The Silent Hat: Islam, Female Labor, and the Political Economy of the Headscarf Debate

What is the point of revisiting Muslim women’s head wear when such a topic has already been extensively discussed in recent years? What can we do with the specters of class and labor that often appear, however fleetingly, in discussions that take secularism and the public sphere as their organizing concepts? Based on fourteen months of fieldwork in northwest China, this article examines the intricate connection between rural Hui Muslim women’s “hats” (maozi) and the history of female labor in its multiple shifts from the socialist to the neoliberal period. In making this connection, it attempts to return the headscarf debate to its transnational politico-economic origins and to explore the hidden links between the transnational articulation of difference and the global organization of ethical practices, on the one hand, and the transnational distribution of materialities and politico-economic values, on the other. This link alters the specific terms and discourses that frame the narration of maozi among rural Muslim women: rather than expressing an attitude or opinion on veiling, their narratives focus heavily on the concrete stylistic shifts of maozi, which closely trace women’s transformed relationship to labor. By considering the global differential distribution of ethical practices in tandem with the global (unequal) distribution of materialities, this article hopes to reorient our contemporary discussion about the Muslim veil in light of an analysis of transnational political economy. © 2017 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.