Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet
Simone Heidbrink, Nadja Miczek (Eds.)
Aesthetics
and the Dimensions
of the Senses
Volume 04.1
ISSN 1861-5813
Simone Heidbrink, Nadja Miczek (Eds.)
Aesthetics
and the Dimensions of the Senses
Simone Heidbrink / Nadja Miczek
Introduction to the Special Issue: Religions on the Internet –
Aesthetics and the Dimensions of the Senses
1-11
Louise Connelly
Virtual Buddhism: An Analysis of Aesthetics in Relation to
Religious Practice within Second Life
12-34
Gregory Grieve
Virtually Embodying the Field: Silent Online Meditation,
Immersion, and the Cardean Ethnographic Method
35-62
Tim Hutchings
The Politics of Familiarity: Visual, Liturgical and
Organisational Conformity in the Online Church
63-86
Anna Piela
Challenging Stereotypes: Muslim Women's Photographic SelfRepresentations on the Internet
87-110
Paul Teusner
Imaging Religious Identity: Intertextual Play among
Postmodern Christian Bloggers
111-130
Theo Zijderfeld
The Transformation of the Prayer Wall
131-147
Christopher Helland
(Virtually) been there, (Virtually) done that: Examining the
Online Religious Practices of the Hindu Tradition:
Introduction.
148-150
Phyllis K. Herman
Seeing the Divine through Windows: Online Puja and Virtual
Religious Experience
151-178
Nicole Karapanagiotis
Vaishnava Cyber-Pūjā: Problems of Purity and Novel Ritual
Solutions
179-195
Heinz Scheifinger
Hindu Embodiment and the Internet
Volume 04.1
196-219
ISSN 1861-5813
Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religion on the Internet 4.1 (2010)
CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES
MUSLIM WOMEN’S PHOTOGRAPHIC SELF-REPRESENTATIONS
ON THE INTERNET
ANNA PIELA
Introduction
Islam is, in many ways, a religion that acknowledges and embraces embodiment and aesthetics of
its followers through numerous Qur’anic verses and Prophetic traditions that address bodily aspects
(ritual practices, cleanliness, healthy lifestyle, attractiveness to one’s spouse, sexual desires).1 These
considerations are, however, strongly saturated with the awareness of a religious modesty
requirement that applies to both men and women. Believers of both genders are required to dress
and behave modestly, but there is no consensus on what constitutes modesty and whether women
must wear the hijab; verses addressing modesty are interpreted and used by both its advocates and
opponents.2 However, due to greater emphasis of female modesty,3 controversy regarding selfdisclosures of Muslim women on the Web is more intense.4 This is additionally intensified by the
opinion voiced by radical traditionalist Islamic sects, such as the Salafi, that believers should not
engage in production or publishing of images of human beings.5 Traditionally, human form was
absent from public settings in Islam; instead, Islamic art involved intricate geometric patterns and
representations of plants.6 Thus, research on photos of produced and published by Muslim women
is bound to juxtapose the concepts of identity and self-representation on the one hand, and different
understandings of modesty on the other.
1
2
3
4
5
6
See Hoffman 1995, 37.
See Piela 2009: 168-176.
See Mahmood 2001, 213.
See Amir-Ebrahimi 2008, 239.
See Naumkin 2005, 3.
See Canby 2005, 32.
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At the moment European politics is fixated with dress code of a small minority of Muslim
women. Bills banning veiling of the face (known as the so-called ‘burka bans’) have been passed in
Belgium in March 2010, and in France in September 2010, despite the fact that only a very small
number of women actually wear face veils.7 For example, according to the French Direction
‘Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur’ (DCRI) only 367 women wear a face veil in France. 8
Societies in other European countries debate whether veiling should be banned. 9 Why this obsession
with a garment worn by relatively few Muslim women? Explanations of the veil-banning laws
range from the wish to protect the general public from the ‘terrorist threat’ to the intention to curb
patriarchal oppression within Muslim communities.10 Linking of terrorism to niqab was particularly
strong in the Swiss poster promoting a ban on minarets – a woman wearing a niqab was shown
against a background of minarets looking like missiles planted on the Swiss flag. 11 Media reports
detailing these developments are flooded by images of black-clad women, supposedly in order to
explain to audiences what a niqab (a face veil) is. Such reports sometimes include testimonies from
niqab wearers who explain their choice regarding veiling of the face;12 however, this is infrequent.13
As bloggers point out, ‘serious’ news outlets, including the ‘New York Times, ‘Washington Post’,
and the ‘Los Angeles Times’ “managed to cover the story [on the pending niqab ban in France]
without seeking commentary from a single Muslim woman.”14 Depending on the political affiliation
of the offline and online media outlets discussing the matter, mainstream articles about niqab tend
to fall into the category of more or less Orientalist representation in that they build an essentialist
image of ‘Muslim women’ and ‘others’. This is illustrated by a statement from a director of an MA
programme in investigative journalism at a London university who writes in her article in ‘The
Independent: Education’:
I was particularly disturbed by the sight of Muslim female students wearing the niqab, a dress
statement I find offensive and threatening. Don't they value the rights and freedoms they enjoy in
Britain?15
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
See Khiabany & Williamson 2008.
