Civic Integration, Migrant Women and the Veil: at the Limits of Rights?
| Author | Siobhán Mullally |
| Date | 01 January 2011 |
| Published date | 01 January 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2010.00835.x |
Civic Integration, MigrantWomen and theVeil: at the
Limits of Rights?
Siobha
Łn Mullally
n
Controversies surroundingthe wearing of the veil by Muslimwomen in Europe have coincided
with a resurgence of interest in‘pathwaysto citizenship’and integrationtesti ng.This article argues
that the historical vestigesof discrimi nationi n immigrationand citize nship lawspersist today in
the scrutiny of the cultural a⁄liations and practices of aspiring immigrants and citizens. Muslim
women have been placed at the center of such scrutiny, increasingly de¢ned by the arbiters of
belonging as les anormeaux. This article explores recent legislative developments on the wearing
of the veil in France and examines these developmentsi nthe l ightof the expansion of i ntegration
testing and human rights law’snormative commitments to morejust multicultural arrangements.
. . . It is the situationof women that was. . . taken as the theme of action.The domi-
nant administration solemnly undertook to defend this woman, pictured as humi-
liated, sequestered, cloistered .. . Around the family life of the Algerian, the
occupier piled up a whole mass of judgments, appraisals, reasons, accumulated
anecdotes and edifyi ng examples, thus attempting to con¢ne the Algerian withi n
a circle of guilt.
1
Le voile inte
Łgral est un signe militant d’appartenance a
'un projet de socie
Łte
Łqui cre
Łe un espace
priveŁau seinme
Œme de l’espacepublic et dans lequel les lois de la Re
Łpubliquen’ont pas d’e¡et.
2
Recent years have witnesseda spate of litigation and debate on the wearing of the
veil by Muslim women and gi rls in Europ e.
3
Re£ecting broader geo-politics,
Muslim women have been placed at the center of the huma n rights versus Islamic
world dialectic. Controversies surroundingthe wearing of theveil have coincided
in Europe with a retreat from the politics of multiculturalism,
4
the language of
multicultural accommodation being replaced by policy agendas that are more
n
Senior Lecturer,Faculty of Law,University College Cork. Researchfor this article was supported by
a grant from the Irish Research Council for the Human Rights and Social Sciences. Research and
writing were completedwhile I was a Senior Fellow in Residence and Fulbright Scholarat the Gender
and Sexuality Law Program, Columbia Law School and at the Institute for International Law and
Public Policy,TempleUniversity. I amgrateful to Katherine Franke, Suzanne Goldberg, Peter Spiro,
Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Martha Fineman, Mathilde Cohen, Ma
Łiread Enright and Eoin Daly, for their
comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. I am also grateful to the editors and to the anonymous
reviewers forthe ir helpfulcomments.
1F. Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (NewYork:Grove Press,1967)38.
2Assemble
ŁNationale,‘Rapport D’Information Sur La Pratique Du Port Du Voile Integral Sur Le
Territoire National’26 January 2010,109.
3Forcommentary,s ee:A.Vakulenko,‘Islamic Dress in Human Rights Jurisprudence:ACritique of
Current Trends’(2007) 7 Human RightsLaw Review 717; D. McGoldrick, Human Rightsand Reli-
gion:The IslamicHeadscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford: Hart, 2006); C. Joppke,Veil:Mirror of Identity
(Cambridge:Polity, 2009).
4C. Joppke,‘The retreat of multiculturalism in the liberal state: theory and policy’(2004) 55 British
Journal of Sociology 237.
r2011The Author.The Modern Law Review r2011The Modern Law Review Limited.
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
(2011) 74(1) 27^56
likely to appeal to the values of social cohesion and civic integration.
5
The pre-
occupationwith integration of migrantcommunities is re£ectedi n the resurgence
of interestin ‘pathways to citizenship’ and integration testing, bothat EU level and
in Member States.
6
In recent years, this preoccupation hasbeen marked by awill-
ingness to deploy juridical and punitive tools of immigration control to monitor
mandatory integration requirements.
