Pro-hijab activism, feminism and multiculturalism

This paper presents an analysis of the headscarf debates in Belgium, and particularly explores to what extent concerns about gender equality and cultural diversity are central to the pro-hijab activism that has been developed. We analyze different kinds of concerns that have been voiced within the mobilizations of Muslim girls and women. Although issues of religious freedom and pluralism, gender equality, cultural identity and non-discrimination often cut and flow across debates and policies in European nation-states, the Belgian hijab question provides a rather unique case, due to various lines of fracture and processes of increasing diversification that characterize Belgian society. It is argued that in this particular context minority and Muslim women are often the stake of an agenda that transcends their particular interests as well as active actors seeking to articulate their own interests and identities.