See Pinet 2010: 957.
See Cassidy 2010.
See Fautré 2010.
See BBC 2009.
See BBC 2010.
In the UK, “The Guardian” remains a notable exception.
See Figueroa 2010.
See Waterhouse 2010.
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Quite often they are bundled together with terrorism and abusive patriarchy through ‘related
articles’ listed next to or below their articles about the niqab, and to a lesser extent, the hijab
(headscarf).16 Such views are particularly alarming, as they come from influential academics who
should consider embracing cultural diversity as their duty. However, many other academics should
be given credit for conducting studies tackling the problem of media misrepresentation of Muslim
women. Through balanced discussion that brings to the fore Muslim women’s voices they unpack
and challenge stereotypical notions and outright racism present in reporting.17
The hijab is much more common than the niqab, and it is perceived as less controversial; there
are no initiatives to ban it.18 However, it is a focus of social debate as it is a source of similar
connotations to the niqab. There are a large number of feminist studies analyzing the meaning of
the hijab and women’s motivations to wear it. It has been reframed as a sign of resistance,19
religious obligation,20 a concept interlinked with ethnicity, 21 a cultural artefact,22 a symbol of
identity, 23 a human right,24 and a concept related to gender relations.25 However, in their intention to
dispel stereotypes and offset veiling-related misrepresentations, some researchers may have glossed
over the fact that head-covering is not the only concern in Muslim women’s lives, and,
subsequently, many other issues related to Muslim women have been largely passed over by
academic research. In my PhD thesis I discussed a number of topics selected due to frequency of
their occurrence in Muslim women’s online newsgroups, including education, marriage, sexuality,
employment and mobility. 26 Head-covering was by no means the only or the main topic of
conversation. The relative prominence of the ‘hijab discourse’ in certain online spaces, such as the
‘Hijablog’27 may be a reaction to the media-fuelled hijab/niqab craze as well as exceptionally
severe racist abuse widely experienced in Muslim-minority contexts by Muslim women who cover
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
See Blomfield 2010.
See Abu-Lughod 2002; Wing & Smith 2005; Afshar 2008; Sahffi 2009.
Nevertheless, there is discrimination against covered women; for example, in Turkey they are banned from
undertaking employment in state institutions.
See El Guindi 1999.
See Karam 1998.
See Franks 2000.
See Barlas 2006.
See Wadud 2006, 176.
See Afshar 2008.
See Yaqoob 2004.
See Piela 2009.
See Akou 2010.
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their heads and faces.28 This is indicated by many online videos, articles and blogs created by
Muslim women who specifically mention that they feel the need to defend the niqab and the hijab,
wearing of which is to them an inalienable human right.29
The literature discussing Muslim women in online contexts, similarly to that on Muslim women
‘offline’, seems to be focused on head and face covering,30 adding to the existing body of themes
some new ones, notably reflections on Islamic dress from marketing and fashion design
perspectives.31 Rantanen discusses the potential of the burqa as a garment that can become a
powerful metaphor in non-documentary art projects on the Internet.32 A different offshoot of the
‘hijab discourse’ is formed by studies of media representations of the burqini – modest beachwear
mostly (but not only) worn by Muslim women – as well as its cultural meanings revolving around
the contrast between a revealed and a concealed body.33
MacDonald argues that the fixation with images of veiled Muslim women raises significant
issues for the feminist debate, as it has stolen the attention from their own voices and selfdefinitions.34 Poole writes that “the heavy black hijab dominates the representations of Muslim
women internationally.”35 The focus of these representations is on the garment (in its variations,
often depending on the recent political developments) and its imprinted connotations, while the
importance of the person, the background and the context of the photograph is diminished (unless it
is the context of a political demonstration which corresponds to the connotations of threat). Whilst
Poole’s argument is focused on exploring the nature of hijab representations as signifiers, I propose
to ask subversively: if representations of Muslim women are dominated by the ‘heavy, black hijab’,
what do these representations ignore? What is concealed, or omitted, that would provide a ‘balance’
in these representations? As the hijab fulfils the handy role of a symbol encompassing all kinds of
threat, it is unlikely that media representations, especially photographs and video, will resort to
representations not dominated by it, indeed the symbol must remain one-dimensional and easy to
understand.
