in this area. Furthermore, as human bodies are physical-material in nature as well, considerations of clothing physiology, the physical environment and the ways in which garments shape bodily techniques, are all in order here (Almila 2018). And finally, because (built) environments are social and material, their multiple influences also must be considered. Architecture can be understood as equally intimate, physical and embodied as are dress and fashion (Crewe 2010), and fashion and built environments are often intimately bound together. Furthermore, while analyses of materiality can involve the qualities and characteristics of materials and material objects – fibres, weaving and knitting techniques, cutting of garments, the fit on the body – such analyses must also consider the fact that many embodied experiences are socially constructed. According to Bourdieu (2010 [1979]), the body is shaped by habitus as much as cognitive and emotional processes are. The material elements and characteristics of an individual’s environment condition the ways in which their life comes to shape their habitus, but those material conditions are also socially structured; those with higher levels of legitimate capital tend to eat healthier, wear garments made of higher-quality fabrics, be disturbed less by noise and often breathe cleaner air, especially in urban environments, than their less-privileged counterparts. The fundamentally intertwined character of knowledge, embodied practice, material conditions and power is reflected in mundane everyday activities, and it is the naturalized character of such internalized structures that makes dress practices so intriguing. Expressions such as ‘it feels like me’ or ‘it’s just comfortable’ reveal their enormous significance and importance when subjected to sociological analysis. But an analysis of

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such matters would be mistaken if it only remained at the level of the symbolic. It is necessary to bring into the analysis a deeper understanding of what materiality can mean in all its various forms. The spatial character of fashion and dress phenomena is recognized by many scholars, if not often yet deeply analyzed by many of them. What I have suggested in this book is that the multiplicity and diversity of spaces matters for dress and fashion analysis (see also Rocamora 2013). Dress practices can be considered as socially constructed and situated spatial practices, but at the same time dress practices produce, reproduce and transform space through adaptation, negotiation and resistance. While built space is a form of ideology, it is also a physical environment which enables certain practices and prevents others. Built space and climate together create an environment that necessarily interacts with dress customs and practices, but environments can be shaped, managed and resisted through garment choices too. Designers of space, architecture and fashion shape such interactions as well. In the realm of spaces of representation, architects and urban planners make ideologically driven decisions as to what built environments should look like, what they should enable, what they should prevent, whom they should be for and whom they should exclude. Fashion designers also make ideologically driven decisions as to whom they are creating fashion for: are their garments for those who can afford luxury, do not need to worry about climate and do not wash their own clothes, or are the garments instead for those with much more limited economic, time-related and cultural means? Or indeed, are the garments explicitly designed to resist certain hegemonic spatial characteristics, such as surveillance in public spaces (Crewe 2010)? Considerations of built environment, spatial practices and lived spaces assume space to be physical and ideological simultaneously. Space is social, mental and physical in a manner that makes these realms inseparable (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]). Yet space today is also globalized and deterritorialized too (Scholte 2000). In addition to cross-border movements between spaces – migrations of humans, goods, money, images and ideas – there are also spaces that are much more than networks between fixed territorial locations. In such spaces, dress indicates belonging beyond territorial and fixed locations. A person can at the same time be a member of a local community and a global ideological

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or religious movement. The levels of belonging in such spaces are expressed in ways that are both intimate and impersonal. From territorial, fixed ways of communication and belonging, a change has happened whereby globalized, deterritorialized forms of knowledge and consciousness have made intimacy and shorter social relations possible across long geographical distances (Scholte 2000). Bourdieu’s (1985) way of seeing social space is again relevant here. Understanding social space as a realm of social locations, dependent on an individual’s locations in multiple social fields, can make such deterritorialized social spaces comprehensible. While power and ideology are embedded in geographical locations and built environments, they also bind individuals beyond such physical locations. Hierarchical distances between individuals draw a map of social belongings beyond geographical locations. The social distance between the maker and the wearer of garments – the seamstress and her eighteenth-century aristocratic client, the nineteenth-century clothing factory worker and the upper middleclass fashion consumer, the Bangladeshi garment factory worker and the European brand client of today – has not changed that radically, even if the geographical map has been fully transformed. These are conditions that necessarily lie behind every contemporary study of dress and fashion, and must be acknowledged and, hopefully in the future, researched more fully. The elementary characteristic of fashion systems is, ultimately, inequality – a fact that does not change over time, while the forms and embodiments of it do. With such multiple domains of enquiry and diverse forms of data being required, the process of research becomes a process of following the research topic, doing anything and everything necessary to understand the phenomena in their richness and variety. This does not mean that research methods should not be systematic. For example, ethnography is a well-established source for research methods, and can be drawn upon for fieldwork purposes. Documentary analysis offers further possibilities for extending ethnographic analyses. But what is equally important for analysis of the kind I have sought to present in this book is the extension of methods of observation towards considerations of the haptic, physiological and material. In this way, more attention can be paid to how different realms of existence, such as the natural, social and semiotic, come together (Latour 1996 [1990]). In the interactions

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and comings-together of physical and material objects, bodies and spaces and linguistic communications and structures, a wealth of analytical material can be discovered, when one or another of these realms is not privileged over the others. The overly linguistic and symbolic nature of fashion studies has been criticized by others before me (e.g., Carter 2012, Rocamora 2002). The change required is partly methodological; through increasing attention to materials and materialities of all kinds, and through learning to understand old and new forms of materiality, novel ways of analyzing dress and fashion can be developed. Similarly, increased understanding of ideological, social and physical built environments, and their interactions with garments and forms of dress, is necessary in order to further develop analyses of the spatial character of dress and fashion phenomena. If reserchers working in collaboration across borders, both intellectual, cultural and political, can now work with these precepts, genuine progress and innovation in fashion studies can be made. It is precisely by these means that that general field, and also the more specific one of veiling studies, can now be epistemologically revivified, substantively refreshed and re-tooled to take on future challenges.

