Muslim women’ in Europe: Secular normativities, bodily performances and multiple publics

If ‘Muslim women’ in Europe have been at the centre of much public debate, the scope of academic work on this theme has remained limited and uneven. The contributions to this issue include topics (wigs and face-veils), settings (Belgium and Italy), and categories (secular Muslims) that have remained under-researched. Our main aim, however, has been to present work that brings together perspectives that have hitherto remained largely unconnected. Taken together, the articles investigate the interface between the discourses of political actors about the abstract category ‘Muslim women’ and the micro-politics of Muslim women’s everyday life. Moreover, focusing on ‘Muslim women’, we also hope to engender a better understanding of how the secular and the religious co-constitute each other and how both secularism and religion shape particular subjectivities and communities of affection. Rather than considering the public as a site of rational deliberation (only), we argue for the need to include affective discourses and non-verbal, corporeal modes of communication into an analysis of how liberal, secular or religious publics are produced and operate.