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
See Franks 2000; Poynting & Noble 2004; Ameli & Merali 2006, 23.
See for example Youtube (2010a), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1kVomQErcA. Retrieved 23 July
2010; Youtube (2010b), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWjYYYgDWoU. Retrieved 23 July 2010;
Youtube (2010c), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaE7BMMw12k. Retrieved 23July 2010.
See Sands 2010, 153.
See Akou 2010; Tarlo 2010.
See Rantanen 2005.
See Fitzpatrick 2009.
See MacDonald 2006: 7.
See Poole 2002, 111.
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Muslim women’s self-definitions, largely neglected by the media, are expressed both in
textual/discursive and visual modes. Whilst the former has been addressed by research, 36 the latter
has not yet attracted much research attention. Thus, I propose to look at aesthetics, focus and
context of Muslim women’s self-portraits and other photographs they use to define and describe
themselves.
Methodology
There is a wealth of visual data relating to Muslim women on the Web, but it is sometimes difficult
to identify what is representation (as they are seen by others) and what is self-representation (as
Muslim women see and present themselves visually). Through images they interpret the world and
present it in a particular way. This research project focuses on the way Muslim women see
themselves and the world that surrounds them, as displayed by the photographs that they design,
produce and publish online. By analyzing and interpreting these photos, insight may be gained, at
least partly, into their perspectives and foci, thus reversing the power dynamic of the Orientalist
gaze that asserts itself through framing and contextualizing the object.37 It can only be a partial
insight, as the relationships between the image and the author, as well as the image and the observer
(in this case, the researcher) is different.
Through visual representations Muslim women have been stereotyped and made uniform,
acontextual and ahistorical by journalists, artists and researchers alike,38 and this tendency has been
acknowledged since Edward Said published his seminal work Orientalism.39 In addition, the label
of the ‘Muslim woman’ has been stuck on women who have links, however remote, to Muslim
cultures. This includes, for example, Middle-Eastern secular women who reject Islam as a
religion.40 In order to avoid accidental ascribing of identity, I selected photographs exclusively from
websites and blogs which specifically mention that their authors and owners are Muslim women.
36
37
38
39
40
See Afshar, Aitken & Franks 2005; Karim 2008; Shaffi 2009.
See Abdo 2007.
See Watt 2008.
See Said 1979.
See Klausen 2005, 214.
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Method and data
The photographs I have selected for analysis have been obtained from a photography-sharing
website enabling individuals to upload their photos, create profiles and join groups of interest. They
constitute a specific, purposeful sample, as they are all self-portraits of Muslim women. I have used
a range of search terms whilst searching for websites and blogs. These included ‘Muslim
woman/women’, ‘Islamic woman/women’, ‘women/woman and/in Islam’, ‘female Muslims’,
‘female Muslim believers’. The searches were fairly unproblematic as it was possible to search for
combinations of tags (photograph ‘descriptors’ that could only be included by authors of the
photographs), such as ‘Muslim’, ‘woman/female/girl’, and ‘selfportrait’. In most cases the
ownership of photographs was clear, as many photos were captioned and an explanation was
included, or the tag clouds were self-explanatory in regard to the identity of the authors. It was also
possible to look up profiles of authors where they sometimes disclosed their gender and faith. In
some cases the ownership was ambiguous, as tags ‘muslim’ seemed to be occasionally used in
relation to the ‘Muslim look’ some female photographers tried to achieve, especially when trying on
the hijab. In cases where there was doubt, I decided not to include the photographs in the final
selection. Eventually, I selected 42 photos from 16 women representing diverse ethnic and cultural
backgrounds, which I was able to discern from most profiles or tags that were attached to the selfportraits.
