Muslim clothing and Swedish whiteness

Abstract

This article discusses social positions of Swedish female converts to Islam who have previously passed as white majority Swedes, but whose experiences have changed, sometimes radically, since donning the hijab. It addresses their accounts of being treated and evaluated differently by teachers, co-workers, family and friends, and having their choices questioned by strangers. It also examines the double standards that white converts to Islam must negotiate when dealing with daily life in Sweden, and how becoming a Muslim leads to frequent exclusion from constructed whiteness and Swedishness and the privileges attached to those positions.

Navigating and Countering Everyday Antimuslim Racism: The Case of Muslim Women in Sweden

“…For Muslim women who publicly manifest their religious affiliation by wearing hijab harassment and micro-aggressive encounters are part of their everyday lives (Gardell, 2015;Listerborn, 2015). The fact that women wearing hijab are particularly prone to different kinds of exclusion is also shown in a study on White Muslim female converts who highlight their experiences of exclusion from a presumed White Swedishness upon donning the hijab (Jakku, 2018).…”

Islamophobia, Representation and the Muslim Political Subject. A Swedish Case Study

“…There are numerous ways to implement such exclusion, three of which are discussed below: by law, through representation and as a result of political decisions. The study adds to a growing body of research analyzing the impact of Islamophobia on Muslim women [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], which remains largely understudied in the context of Sweden [2,[17][18][19][20]. It therefore constitutes a significant contribution to analysis of several aspects of the complex phenomenon of contemporary Islamophobia in Western countries.…”