Epistemic injustice and the veil: Islam, vulnerability, and the task of historical revisionism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Academic work on the “veil”, while important in challenging commonly held ideas about Islam and gender, often falls into a familiar series of observations: veiled women are frequently excluded from these debates; women’s bodies and sexuality have become (or rather, taken on new significance as) battle grounds in arguments about national identity, religion, and culture; and the veil not only marks religious identity, but plays a role in the racialisation of religious minorities. Despite this important work, ideas about Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular seem particularly resistant to counter evidence. The essay employs work on epistemic injustice to develop an account of the persistence of negative attitudes towards Muslims. Connecting research on testimonial injustice and epistemologies of ignorance, I argue that epistemic injustice can help explain the epistemic significance of visible manifestations of Islam for white, European forms of knowing.