The most recent internet research ethics guidelines postulate a departure from the
conceptualisation of Internet spaces as either public or private and treating publicly accessible
online data as possible to use in research without participants’ consent.41 Instead, acknowledging the
participants’ autonomy,42 I requested permission to use their images in research. Although I could
access the images freely, and did not have to be a member of any password-protected groups, I
considered that using images for purposes different than the authors’ original intention (research
rather than looking and commenting) rendered requesting permission necessary. I have been able to
obtain permission from all participants through the photo-sharing website messaging system.
Acknowledging the principle of confidentiality in online research, I have stored the data securely
and offered the participants that I would change their names and remove details that would allow
their identification. One participant preferred that her profile name be retained as she wished to
41
42
See Paccagnella 1997.
See Ess et al 2002; Wiles et al 2008.
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increase publicity for her work. Finally, as the analysed images are not reproduced in the paper,
they do not require copyright clearance.
Authors of the analysed self-portraits are as much photographers, designers of the set, art
directors and publishers as objects of the photograph. They have control over the technical settings,
techniques of photographing, angles, accessories, colours, background, objects, people and animals
in the photographs, their position, face expression, and finally, where the photographs are published
for others to see. It is then reasonable to say self-portraits are an expression of authority over one’s
self-representation.43 The Muslim women who produced these self-portraits are both their authors
and subjects. In order to acknowledge this fact I refer to them throughout this article as ‘authorssubjects’. The 42 images that I selected ‘speak’ for themselves, but also speak through the tags they
have been given by their authors, and a number of cultural codes, sometimes used subversively;
thus, they become intertextual.
It is a common finding of research projects focusing on differences in perception that what one
sees and how one prefers to see oneself depends on social positioning.44 Self-portraits may be both
representations and constructions of the self.45 They can have both documentary and experimental
functions. Self may appear as one sees it, or as one would like to see it. While reading photographs
literally may undermine their complexity, it may sometimes be difficult to discern between the
author’s perception, projection and vision. Hence, all participants have been sent a draft of this
paper to offer them a chance to point out potential ‘gross’ misinterpretations of their photographs.
Codes
In order to give the reader a picture of how I approached the data, I include the codes I used in the
preliminary analysis of the content. Authors-subjects appear in the self-portraits in a range of poses
and shoot from different angles. In 29 self-portraits the entire face is visible, in 12 a part of the face
is obscured; out of those 12, in 5 only eyes are visible, in 3 the face is invisible. Of those 3, 1 selfportrait is a rear view of the author-subject, in 1 the body silhouette appears from the neck down,
and in one, only the top of the head is visible. In 19 images one can see the hands; in 5 the entire
body shape is visible. In 40 the author-subject is positioned centrally. In 23 the author-subject looks
43
44
45
See Meyer 1993, 377.
See Emmison & Smith 2007, 36-38.
See Dykstra 1995.
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directly at the lens/viewer, in 20 she looks away (including profiles and half-profiles). 5 selfportraits were taken from unusual angles (three used the dogs-eye view, two – bird’s eye view). 12
self-portraits are black and white, and 3 have unusual colouring (for example, a green face).
In 33 photos the authors-subjects are wearing a head-covering (including 2 with an additional
face-covering), in 2 it is impossible to see as the head or top of head are invisible, in 6 the authorssubjects are not wearing a head-covering. Head-coverings include a traditionally wrapped headscarf
that thoroughly conceals the hair and the neck (26), a tight hat and a hood concealing the hair and
the neck (3), an African-style head-wrap concealing hair but not the neck (3), a loose jumper hood
partly concealing the hair (1), a loose scarf partly concealing the hair (1), and a wooly hat
concealing the hair (1). In 3 photos jewellery is worn, and 4 makeup is visible. In 12 authorssubjects wear glasses and in one self-portrait a rose adorns the hair.
Such a number of codes and coded content allows identifying regularities, patterns and
exceptions. In the next sections of this paper I consider characteristic features emerging in creative
work of selected individuals, as well as the entirety of the dataset. I also place these features in their
contexts which enables a better understanding of the images.
Aspects of the analysis
Analysis of images is multidimensional; Rose lists several aspects that may be considered in
interpretations of photographs: technological (what is the technology used to produce it?),
compositional (colours, content, spatial organization), and, perhaps the most relevant to this project,
social (what is the image’s cultural and social context?).46 She also differentiates between the site of
production (where, how and under what circumstances was the photo taken?), the image itself (the
compositionality of an image), and the site of display (where was the photo published and who is its
audience?). All these factors and modalities create a complex framework that allows interpretation
of photographs from different perspectives.
