Sur/veil: the veil as blank(et) signifier

Abstract

Colonialism wants everything to come from it. Frantz Fanon, 'Algeria Unveiled' Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary, Michel Foucault, 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History'. Concerned with the body of and in the nation, this chapter tracks the movements of 'visibly' Muslim women via the hijab and surveillance, examining French intransigence and the postcolonial scene in France and in other sites. The current debate in the West over Muslim women continues to focus on questions of veiling and oppression. Examining the veil as a purported marker of difference in the West opens up connections between surveillance, desire, terror, and resistance. The body of the Muslim woman is co-opted in the discourse of the veil, and flattened out: She must be veiled and yet must be unveiled. The gaze makes demands on the body. The word 'surveil' works well here, connecting the gaze-as-surveillance, and also locating it, when the word is split: sur/veil, on the veil.