Appendix RESEARCH METHODS

The data that informs this research was collected during three field work periods in 2011 and 2012 in the Greater Helsinki area (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa) in Finland. I conducted altogether ten months of fieldwork during the two years my data collection took place. My research methods included ethnographic methods such as participant observation and semi-structured interviews. I gathered data also through observations in public places and from documentary sources. I conducted data collection and analysis as a partly simultaneous process; initial analyses of the data I collected directed my collection of additional data. My preparatory visit to the field took place in February – March 2011. During this time, I made some contacts and had informal conversations with some Muslim women. I also went to see the first Hijab Fashion Show in Finland, organized by a small design trade name DeenIt, which took place in Helsinki in the International Cultural Centre Caisa on 25 February 2011. The same fashion show was re-run in the Islam Expo that took place on 4– 5 March 2011 in the Cable Factory cultural centre in Helsinki. In the Islam Expo I made more contacts with individual Muslim women, which later proved to be invaluable. My main field research period took place from August 2011 until February 2012. Ramadan in 2011 started on 1 August, which meant that I started my observation during a special season of religious significance for the women I was dealing with. The data collection took place in public and semi-public locations such as shopping malls,

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organizational meetings, religious meetings and religious celebrations, as well as in private homes. Observing dresses and discussing dress practices both during the festive season of Ramadan, and from summer to winter, ensured that I received as much visual information as possible. In September 2011 I conducted five unstructured pilot interviews (with three Finnish converts to Islam and two Somalis). Based on these interviews, I formulated the interview map I used in all the following interviews. For the formulation of the interview map, I made initial coding of the data gathered by then. The themes that rose from the data were ‘us/them’ (referring to both Muslim-Muslim and Muslim-nonMuslim relations), ‘global/local’ trends (both ideological and material), ‘imaginable/unimaginable’ (referring to aesthetic styles), ‘appropriate/inappropriate’ (meaning both dress and behaviour) and ‘authentic/unauthentic’ (referring to interpretations of Islam and Islamic dress). Further topics related to individual lifestyles, family relations and women’s rights and roles in terms of religious interpretations. I had very few ready-made questions, and instead followed my interview map, fitting my questions according to how the conversation developed. The interview questions concentrated on dress and clothing, and I was consciously avoiding questions such as ‘Why do you veil?’, approaching the matter primarily through questions concerning comfort, material, style and personal clothing preferences. My common opening question was ‘Where do you buy your clothes?’, which I found to frame the interview in a manner that was apolitical, and also to differ from what many of the women clearly had expected when agreeing to participate. Since I had in my initial research design chosen to concentrate on the everyday lived aspects of the hijab in my interviews (rather than political or religious aspects, although also these connotations have everyday consequences), framing the interview through questions related to garment consumption and uses of dress served to direct the conversation towards these themes. Through my questions, I was able to set the tone of the conversation according to private spheres rather than public ones. Yet public spheres and politics kept coming up in the interviews and eventually formed a large part of my data, as is proven by my analysis.

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When selecting informants for my research, I first paid attention to variety in the sample in respect to age, educational background and professional occupation. The first two are considered sources that partly define consumption behaviour and dress styles (Crane 2000: 12), and the latter partly defines economic capital an individual can draw upon. Economic capital available for clothes is also defined by the income of marital partner (if there is one), as well as the number of family members, particularly children, that need to be cared for. I also paid attention to religious affiliation and variation of dress styles, as well as self-expressed interest or lack of interest in dress and fashion matters. All the interviews I conducted were open-ended, and I spoke with many of the women several times on different occasions before and after the formal interview. The interviews and conversations took place mostly in private homes, but also in public or semi-public places such as cafes, restaurants, workplaces and mosques, according to the interviewees’ preferences. Sometimes the children of the interviewee were present, and one time the husband of the informant was in the same room working on his computer during the conversation. As the women themselves did not perceive the topic as particularly problematic or sensitive, there were no noticeable differences between the interviews and conversations where others were present compared to those times when I was alone with the informant. In fact, some of the most personal information I received when interviewing women in public places, or through a dialogue shared between friends or family members. The majority of the interviews were individual, but I conducted some family interviews with a mother and adult daughter(s) as well as some interviews with two women, especially when an informant felt her Finnish was not fluent enough to be interviewed alone. In two of the interviews I used an interpreter and some of the interviews were conducted in English instead of Finnish. The interviews with more than one person naturally created different dynamics from individual interviews. This added interestingly to the variation of my data, when the women created meanings together through conversation, agreement and disagreement. While interviewing women whose Finnish was weak or non-existent of course created potential for error and misunderstanding, I still found it important to include such women in my sample. Choi et al. (2012) have stressed that the practice of excluding potential informants from a sample

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due to translation issues is a source of general bias in research among migrant communities. It is also the case that those with the most limited skills in the local language(s) are those least acculturated and therefore at a greater risk of social exclusion (Esposito 2001: 569) – thus there is even more reason not to exclude them from research on groups of migrants. The interpreter I used is a bi-lingual Somali woman who was born and grew up in Finland and has long experience in interpreting between Finnish and Somali. Many of my informants were not speaking their first language during the interviews, and their language skills varied. When I was not using an interpreter with those who spoke Finnish as their second language, I attempted throughout the conversations and interviews to make sure that they understood me and I understood them. If I felt the informant had not answered the question, I reformulated it in order to see if I would get a different answer. I regularly used a variety of expressions to clarify my meaning and ensure the communication of my questions. I persisted with some questions until I felt I had both received an answer and understood it, and frequently asked for clarifications if I was not certain what the informant meant. Language notwithstanding, there are always differences with regard to how well an individual expresses herself. Some individuals engage in more self-reflection and are often capable of giving detailed and sophisticated answers, whereas for some the questions may feel unfamiliar and confusing, and thus result in less elaborately constructed answers. The great benefit in respect to talking about embodied material objects such as clothes is that the women were able to show me through gestures and with the aid of garments what they meant if they were not always able to explain their meaning verbally. I made notes of these gestures during the interviews, and later transferred them into the interview transcripts. I participated in different kinds of events during my seven-month main fieldwork period. I visited mosques and participated in women’s mosque evenings. I was invited to participate in a private Qur’an study group organized in one of my Iranian Shi’a informants’ home, and I also participated in a Sunni Muslim women’s study group in the Roihuvuori mosque. I went to listen to Sheikh Khalid Yasin during his controversial visit to Finland in January 2012, and I followed closely the rehearsal and Hijab Fashion Show of DeenIt in Caisa on