While photographs remain the main type of data in this analysis, it must be acknowledged that
they do not exist in a contextual vacuum. Firstly, they exist within a particular space (the Internet)
and its particular interlinked locations (websites). This is an element of what is called by Rose the
‘site of audiencing’. The technological site where images are located also determines the way
46
See Rose 2007, 19-22.
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audiences make sense of them. Locations of image display are also likely to attract particular types
of viewers. Secondly, textual content of these websites constitutes a specific context for the
photographs, and it is likely to provide information helpful in analysis of the photos, therefore
references to the text are occasionally made. Thirdly, aesthetics of contexts is expressed in the
photographs themselves – through showing the background, other people, animals or objects.
Finally, context is constituted by the social and political circumstances in which photographs are
looked at and interpreted.
In order to acknowledge both individuality and cross-cutting themes in the selection, I address
the data in two ways: firstly, I consider creative activity of three Muslim women photographers
whose photo-galleries include from 600 to 4300 images and whose self-portraits have been included
in the dataset; secondly, I identify common themes in the dataset.
Author-subjects
Eve Rivera
Eve, based in the United States, is one of the most productive Muslim female photographers on
Flickr.com, where she publishes her work. She works as a freelance photographer and her photo
gallery contains over 3500 images, including 180 self-portraits. She tags her self-portraits with
‘muslim’, ‘self-portrait’, ‘me’, and ‘hijab’ as well as many other specific tags. Her photographs
attract many comments, to which she sometimes responds, providing insight into her creative work
and her self-definitions. An exchange under one of Eve’s self-portrait aptly illustrates the problem
that this article focuses on:
US-based user: I may be off, but she [Eve] looks Muslim. You usually don't equate this
expression for a Muslim women [sic] -very powerful and self-confident with direct eye contact.
Nice change.
Eve: yes, it is me and I am Muslim...also powerful and self confident! ;)
Clearly, Eve’s self-portraits cause consternation for users who, on the one hand, are able to
discern her face expressions – indeed powerful and self-confident, and on the other hand, are
bombarded with images and discourses representing Muslim women as voiceless, meek, and
submissive. The quoted commentator indicates that she sees Eve’s self-portraits as different, that
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they are a change – a change from victimising images of Muslim women saturating the mainstream
media. This is a very poignant contrast between self-representation and representation.
I have selected 10 of Eve’s self-portraits that are different in terms of techniques, settings, focus
and colour. Her self-portraiture is simple, bold and almost austere – there is no discernible
background, and she rarely smiles at the camera. This is reinforced by lack of jewellery; instead she
poses wearing dark-rimmed glasses and a hijab. Most of these photographs are black-and white,
with contrast set high, and the effect is almost unreal, that of a comic-strip character, as her face
appears white and her eyes are dark and huge.
There are exceptions to this regularity: in one photograph corners of Eve’s mouth are up, giving
her expression a mischievous quality; one photograph shows only her full smile with visible teeth;
and in another, there is a focus on an unusual pattern of colourful flowers on her electric-blue hijab.
Eve’s self-portraits are taken close-up and from a variety of perspectives, and often show only a
part of her face – eyes, cheeks or mouth, as if she was trying to say: there are many ways of looking
at me; I am made up of different things. Her hijab provides an excellent frame for her face and
creates a border between it and the photograph background that has the same hue. While many of
her self-portraits are as-a-matter-of fact, she sometimes makes references to her religion; a dramatic
photograph in red hue in which she looks down, face half-turned, is titled “Lowered Gaze” – an
expression that appears in the “Qur’an (Surah An-Nur, 30-31)” in a verse that praises modesty (a
lowered gaze in contrast to sexualised gazing at the other sex) in both believing men and women.
However, “Lowered Gaze” is accompanied by “Up There: That’s what I’m focused on!”, the
second in the pair of self-portraits, in which Eve looks up. “Up There” is an opposition not only
literally, but seems to be an instant reminder that ‘looking down’ figuratively (remaining modest)
does not preclude metaphoric looking up that could be understood as aspiring or working towards a
goal. There is subtle interplay between the two images that represent two different concepts, which
yet appear in conjunction, feeding into each other.