7
Newlyexpanded forms of i ntegration test-
ing seek to assess the newcomer’s commitment to liberal democratic ideals,
including gender equality.
8
This ‘gender turn’ in immigration and citizenship
practice marks a challengingdeparture and raisesquestions as to what are the costs
of such inclusion. Securing equality in citize nship lawswas a central focus of fem-
inist activism at an international level for the most part of the 20
th
century, and
continues to be a concern today.
9
While directly discriminatory laws have dis-
appeared in Europe, the categories of gender, sexuality and ‘race’ continue to be
pivotal to immigration andcitizenship practices today.
10
The historicalvestiges of
discrimination in immigration laws persist in the ‘anxious scrutiny’to which the
cultural a⁄liations and practices of aspiring citizens are subjected. Muslim
women have been placed at the center of such scrutiny, increasingly de¢ned by
the arbiters of belonging and membership as ‘les anormeaux’.
11
The recently published Report of the French Parliamentary Commission on
the wearing of the ‘voile in teŁgral’ (face-veil), the Gerin Report, proposes a series of
measures, un accord republicain, designed to restrict the wearing of the burqa and
niqab on French territory.
12
These measures include expanded integration condi-
tions, to be applied to aspiring immigrants and citizens. Building on recent
5See: E. Guild, C.A. Groenendijk and S. Carrera,Illiberal LiberalStates: Immigration, Citizenshipand
Integration in the EU (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009); D. Kostakopoulou,‘Matters of Control:Integra-
tionTests, Naturalisation Reform and Probationary Citizenship in the United Kingdom’(2010)
36 Journal of Ethnicand MigrationStudies 829.
6See, forexample: Home O⁄ce, UK BorderAgency,The Pathto Citizenship:Next Stepsin Reforming
the Immigration System (February 2008). On the compatibility of citizenship testing with l iberal-
ism, see: EUDOForum on Citizens hip,(2010)‘How Liberalare Citizensh ipTests?’at http://eudo-
citizenship.eu/citizenship-forum/255-how-liberal-are-citizenship-tests (last visited 18 October
2010);On the expansion of integration testing in Europe, see:‘CitizenshipTests in a Post-National
Era’ International Journal of Multicultural Societies Special Issue (2008) Vol 10(1) discuss ing recent
developmentsin the Netherlands, Denmark, France and the UK. See also ‘Migrationand Citizen-
ship Attribution: Politics and Policies inWestern Europe’ Special Issue (2010) Vol 36(5) Journal of
Ethnica ndMigrationStudies edited by M.Vink and R. de Groot.
7C. Dauvergne,‘Globalizing Fragmentation: NewPressures on Women Caught in the Immigra-
tion Law ^ Citizenship Law Dichotomy’ in S.Be nhabiband J. Resnik, Migrationsand Mobilities:
Citizenship,Borders, and Gender (NewYork: NewYorkUniversity Press, 2009) 333^355, 334.
8In France, see:‘Rapport D’Information Sur La Pratique Du PortDu Voile IntegralSur Le Terri-
toire National’ ((Paris: 26 January 2010) (Report of the GerinCommission).
9See: ILA,Final ReportonWomen’sEquality and Nationalityin International L aw (London: International
LawAssociation, 2000). Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination AgainstWomen, on nationality, remains one of the most heavily reservedof the
treaty’s provisions. For the full text of reservations, see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/
cedaw/reservations.htm(last visited 15 October 2010).
10 See: S.A. Berger,‘Production and Reproductionof Gender and Sexuality i n LegalDiscourse s of
Asylum in the United States’(2009) 34 Signs:JournalofWomenin Cultureand Society 659,di scussing
the continuing centrality of the categories of gender and sexuality in asylum law.
11 M. Foucault and others, Les Anormaux: Cours au Colle
'ge de France (1974^1975) (Paris: Gallimard/
Seuil,1999).
12 n2above,187.
Civic Integration, Migrant Womena nd the Veil
28 r2011The Author.The Modern LawReview r2011 The ModernLaw Review Limited.
(2011)74(1) 27^56
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