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11 February 2012. In addition to this I met individuals and groups of Muslim women for conversations and interviews, visited their homes and explored their wardrobes. The two kinds of observation I conducted as part of my fieldwork were observation in public places, and participant observation. The former was conducted in shopping malls, public transport and parks, and it happened in order to create a visual understanding of the hijab styles common (or less common) in Finland. The data that was produced during these observation periods was both verbal and visual, in the form of written and drawn field notes. I used two separate notebooks, one for descriptive field notes, another for analytic field notes (Brewer 2000). When participating in events, I wrote my field notes as soon as possible after the event, and always within 24 hours. I often made short notes to my notebooks directly after leaving the event. I noted down themes and points of conversations I had had with people, and sometimes also short quotes when the topic was particularly interesting and relevant for my analytical themes. I also made notes on behaviour, tensions between people, and expressions of friendship, appreciation and hostility. I further noted how people managed their bodies, gestures and space, both when communicating with others and when alone. All this produced field note documents that were crucial for supporting my analysis of the interview data, confirming what the women had said, contradicting some statements, and adding to and expanding the nuances that their accounts gave. I also observed photographic material being produced by the women themselves, such as fashion shoots, and wrote field notes on that. I considered garments themselves as material objects, and accessing them both visually and haptically – by touching them – provided crucial information for my analysis. I kept notes on the information gained in such ways, on matters such as textile materials and their qualities, and sketched notes on figures, shapes and details of dress. In August – September 2012, after some writing-down and analysis of my data, I returned to Finland for yet another period. During this time, I saw some of my respondents for informal conversations and for some follow-up questions. I also discussed my research with those who wanted to do so, thus reflecting upon my initial analysis with them. I have kept in touch with some women also thereafter and have sent drafts of text to read to those who have expressed a wish to see them.

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Through the research process described above, I gathered various kinds of data. According to Denscombe (2008), three different kinds of data are typically used in qualitative research: interviews (recorded speech), images and notes resulting from observation, and documents (printed text). I have used all of these in this research, but the major body of data was gained through interviews that were guided both by my initial observations and conversations, and also through participant observation. My initial analysis began already during the fieldwork, and in some ways my fieldwork has continued well into my analysis phase after the formal fieldwork period. According to Denscombe (2008: 272– 3), in qualitative research, the analysis goes from particular to general. At the same time, analysis guides the data collection, and these processes happen at least partly in interaction with each other. I began the analysis of the interviews and field notes first by sorting and coding the data according to emerging themes, and thereafter linking these themes to wider theoretical concepts. The sorting was partly guided by the data itself, and partly by the specific theoretical interests I had as a researcher of dress practices. I have since read the data repeatedly in order to recognize patterns and inconsistencies (O’Reilly 2005: 195). After determining the main themes and concepts in the data, such as inter-community struggles, stigma management and various dress negotiations, I started organizing the data under these themes, in order to find variations and similarities under each theme. I also explored the data in the light of particular theoretical points of interest, such as the construction of habitus, relationships between the body and textile materials and spatial relations. I have re-read and re-coded the data repeatedly, in order to recognize emerging theoretical concepts and make sure nothing important has been missed. It has been my aim to recognize both themes that are important to the informants themselves and those that have wider theoretical and substantive significance. I have followed a strict policy of confidentiality with regard to my informants throughout this research. No names were connected to interview material. All the material has been kept in safe electronic form protected by passwords, while the signed consent forms have been kept in a locked drawer separately from the data. I have sought to anonymize all the accounts of my informants, and thereby to protect their privacy. In the empirical chapters I am on purpose not explicit about the

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demographics of each informant, in order to protect their anonymity in small Muslim communities where ‘everyone knows everyone’. As de Laine (2000: 29) has remarked, despite the attempts to hide the identities of the respondents, sometimes they still are able to recognize themselves in the research report and may feel exploited because of that. I have tried to do everything in my power to avoid such exploitation, both by anonymizing my data as much as possible, and through giving my informants access to my written reports before publication. Such access to analyzed and written material has also served to ensure continuing consent of my respondents; showing them extracts of texts and keeping in touch with them about the research process are attempts to make sure that the informants are still happy to participate, and do not consider my work as misrepresenting their views (Cutcliffe and Racharan 2002). I have also chosen not to use pseudonyms for my informants. This results in different quotes from the same informant not being linked throughout the study. This further serves the anonymity of my informants in respect to their community; even if a respondent would be recognizable to the members of her community in one quote, she will still be anonymous in other quotes used throughout the study.

NOTES

1. INTRODUCTION: THE VEIL, FASHION, SPACE, EVERYDAY LIFE AND GLOBALIZATION 1. In Finland one of the parents can stay at home on state-funded nursing leave until the youngest child is three years old.

2. INVESTIGATING THE VEIL IN FINLAND 1. The Interior Minister at that time was actually a woman, so Clark cannot have been referring to her. 2. The Sami are groups of indigenous people that live in northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia – an area they themselves call Sapmi. They have faced different colonialist policies from the Finnish state, particularly in terms of their native languages. Finnish education policy after World War II was to school Sami children away from their villages and families, in boarding schools where speaking Sami languages was banned, mixed with Finnish children. This led to Sami languages practically dying out, and to a sense of cultural isolation and shame. Finland’s treatment of the Sami children also included racist elements and attempts to typify Sami racial categories. Although different cultural and educational opportunities have been created more recently, Finland still has not ratified the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. A number of Sami activists, such as the artist activist group Suophanterror, have severely criticized the Finnish state on these grouds. 3. www.poliisi.fi/luvat/passi/passikuvaohje/ilmeet_silmalasit_paahineet_ja_ ehostus, accessed 20th March 2018.

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3. COMMERCIAL SPACES: NATIONAL, TRANSNATIONAL, MULTINATIONAL AND DETERRITORIAL 1. http://amanah.omaverkkokauppa.fi/, Amanah Closet on Facebook, http:// facebook.com/scloset1, both accessed 2nd March 2016. 2. queensonlinestore.com, www.facebook.com/Queensonlinestore, both accessed 2nd March 2016. 3. In fact, the male fashion editorial in the second issue of Umma features a man with such a cap, wearing a ‘Western’ overcoat. 4. Tommy Hilfiger’s 2016 Ramadan collection came only a year after the brand had been at the centre of a racism scandal. 5. Very recently, Queens (the online shop discussed above) opened a shop in the Puhos shopping mall in the It€akeskus district of Eastern Helsinki. This was, to my knowledge, the first specialized garment shop aimed at Muslim women. The shopping mall hosts a number of ethnic shops and restaurants serving Muslim communities more generally.