Eve plays with associations and expectations; in some self-portraits she is wearing a huge wooly
hat and the lower part of her face is wrapped in a thick scarf. Although she does not veil her face in
her other pictures, this stylisation is a reference to the niqab; one of these self-portraits is titled
“WinterNiqaabi”. In it, she achieves the effect of ‘niqabi’ veiling by juxtaposing two common,
mundane accessories. As a result, the niqab becomes surprisingly demystified – it is a garment that
obscures the face, just as the hat and scarf may do. Perhaps Eve is showing through this simple trick
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that it is not the obscured face itself that is so feared and criticised by Western societies,47 but what
they choose to associate with the niqab – ‘otherness’ of Muslim women.
Umma
Umma is an East European convert to Islam living in the UK. She is a prolific photographer with
over 600 uploaded images, including 10 self-portraits. In her profile she describes herself as a
‘proud Shia’, indicating that she belongs to a minority sect in Islam that is most populous in Iran.
She tags her photographs meticulously, always including the tag ‘muslim’; she often uses related
tags, such as ‘moslem’, ‘muslimah’, ‘islam’.
Her self-portraits are lyrical, with focus on her face and a soft, blurry background; except one
black and white image, they are either in pastels or deep blues and black. These photographs convey
a strong sense of serenity and thoughtfulness; they seem to exemplify the statement that pictures
first emerge in the creator’s mind.48 Umma experiments with different angles and her self-portraits
include profiles and half-profiles; her camera appears in three images as she explains that she is
very proud and excited as the camera is a big upgrade from her old one.
One of Umma’s self-portraits, in which she appears reflected in the mirror, wearing a black veil
and holding the camera, is captioned with a Qur’anic verse: “So she took a veil (to screen herself)
from them; then We sent to her Our spirit, and there appeared to her a well-made man.”49 The most
obvious connection between the photograph and the caption is the veil, which Umma may be
understood to wear following the example of Maryam, mother of Jesus. Another connection is
related to one of the differences between Islam and Christianity; the quoted verse is part of the story
of the birth of Jesus, who in Christianity is believed to have been the son of God; in Islam he is
considered to have been a prophet of God. Hence, converts from Christianity to Islam confess to
reject the divine origins of Jesus; Umma’s juxtaposition of her veiled self and this verse may be
understood as her declaration of belonging to Islam.
While 8 of her photographs are almost classical self-portraits, showing her from the shoulders
up, two images are unusual in that they are panels consisting of multiple smaller shots that appear to
47
48
49
See Cassidy 2010.
See Dluhosch & Svácha 1999: 341.
See Surah Maryam, 17.
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have been taken in series. In one of them there is Umma by herself, and in the second one she is
with her daughter. They seem to provide a glimpse into another side of her personality, and are in a
strong contrast to the poetic self-portraits; here, Umma is having fun with photography.
Photography is play; she makes funny faces, looks comically scared, bares her teeth and roars at the
camera pretending to be a wild animal, pulls her hood over her head in a jokingly ominous manner.
She and her daughter appear with toys: a ball and a doll that serve as props to be interacted with.
These panels of self-portraits are not merely documenting usual household scenes; they are posed,
constructed in a creative way, revealing the multitude of ways of looking at people, scenes and
mundane objects. Whilst the multitude of expressions and poses displayed by Umma may bring to
mind associations with multiple identities of Muslim women,50 these self-portraits can be read in
many other ways. There is an element of subversion here, as laughing and having fun are not typical
of representations of Muslim women.51 These relaxed and humorous self-portraits are probably as
unexpected as the powerful and direct gaze of Eve’s that attracted surprised comments.
Lina
Lina is a 28-old Muslim woman based in Brunei Darussalam. She has over 4300 images in her
online gallery; she photographs people, sports events, still nature, landscape and animals. Two of
her self-portraits are Ramadan-themed,52 visualising her reflections and ideas about this religious
celebration. Both these self-portraits are dreamlike due to soft colours, blurring around the edges,
and surreal background. One of them is symbolic, showing her holding a plastic container with food
in her hand, arm outstretched and away from the body. She looks in the opposite direction, holding
her hand over her mouth, indicating abstaining from food during the day. The background is a sepia
uneven surface with a simple sketch of a wheat plant stem. In this photograph Lina is wearing a
short sleeved dress over jeans; her hair seems to be freely flowing in the wind. In her second
Ramadan-tagged self-portrait she is reading a book on a bed with her cat beside her. In the photo
caption she writes: “first day of Ramadan is a holiday so I spent the day reading”, which possibly
means that she declares that Ramadan is not only the time of fasting, but also spiritual reflection. It
is unclear what book she is reading, though; it may be a religious book read in the spirit of
50
51
52
See Dwyer 1999.
