France banned burqas in public schools in 2004. Now, a parliamentary commission is investigating a possible ban on burqas in public places and anthropology professor John Bowen was asked to testify on this matter, Student Life and New York Times report.
As far as I know, anthropologists aren’t very visible in public debates in France.
Bowen is the author of the book Why the French don’t like Headscarves.
According to Bowen only a few hundred women in France wear burqas. A ban, though, could potentially have a profound impact on some of those women which means they would dissappear from public spaces and stay at home.
Bowen considers it highly unlikely that a ban would ever pass. “I think that French politicians will find that it would be absurd to create a set of clothing police to decide whether what a woman is wearing on the street counts as a burqa or a niqab…or just a headscarf.”
>> read the whole story in Student Life
>> Interview with Bowen in French on nonfiction.fr
I’ve collected some Bowen related links on my earlier post Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves. There are several papers on Bowen’s website.
SEE ALSO:
Thesis: Hijab empowers women
Lila Abu-Lughod: It’s time to give up the Western obsession with veiled Muslim women
Phd-Thesis: That’s why they embrace Islam
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