5. COMMUNITY SPACES: GLOBAL AND INTIMATE UMMAH, SCHOOLS AND MOSQUES 1. Studies of dress and fashion tend to treat ethnicity and race differently. Race in fashion studies is typically considered through characteristics of individual appearance, such as skin colour, while ethnicity is often studied anthropologically through the ideas of ethnic dress and ethnic belonging (Kaiser 2012). 2. Salafi is a globally spread form of conservative, Saudi-influenced Sunni Islam, with many similarities with the official state religion of Saudi-Arabia (Ahmed 2011). 3. Reasons for unveiling or de-veiling are, of course, complex. My research did not involve convert women who had decided to unveil at some point, or individuals who had left Islam. The trends visible elsewhere of some women considering de-veiling a part of their spiritual path (Lewis 2015a) are not as yet greatly visible in Finland. 4. Hadiths are oral tradition, attributed to Mohammed. 5. Occassionally cases of such censoring come under public scrutiny. These usually concern teenager girls’ garments considered ‘too revealing’ by the school, with arguments that boys cannot be expected to concentrate on their studies if girls do not cover certain parts of their bodies. (For commentary on the policing of both ‘too covered’ and ‘too revealed’ female bodies in school environment, see Duits and van Zoonen 2006).

6. SPACES OF ADAPTATION AND INTEGRATION: CITIZENSHIP, WORKPLACE AND SPORT VENUES 1. Indoors swimming pools, called swimming halls (uimahalli), were introduced in urban environments to provide opportunities for swimming around the year.

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The first public swimming hall was opened in Helsinki in 1928, and a number of cities launched their own swimming halls in the 1950s. 2. Such tendency to avoid showering may be connected to cultural and religious modesty rules that operate also in female-only environments. Showers in swimming halls usually provide no privacy; there are no shower curtains or individual shower cubicles. Some Muslims consider it unacceptable to be completely naked in front of their own sex, too, and therefore would not be willing to remove their burkini in order to shower.

7. ‘PUBLIC’ AND ‘PRIVATE’ SPACES: VISIBILITY, FACE AND GENDERED HYBRIDITY 1. Interestingly, one of my face-veiling informants argued for the use of niqab precisely on the grounds that the face is central for creating sexual attraction. 2. www.city.fi/ilmiot/bulevardielamaaþ burkassa/2407, accessed 16th October 2017. 3. This argument does not seek to null the potentially oppressive character of the face veil, particularly in contexts where it is imposed on women. Rather, I want to explore the complex elements in the process through which the face veil in Europe has come to be established as highly threatening and suspicious.

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INDEX

abaya, 5, 75, 96 – 7, 105, 120 – 1, 193 and bodily techniques, 97 and prayer, 122, 139 and sacred space, 138 and visibility, 183 fit, 81 design collection, 21 in fashion imagery, 59 – 61, 63 in workplace, 146 – 8, 150 price, 78, 94 worn by Somalis, 1, 40, 75, 146 – 8 Abaza, Mona, 20, 52 – 4, 64, 68, 108 Aden, Halima (model), 70 aesthetics and representation, 131 of veiling, 52, 67 – 8, 81, 129 – 132 Afghan burqa, 175 homes, 189 –90 refugees in Finland, 37, 38 Shi’a vs Sunni, 31 women, in Finland, 24, 118 – 19, 137 – 8, 185, 189 – 90

Afghanistan unveiling in, 52 Africa garments from, 73, 75, 89 missionary work in, 33 African fashion system, 84 Ahmed, Leila, 52, 108, 177, 191, 199 Ahmed, Sabah, 56 –7 Akou, Heather Marie, 40, 66, 76, 93 Aldebe, Iman (designer), 45 Alloula, Malek, 180 anthropology of dress, 113, 116 anti-fashion, 52 – 3, 63, 66, 68 anti-immigrant attitudes, 35 – 7, 101 anti-Muslim rhetoric, 34, 58, 100 – 1, 162 anti-veiling policy, 173 consequences to veiling women, 174 Arab countries, 187 houses, 177, 191 people in Finland, 28 people in Somalia, 40, 93

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veils, 177 –8, 180 women, 149 Arabian Peninsula, 93 Arabic garments, 5, 87, 178, 183 Aspers, Patrick, 8, 20, 50, 58, 72, 80, 84, 200 authenticity, 70, 126 Balasescu, Alexandru, 76, 80, 173 banning of burkini swimwear, 20, 163 – 4 of face-veils, 20 –1, 44 – 6, 149 of face-veils in workplaces, 144 of headgears in educational institutions, 43 –4, 128 – 9 of headscarves in police force, 44 – 45 of headscarves by sports organisations, 158 – 9 of minarets, 174 of shorts in swimming halls, 164 of prisoners’ personal clothing, 43 of turbans, 145 of women-only swimming, 162 –4 Barthes, Roland, 89, 116 beach, 165 Australian, 164 – 5 Finnish, 165 – 6 French, 163 – 4 beauty, 66, 132, 140 as religious duty, 131 ideals, 130 internal and external, 129 – 30, 132 –3 mystique, 129 spiritual, 63 behaviour at workplace, 142 consumer, 24, 50, 82 – 3, 87 polluting, 114 – 5, 127

excluding, 119 – 20 rebellious, 167 –8 religiously appropriate, 70, 114, 123, 125 –9, 137, 140, 167 belonging, 111, 113 –4, 140, 203 community, 2, 113 – 4, 118 ethnic, 113 family, 123 global, 2, 113 –4, 117, 119 racial, 114 religious, 2, 40, 117, 119, 125, 185 to Europe/‘West’, 39, 184 Scandinavian, 56 black garments, 1, 40, 53, 82, 123 combinable, 75 inconspicuous, 148 visible, 60, 183 bodily hexis, 16, 86, 89 bodily techniques, 10, 16, 85 –6, 96 –7, 201 fit with dress, 97 body, 86, 201 and habitus, 210 and materiality, 15, 86 –90, 92, 94 – 5, 97, 165 and space, 10, 13, 15, 99, 171 – 3, 177 and the mind, 10, 86, 99 as a sign, 85, 89, 100 changing, 134 covering, 7, 73, 90, 94 –6, 99, 108, 118, 128, 138, 153, 171 dressed, 85 – 9, 178, 210 exposure, 80, 89 –90, 92, 94, 98 – 9 heath (management of), 89 – 90 hidden, 6, 60, 178, 181 hijab-clad, 100, 171 in fashion imagery, 63 maintenance, 157