See Tarlo 2007.
Ramadan is the month of fasting in Islam; believers do not eat or drink between sunrise and sunset.
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Ramadan, or a novel or a photography album. However, she chose to declare her religious
belonging under this self-portrait, as she adds in the caption: “Happy Ramadan my fellow muslims!
[sic]”.
Lina’s self-portraits poignantly fit into the debate on the blurring of boundaries between the
public and the private, both from feminist and Islamist perspectives.53 There is a large group of her
self-portraits, in which her hair is covered with a tudung (a South-East Asian version of the
headscarf), that show Lina at an office or with her boyfriend. This suggests that she follows the
Islamic dress-code outside of home.
The pictures in which she photographs herself uncovered are usually taken within the four walls
of home, or they are processed images with surreal backgrounds. Thus, she treats the personal space
as both private (she does not cover her hair) and public (she offers the viewer glimpses into her
personal space). Her self-representation is ambiguous, as she is religious, at the same time
challenging the strict interpretation of dress-code that would require her to remain covered when
photographing herself with the intention of making the self-portrait accessible online. Her
uncovered hair indicates that her interpretation of the dress-code may include the meaning of hijab,
a word with Arabic origins, as ‘modest dress’ or ‘screen’ rather than ‘headscarf’. According to
some Qur’an interpreters, the former is the correct translation; however, no unanimous agreement
on the matter has been reached amongst scholars.54
Lina’s images contradict the usual representation of religious Muslim women as thoroughly
covered. Her faith-themed photographs are constructed without the use of items that are religious
symbols in their own right, such as the hijab, prayer books or a prayer pose. Because the religious
dimension is created by a specific body alignment, tags and captions, the self-portraits are religious
in an atypical way, demonstrating a personal, individual interpretation of not only the concept of
Islamic fasting, but modesty as well. Her photographs are very different from ‘literal’ religious
imagery pervading online Muslim spaces;55 in contrast, Lina seems to play with viewers’
expectations and her self-portraiture has an element of subversion.
53
54
55
See Göle 2003.
See Piela 2009, 169-170.
See Bunt 2003.
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Cross-cutting themes emerging from the dataset
The mirror technique
The self-portraits in the selection were created using either a tripod, photographing one’s reflection
in the mirror or using the ‘extended hand technique’. Looking at some self-portraits taken with the
use of a mirror or any other reflecting surface, in particular where the camera is central in the
photograph, the viewer has a strong impression that they are being photographed as they can see the
lens of a camera (and sometimes the lamp flash) as they are reflected in the mirror. 9 photographs in
the selection were taken using this technique. In two of those photographs the face is entirely or
partly obscured by the camera while the hands are holding it; this invisibility of the photographer’s
face and the ‘taking a photo’ pose strengthens the impression of role inversion. We see that a
woman’s face can be obscured by means other than the face veil, and for other purposes.
These self-portraits reinforce the notion that one’s relationship to oneself is bound to be
mediated.56 The gaze of the photographer through the lens of a camera, whilst directed at her own
reflection, appears actively directed at the viewer, complicating the ‘photographer-viewer-subject’
relationship.57 The viewer paradoxically becomes involved in the act of photography that happened
before the act of viewing. This photographic technique undermines the traditional configuration in
which Muslim women are shown as distant from the reality of the viewer; in contrast, the Muslim
female photographer seems to be just inches away, almost creating a sense of intimacy; it also
contradicts the common perception, rooted in the Orientalist imagery, 58 of a picturesque and exotic
subject worthy of photographing. The viewer sees in the picture exactly what the author-object sees
in the viewfinder, which introduces a much more egalitarian relationship in the photographersubject-viewer triad.
56
57
58
See Rich 2003, 33.
See Chadwick 1998.
See Alloula 1986; Kahf 1999.
