Faiza Ambah's Mariam and the Embodied Politics of Veiling in France

Davies Hayon, Kaya (2019). Faiza Ambah's Mariam and the Embodied Politics of Veiling in France. Paragraph, 42(3) pp. 333–350.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/para.2019.0310

Abstract

This article argues that Mariam uses its eponymous heroine's lived and embodied experiences of veiling to explore the impact of French secular legislation on Muslim schoolgirls' everyday lives in France. Interweaving secularism studies, feminism and phenomenology, I argue that the film portrays the headscarf as the primary means by which its protagonist is able to resist male patriarchal authority and negotiate her hybrid subjectivity. I conclude that Mariam offers a nuanced representation of veiling that troubles the perceived distinctions between Islam and secularism, oppression and freedom, and the veil and feminism in France and the West.

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