INDEX

movements, 96 – 7, 99 objectification, 66 –7, 188 physical, 10, 15, 39, 85 – 9 purity, 138 shape, 60, 80 –1, 89, 94 –5, 131, 153, 178 shaped by social structures, 16 veiled, 173, 177, 181 veils, 73, 79, 98, 175, 178, 181 Bourdieu, Pierre, 13, 15 –17, 48 – 50, 51, 70, 72, 79, 86 –7, 89, 99, 115, 117, 201, 203 branding, 53, 55 – 56 van den Breman, Cindy (designer), 158 BurqiniTM, 165 see also burkini swimwear burqa, 175 –6, 179 as symbol of war, 174 see also Afghan, burqa burkini swimwear, 165 – 6 in media, 165 regulation concerning, 20, 163 – 4 see also BurqiniTM Cairo (fashion centre), 53 capitals, 49 – 50, 72, 83, 201 cultural, 49, 72, 83, 85 economic, 19, 24, 49, 52 –4, 72, 75, 77 – 8, 84, 93 – 4, 207 religious, 110, 167 –8, 182, 185 social, 49, 72 –3, 83 symbolic, 49, 182 transformation of, 49 capitalism, 14, 17, 66 children, 23 –4, 35, 91, 103, 106, 129, 189, 193 and maternal care, 165 – 6 and parental control, 133 and scarf, 133 –5

233

and schooling, 33, 133 –5, 198 burkinis for, 174 next generation, 73, 198 shopping for, 77 unveiling in secret, 134, 136 Christian dress, 40 citizenship, 58, 133, 142 –3, 171, 179, 197 Civil War Finland, 32 Somalia, 28, 30 Syria, 197 colonial times, 2, 33, 100 post-, 2 pre-, 175 neo-, 2 colonial narratives of veiling, 199 colonial knowledge production, 33 colonialism, 59, 180 in Finland, 32 – 3 neo-, 59 comfort (discomfort), 26, 86 –7, 97, 152, 164, 176, 188, 201, 206 and material, 80, 89 – 93 and prayer, 106 and visibility, 185 experiences of, 86 –9, 91 – 2, 96, 99 of others, 96, 102 –3, 178, 181 of shopping, 82 – 3 mental, 88 – 9, 92, 97 –9, 107 physical, 87 – 92, 97, 99, 107, 112, 151 religious, 89, 104–7, 110–1, 185 social, 88 – 9, 98 –100, 102, 104 –7, 111, 150 –1, 182, 185 –6 sensory, 88 –9, 91 – 2

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comfortable garments, 39, 78, 87, 94 community, 19, 196, 202 and family, 124 belonging, 2, 113 – 4, 118 boundaries (borders), 26, 113 –5, 117, 119, 122, 124, 126, 139 centres, 193 contribution towards, 122 construction, 114, 116, 124, 140 divisions, 2, 83, 115 – 6, 123, 187 ethnic, 31, 82 – 3, 152 –3, 155, 157, 16708 exclusion (elimination), 119, 121, 124, 140 global, 2, 26, 116, 140 incitement of hatred against, 35 inclusion, 117 – 9, 121 – 2, 124, 140 Muslim, 22, 26, 29, 31, 41, 108 –9, 116 – 7, 119 –21, 137, 140, 165, 166, 182, 187 opinion (conservative), 62 –3, 70 – 1 pressure to veil, 127, 134 protection, 133 relations, 2, 161 religious, 30, 42, 55, 67, 102, 157 representation, 69, 109, 116, 122, 125, 137 sense of, 116, 118 size (small), 81 –2, 134 Somali, 31, 41, 68, 75, 127, 147, 153 –5, 167 – 8 standards, 108 struggles, 125 Tatar, 29

threat to, 126 values, 140 consumption, 87 and production, 48 – 51, 84 conspicuous, 39 fashionable, 54 in Finland, 39 places of, 47 wasteful, 66 – 7 conversion career, 186, 188 conversion to Islam, 17, 73, 102, 108, 120 – 2, 124, 126 –7 phases, 120 – 1, 186, 188 counter-Jihadism, 2, 35, 100 Craik, Jennifer, 9, 116 Crane, Diana, 49, 72, 83 cultural norms, 167 – 8 cultural objects, 48, 50 transformation, of, 85 culture and society, 19 Arab, 180 considered irrational, 102 consumer, 67, 132 difference, 29 dress, 96, 184 -free, 128 host, 114 industries, 51 Islamic, 161 material, 99 of origin, 114 Saudi-Arabian, 60 spreading of, 18 visual, 179, 183, 185, 189 workplace, 152 cycling as tool for resistance, 167 – 8 as form of transport, 151, 167 – 8 as physical activity, 142

INDEX

declaration of belief, 122 de-mystification of veiling, 199 –200 design abayas, 75 designing for Muslim market, 21, 52 – 3, 55 –6 police hijab, 45 sports hijab, 158 – 9 Burqini swimwear, 164 – 5 Douglas, Mary, 114 – 5, 127 diaspora African, 84 garments in, 113 generations, 54 Muslim, 19, 84, 114, 125 Somali, 94, 127 – 8 Turkish, 20, 54 veiling in, 128 dirac, 40 discomfort, see comfort discrimination, 36, 38, 40, 100, 159, 196 – 8 indirect, 42 in labour market and workplace, 23, 143 – 4, 149 legislation against, 41 –2, 144, 160, 163, 170 positive, 42, 161 – 2 dress as cultural heritage, 114 betrayals, 98 for formal events, 161 in Finland, 38 –40, 71 – 2 maintenance, 72, 79 –80, 87 minority, 40 – 1 policy in schools, 133 strategies, 82, 97 – 100, 142, 151 – 2, 154 –6, 158, 171 –3, 184, 192 see also workplace, dress codes

235

Dubai fashion centre, 20, 68, 76 garments from, 75 – 6, 78 – 9, 93 Eid (celebration), 75, 77, 139 Eco, Umberto, 86 Egypt, 20, 52 – 4, 171 Eicher, Joanne B., 113 El Guindi, Fadwa, 5 –6, 63, 138, 172 embodiment, 13 –7, 26, 49, 86 – 9, 99, 138, 200 – 1, 203, 208 Entwistle, Joanne, 8, 13, 50, 83, 98, 181 environment and climate, 89 built, 10 – 3, 15, 26, 172 – 4, 176 –7, 181 – 2, 201 – 4 hegemonic, 185 hostile, 110, 182 mixed-gender, 2, 7, 53, 133, 165, 169 Muslim-only, 194 physical, 10, 15, 26, 88 –9, 98 –100, 113, 201 – 2, 204 school, 135 sexualized, 137, 165 shopping, 79, 82 social, 15 – 6, 26, 88 – 9, 99, 113 –4, 182, 194, 196, 201 –4 urban, 68, 190, 201 work, 27, 99, 141 – 2, 145, 148 –51, 154, 156 – 7, 181 environmentalism, 66, 78 ethnic belonging, 40, 113 ethnic community, see community, ethnic ethnic difference, 29, 101 –4, 118 – 9, 185 ethnic divisions, 31, 83, 103 ethnic identity, 40, 114