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Objects and backgrounds
The authors-subjects often photographed themselves with objects, sometimes with other people and
animals. The most frequent object that is shown (in 11 out of 43 images) is the camera in the
‘mirror technique’ self-portraits. It is poignant, as it is possible to produce self-portraits using this
technique without the camera being captured. It is likely that the camera appears as an emphasis of
the authors’ status as photographers/artists as well as subjects. The person in the photograph is
holding the camera, and there is no doubt that she is the author. This is again in contrast to the
typical perception of Muslim women solely being objects, beings that are represented; these authors
of self-portraits seem to be making a point that these images are a product of their artistic vision.
Other objects chosen to appear in these self-portraits are mundane, again introducing a sense of
intimacy as we are offered a glimpse into the authors’ private lives. A bowl of soup, nuts, a mug, a
book, and a hairdryer present in the images – these are signifiers of everyday activities so familiar
also to the viewer that again create a sense of intimacy. 59 This is emphasised by backgrounds
displaying personal spaces –bathrooms, bedrooms and living-rooms.
Some photographs seem to be taken as a result of an impulse, documenting fleeting moments in
parks and shops. Women took pictures of themselves with handbags, shopping bags, and purses in
their hands, clearly engaged in some other activity, on their way to unknown destinations, yet still
aware of their reflections in shop windows and paintwork on cars they walk past. They seem to
enjoy photographing themselves in these varied surroundings; clearly photography, and in
particular, self-portraits are important to them as means of self-expression and self-documentation.
In four self-portraits the authors-subjects appear with other people. These pictures (with the
exception of one in which a passer-by appears as a hazy blob in the background), show the authorssubjects in their social context. They pose smiling, at ease with their relatives: a mother, a daughter,
a cousin, as well as friends and a pet, clearly enjoying the interaction and conveying a sense of
happiness and fun. Intimacy between them is evident in relaxed poses, physical proximity, and
embraces.
59
See Gordon 2006, 29.
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Conclusions
The addressed self-portraits examine common assumptions about faith and gender present in
representations of Muslim women. They are strikingly different from the paradigm of the
ubiquitous paradigm of the de-contextualised, submissive women used as illustrations and
metaphors in anti-Islamic discourses. By offering personal perspectives on religion, in particular
religious identity and symbols, Eve, Umma and Lina challenge normalised codes and discourses
created to define Muslim women. The surprise registered by one commentator under Eve’s selfportrait demonstrates the extent to which prejudiced representations of Muslim women have
become normalised. However, labels and associations constructing these representations: the Other,
a stranger, a threat, a religious fundamentalist, a victim of patriarchy, in blunt terms – a misfit
unequipped to function in a secular society, are effectively challenged in two ways: by visually
constructing religious meanings with day-to-day objects and creating a sense of intimacy through
interaction with objects and people in the photographs, as well as with the viewer.
It is important to note that challenging prejudiced representations and perceptions in the selfportraits is not achieved by rejecting Islam, but by embracing it. The Muslim identity present in the
images is unambiguous and unapologetic, as the authors-subjects define it both visually and
textually through tags, captions and comments. The analysed self-portraits constitute a variety of
religious identity narratives: powerful, direct, serious, but also funny, poetic, subversive, and
intimate ones, thus contradicting the essentialist and simplistic nature of labels stuck to Muslim
women. The audiences, whose comments are visible under the self-portraits, appreciate these visual
narratives exactly because of their complex, multilayered and personal character. This suggests that
prejudiced representations of Muslim women do not satisfy those individuals who are willing to
investigate both ‘versions of the story’.
Shifting the focus of research interest from visual (mis)representations of Muslim women to
ways in which Muslim women choose to represent themselves will bring to the fore their own
understandings of their faith and identity. As the visual has particular educational significance in
our image-saturated world,60 Muslim women’s self-portraits may also help non-Muslim audiences
grasp and accept the diversity and complexity of this social group. The 43 self-portraits selected for
this analysis constitute only a small dataset intended for use in an exploratory study. There is
60
See Fischmann 2001.
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certainly a lot more data on Muslim women’s self-representations available both online and offline
that merits close investigation.
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
ANNA PIELA, Ph.D. is Research Fellow at the Communication and Media Research Institute,
University of Westminster, London. Her research focuses on online religious discourses and
content produced by Muslim women. She has published articles on gender, religion and the
Internet in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs and Contemporary Islam. At the moment she
is writing her first monograph titled Muslim Women Online: Faith and Identity in the Virtual
Space.
Address:
Anna Piela
annapiela@googlemail.com
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