Veiling as a Commitment and Signal

• In Event: 052 - Section on Sociology of Religion Paper Session. Beyond Anglo Christianity

Abstract

The massive inflow of Muslim immigrants into Western countries and events such as 9/11 shifted the scientific, political, and media focus to Islam. A pivotal theme in the popular debate about Islam is veiling of Muslim women. The scientific work on veiling, however, is dwarfed by the political and media interest that veiling has been enjoying. In the classical sociology of religion, veiling is seen simply as an indicator of religiosity. Researchers have recently proposed an alternative theoretical model to explain veiling behavior among Muslim women. According to this theory, veiling works as a commitment and signaling device. Veiling limits the opportunity of and temptation to break religious norms as well as conveys information on the religiosity and (religious) norm abidance of a person. This simple theory yields a counter-intuitive result: the demand for veiling is strongest among highly religious women from religious communities who otherwise interact in “risky” and “high-temptation” irreligious environments. We derive numerous hypotheses from this theory, and test them—to our knowledge, for the first time—using two different datasets on veiling behavior of Turkish and Muslim women in two different countries: Turkey and Belgium. The hypotheses we derive are often counter-intuitive. Although they seem to contradict the well established theories in the sociology of religion, in fact these hypotheses complement rather than contradict the classical theories on religion. Results corroborate almost all of the hypotheses in the Turkish context, and most of them in the Belgian context.

Author

• Ozan Aksoy, University of Oxford