236

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ethnic shops, 54 –5, 57, 82 ethnicity, 24, 29, 31 –2, 38, 42, 101 – 4, 113, 118 – 9, 131, 161, 166, 198 European colonialism, 32 –3, 100 European Charter of Women’s Rights in Sport, 157 European Convention of Human Rights, 42 European Court of Human Rights, 20, 41, 45, 143 European fashion, 39, 92, 177 – 8 European gender relations, 34 European media, 37, 65 European Muslims, 59, 175 European national identities, 32 European right-wing, 36 European relations with Muslim world, 100 European Union, 30, 42 European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 38 everyday dress, 1 – 2, 5, 8, 14– 15, 27, 56, 66, 74, 77– 8, 99, 112, 116, 148, 151 – 2 everyday fashion, 2, 9, 15, 66– 7, 116 fabrics characteristics, 15, 87, 89 –92, 94 – 6 patterned, 73 quality, 79 – 80, 201 structure of, 89, 91 –2, 94 surface, of, 178 swimming suit, 164 – 5 translucent, 40, 60, 70 face covering, 2, 5 – 6, 45, 144, 175, 179, 188

hidden, 6, 176, 178 –80 in fashion imagery, 55 –6, 71 face veil, 2 – 3, 22 – 3, 67, 175 –82, 185 – 6 and one-way visibility, 180 and religious interpretations, 120, 182, 186 – 7 as resistance, 185 controversies, 7, 20, 149, 175 – 6 fetishization, 175 – 6 legislation against, 20 – 1, 45 – 6, 149 hostility against, 46, 110, 174 – 5, 182, 185 – 6, 189 in Finland, 45 –6 in school, 44 in workplace, 144, 148 –9 temporary wearing of, 45 –6, 186 – 7, 193 – 4 see also niqab family, 102, 109 abroad, 79 and career, 59 bond after marriage, 124 bond through marriage, 123 honour, 124 law, 44 members, 76, 190 – 2 pressure to veil, 127, 134, 136, 155 reactions to conversion, 108, 124 representation, 111, 117 reputation, 123 –4, 127, 136 –7 fashion as corrupting force, 63, 66 – 7 centres, 20, 52 – 3, 76 definitions of, 8 – 9 imagery, 68 – 71 industry, 20, 25, 48, 54, 92, 116, 196 in lifestyle magazines, 58 – 63

INDEX

models, 68 – 70 performance, 68 –70 shoot, 70 shows (Islamic), 68 –70 systems, 8 – 9, 11, 25, 67 –8, 71, 74, 93, 178, 203 weeks (Islamic), 68 see also everyday fashion; fields of fashion fashionability, 1, 19, 39, 49, 54, 59, 66, 74, 111, 177 –8 fashionable consumption, 54 fashionable dress, 39 fashionable hijab styles, 66 – 7, 71, 131 fashionable garments, 19, 66, 88 Fay, Mary Ann, 171, 177 feel for game, 17 feminism, 66, 102, 161 Muslim, 5, 102 secular, 52, 66, 102, 120 fibres, 15, 89, 92 –4, 201 elastic, 92 natural, 92 – 3 synthetic, 92 –3 fields, 2, 16 –7 and space, 13, 26, 172 Finnish political, 34, 37, 196 of cultural production, 48 – 51, 58, 70 of fashion, 8, 13, 17, 26, 49, 70 of power, 13, 48, 172 of religion, 48, 51, 55, 70 social, 14, 203 FIFA scarf ban, 158 Finland anti-immigrant attitudes in, 35 –7, 101 colonialism in, 32 –33 importing garments in, 2, 55, 73, 75 –6, 93

237

Muslim garment market in, 54, 72 Muslim population in, 29 – 32, 41, 54, 72 racism, in, 37 –8, 43, 197 racist crime in, 38 school system in, 33, 133 –4, 135, 198 social mobility, in, 33 Finnish architecture, 170, 179, 182, 192 schools, 133 Finnish Constitution, 41, 43, 45 – 6, 144, 197 Finnish converts to Islam, 22 – 3, 31 – 2, 66 – 7, 78 –9, 94, 97, 102, 104 – 6, 108, 118, 120, 122, 124 – 7, 129 –30, 137, 149, 153, 183, 186 Finnish Defence League, 100 Finnish Islamic Council, 31, 59, 62 Finnish national identity, 32 – 3 Finnish national myths, 25, 32 – 4, 39 Finnish nation-building, 34 the Finnish Sports Act, 160 the Finns Party, 34 –7, 46, 100 – 1, 174 Foucault, Michel, 179 –8 freedom of opinion, 198 freedom of religion, 41, 43 – 4, 163 – 4 front stage/back stage, 194 gaze, 87, 166, 170, 180 –2, 188, 190, 193 one-way, 180 – 2 garments accessibility of, 76 – 9 availability of, 73 –6 desirability of, 79 –82

238

VEILING IN FASHION

cut of, 5, 40, 76, 81, 89 – 90, 92 – 6, 164, 178, 183, 201 fit with bodily techniques, 97 fit with habitus and taste, 16, 50 physical fit of, 72, 76, 78 – 81, 87, 94 – 5, 178, 201 visual fit of, 45, 173 –4, 177 – 9, 183, 189 garment market, 79 – 80, 93 Islamic, 53 – 4, 72 gender equality, 34, 42, 174 gender segregation, see segregation of genders generations, 2, 23, 31, 40, 52, 54, 73, 94, 102, 109, 113, 116, 127 – 8, 136, 187, 198 Ger, Gü liz, 47, 51, 53, 57, 65, 68, 72, 80, 132 gift, 121 – 4 and conversion, 122, 124 and family, 123 – 4 and marriage, 123 globalization, 9 –10, 14, 17 – 22, 24, 84 and capitalism, 14, 17 definitions of, 18 of fashion studies, 8 see also space, deterritorial; space, globalized Goffman, Erving, 103, 158, 178, 181, 194 Go€ karıksel, Banu, 20, 54, 66, 114 – 5, 131, 173, 196, 199 governance of minority, 44 of Muslims, 31 of spaces and bodies, 188 Gramsci, Antonio, 11 – 12 greeting, 117 –21, 124 Gulf countries

habitual wearing of clothes, 98 habitus, 15 –17, 26, 72, 79 –80, 86, 88, 99, 201, 210 fit with field, 16 – 17 religious, 17, 99 hadiths, 132, 154 hair, 131 – 2 grooming and maintenance, 131, 146 visible under scarf, 24 Hajj (pilgrimage), 20 harems, 171, 175, 177, 180 headscarf, 54, 60, 91, 103, 145, 174 in schools, 43 – 4 definitions of, 5 – 8 health and safety regulations, 143 – 4, 148, 158 hegemony, 11 – 2, 17, 27, 34, 40, 133, 141, 172 – 3, 177, 185, 202 counter-, 12, 172, 181, 185, 202 Helsinki destitute areas, 103 –4 city districts, 82, 167 Greater (area), 22, 30 shopping in, 71, 74, 77, 82, 84 veiling regimes, 186 hijab as facilitator, 64, 134, 146, 156 as protector, 6 –7, 25, 110, 129 – 30, 134 – 40, 188, 191 as reminder, 136 commercialization, 65 fashionalization, 65 – 7 normalization, 67 in Qur’an, 6 hijabi, 69 – 70, 101, 16 athletes, 5, 160 in advertisement, 74

INDEX

in media, 5 models, 70 home Afghan, 189 – 90 Muslim, 190 – 2 schooling, 133 Somali, 190 honesty and visibility, 176, 179 in veiling, 125 – 9, 132, 140 human rights, 42 – 3 anti-, 35 human-rights friendly interpretation, 42 –43, 197 integration, 58, 73, 142 – 3, 157, 159 –63, 171, 188, 197 –8 of veiling in schools, 135 strategies, 29, 162, 198 integrity, 125, 127 – 9, 133, 140 International Association of New Muslims, 59 International Taekwon-Do Federation, 159 internet communities, 31 discussion fora, 37, 122 fashion imagery in, 50 garment bought via, 2, 71 –2, 75 –6 religious debates in, 66, 114 Iran, 20, 52, 76, 108, 158 –9, 173 Iranian dress, 183 Iranian female football team, 158 Iranian women, 24, 76, 131 Iranians in Finland, 38 Iraq, 37 Iraqi marriage, 123 Iraqis in Finland, 38 Iraqi women, 24, 82, 111, 123, 169

239

Islamic cultural industry, 47 – 8, 51 – 4, 57, 63 Islamic Games, 159 Islamic Revolution, 108 Islamic Society of Finland, 45 Islamophobia, 19, 100 –1, 109, 174 Istanbul (fashion centre), 20, 68, 76 Jakarta (fashion centre), 20 Javad, Elahm Seyed (designer), 159 jilbab, 5, 179 jogging, 142, 166, 168 – 9 Jones, Carla, 53– 4, 59, 68 – 9, 132 Kaiser, Susan, 121, 140 khimar, 1 – 5, 40, 73, 96, 120 – 1, 123, 147, 152 – 5, 193 Lefebvre, Henri, 10 – 14, 133, 137, 141, 152, 172, 177, 185, 188, 191, 194, 202 Lewis, Reina, 9, 42, 47, 52 – 3, 58 – 9, 63, 68 –9, 142, 145, 175, 199 MacLeod, Arlene Elowe, 63, 65 magazine lifestyle, 5, 58 – 63 Umma, 59 –62 Ana, 59, 63 –5 margin of appreciation (legal), 41, 143 –4 marriage and conversion, 126 – 7 arranged, 123 –4 cross-cultural, 73 Masquelier, Adeline, 20, 98 material conditions, 15, 83, 86, 201

240

VEILING IN FASHION

materiality, 10, 15, 17, 26 –7, 88, 199, 201 –2, 204 maternal care, 165 Mauss, Marcel, 16, 85, 121 – 2, 201 media burkini in, 163 –5 Euramerican, 5, 38, 58 lifestyle, 58 – 63 Muslim fashion in, 65 –6, 69 Muslims in, 5, 9, 33, 58, 69, 108, 158, 182 –3 national, 20, 33, 38, 58 rhetoric and discourse, 36 –7, 108, 175 terrorism in, 38, 101 veiling in, 6, 9, 108, 183 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 10 Mernissi, Fatima, 172, 180 middle classes, 33, 39 –40, 52, 54, 64, 72, 80, 93 – 4, 103, 132 Middle East, 20, 33, 52, 63, 73, 75, 79– 80, 149, 178 Miller, Daniel, 86 – 7, 99 mixed-gender, see space, mixed-gender modesty, 66, 69, 115, 125, 132 – 3, 165, 168, 182 in Finnish culture, 39 – 40 performance of, 1 –2 Mohammed, 131 the Mohammed cartoon controversy, 100 Moors, Annelies, 5, 20, 47, 52 – 4, 63, 65 – 7, 71, 73, 76, 78, 80, 91, 125, 130 – 1, 136, 175 – 6, 180, 187, 199 moral danger, 98, 115 judgements, 98 morality, 88 – 9, 115, 122, 140 mosques, 31, 68, 137 – 40, 174, 188, 198

Mossiere, Geraldine, 47, 53 –4, 182 Mulvey, Laura, 180 Muslim fashion, 20, 52, 54, 60, 63, 65, 68 –71, 74, 76, 84 Muslims in Finland, 21 – 4, 29 – 32 National Coalition, 162 Niessen, Sandra, 9, 69, 178 niqab, 5, 27, 44, 79, 120, 149, 176, 179, 185 – 8, 193 non-Muslim countries, 107, 116, 163 non-Muslim society, 134, 157, 161 non-Muslims, 23, 31, 59 – 60, 69 –71, 74, 90, 96, 103, 108, 112, 117, 119 – 20, 126, 133, 135, 140, 146, 149, 154 – 5, 161, 169, 181, 183 – 4, 192 Ombudsperson for Minorities, 144 Ombudsperson for Parity, 42, 45 Orientalism, 33 parents-in-law, 123 Parliamentary Ombudsperson, 43, 162 piety, 132 performance of, 2 pollution (symbolic), 25 – 6, 66 –7, 114 – 5, 126 –7, 135 – 6, 139 – 40, 166 populism, 34 – 6, 200 prayer, 106, 139, 154, 156 and purity, 138 –9 and veil, 106, 137 – 9 cap, 2 presentation of normality, 158, 168 pressure to veil, 127, 134 –6 pressure to unveil, 107, 128 – 9, 136, 186

INDEX

Queens online store, 55 –7 Qur’an, 6, 110, 122, 181, 186 Rabine, Leslie, 9, 84 racial hierarchy, 185 racialization, 37 radicalism, 174 Islamic, 1 –2, 31, 100 – 1, 104 Right-wing, 1 – 2, 34 –7 Ramadan, 74, 77 recognizability as Muslim, 7, 36, 109, 117 –9, 121 – 2, 125, 182 religious capital, see capital, religious religious comfort, see comfort, religious religious community, see community, religious religious doctrines, 67, 132, 152, 156, 167 – 9 religious duty, 104 – 5, 110, 119, 131, 148 religious guilt, 107 religious habitus, see habitus, religious religious knowledge, 127 –8, 167 religious practice, 122, 156 – 7, 167, 182, 186 re-veiling, 52, 63 Ribeiro, Aileen, 115 Rocamora, Agnes, 13, 49, 202, 204 Roma dress in Finland, 40 Roy, Olivier, 19, 24, 52, 116, 199 safe garments, 74 –5 Salafism, 19, 31, 120, 127, 153, 188 see also Islam, radical Sami people in Finland, 32 Sandıkcı, Ö zlem, 47, 51, 53, 57, 65, 68, 72, 80, 132 Saudi Arabia, 52, 79, 93 Saudi Arabian garments, 53, 60, 67

241

Saudi influenced religious thought, see Salafi Saudi money, 31, 59 school, 133 –6 dress policy in, 133 see also Finland, school system in; Finnish architecture, schools Secor, Anna, 20, 54, 131, 173, 186, 189 sectarianism, 120 segregation of genders, 137, 161, 169 – 70, 177, 187 –8 segregation of labour market, 34 self-harm, 109 self-regulation, 111, 136 –7, 186 sexualization, 66 Shirazi, Faegheh, 52, 54, 76, 158, 167, 173 shopping, 71 – 84 abroad, 71 – 2, 76, 78 –9 culture, 67 environment, 79, 82 – 3 for special occasion, 77 in Helsinki, 54, 71, 74, 77, 81 malls, 51, 53 –4, 77 online, 19, 72, 75 – 6 problems, 48, 53, 83 Simmel, Georg, 11, 177 sociology of fashion, 5, 13, 15, 17, 21 – 2, 27, 83, 85, 88, 116, 195 – 6, 200 – 4 Soldiers of Odin, 100 Somali generations, 1 – 2, 23, 31 men, 167 women, 1 – 2, 22 – 3, 40 –1, 56, 67 –8, 73, 75 – 6, 78 – 9, 81, 92 –4, 96 –7, 102, 104 – 5, 109, 119, 123, 127, 132, 135 –6, 146 – 8, 152 – 5, 167 –8, 185 – 6, 193

242

VEILING IN FASHION

Somalia, 37, 40, 93, 135 pre-civil war dress in, 40, 73, 128 Somalis in Finland, 23 – 4, 28, 30, 38, 40 – 1, 82 spaces access to, 27, 82, 142 –3, 166, 168, 174, 184, 194 deterritorialized, 9 – 10, 14, 18 – 21, 25 –6, 47, 55, 202 –3 domestic, 91, 190 – 2 public, 12, 14, 22, 24, 26 –7, 41, 46, 91, 100, 102, 114, 118, 142 –3, 157, 166 –9, 172 – 4, 176 –8, 182, 188 –9, 193 – 4, 199, 202 sacred, 133, 137 –40 semi-public, 8, 24, 27, 142 –3, 193 –4 urban, 11, 14, 189, 194 virtual, 18, 20, 50, 55 – 58, 66, 84 see also environment spatial mobility, 27, 152 – 3, 155, 167 – 8, 186, 189 spiritual beauty, 132 sport, 142 –3, 157 – 71 as performance, 166 –9 as tool of resistance, 157 –8, 166 –8 competitive, 158 –60 in public places, 166 –9 in school, 157 sports venues, 142, 160 – 4, 169 – 71 sports scarves, 158, 160 Nike ProHijab, 160 stigma, 103, 114, 134, 184 stigma management, 210 Students’ Sports Federation (Finland), 164 Sufism, 31, 127

Sunni/Shi’a conflict, 31, 120 surveillance, 173, 179 – 80, 202 community, 41, 134 swimming, 161 – 6 women-only, 161 – 4 swimming halls, 142, 161 – 2, 164, 166 swimwear, 7, 163 – 4 see also burkini; Burqini symbolic boundaries, 114 – 5, 117 – 8 See also community, boundaries (borders) symbolic value, 49 – 50, 182 Tatar minority in Finland, 29 Tarlo, Emma, 5, 52 – 4, 65 – 6, 71, 78, 111, 113, 119, 130, 173 – 4, 178, 181, 199 taste, 16, 50, 53, 72, 76, 79 –82, 86 –7, 146, 201 techniques of the body, see bodily techniques terrorism consequences to veiling women, 19, 100 – 1, 104, 107, 141, 163 Islamic, 19, 37 – 8, 100 – 1 right-wing, 35, 38, 101 textile material, see fabrics trade routes, 14, 20, 32 transparency, 174, 176, 179 architecture of, 179 trousers, 73 –4, 90, 98 – 9, 111, 123, 193 at workplace, 146 – 8 formal, 151 in Finland, 60, 183 in mosque, 139 in Somali community, 40, 75, 147 male, 59 – 60, 12

INDEX

ummah, 59, 116 – 7 United Nations, 158 treaties, 42 unveiling, 52, 126, 129, 134, 136, 138, 165, 173, 180, 186 violence against veiling women, 103 visibility, 125, 133, 137, 173 –4, 177, 181 demand of, 179 extreme, 185 – 6 managing, 173, 182 –7 of the face, 176, 179 one-way, 180 reduced, 182 – 5 vulnerability, 86 – 7, 98, 100, 102, 104, 185, 188

243

wardrobe management, 67, 76 – 8, 83, 150, 152, 156 Westernization, 18 white flight, 103 – 4 windows, 169, 189 –90 curtains in, 190 Woodward, Sophie, 74, 83, 86 – 8, 98 – 9, 105, 107, 151 – 2 World Karate Federation, 159 workwear, 145 – 57 adaptation of, 146 – 7, 156 provided by employer, 145 –6, 156 workplace dress codes, 142 – 3, 145, 156 Zanetti, Aheda (designer), 164 – 5