A Hijab Proper: The Veil Through Feminist Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

In this narrative inquiry, I weave together two narratives of the hijab, one from an interview I conducted with a Kuwaiti Muslim woman living in the United States as an international student and the other from my memories, as a Muslim Arabic woman, half Palestinian, half Kuwaiti, an identity which allowed me to witness first-hand stories of veiling and unveiling. I begin by discussing the context of the study and the methodology and how feminism shapes the process of both my interviewing and writing. I continue by braiding the narratives of memory and conversation through creative and performative writing. The two narratives are juxtaposed because they often oppose each other, challenging the simplified notions of the hijab and rendering its story more complex. This feminist narrative inquiry presents situated knowledges as sources for understanding the stories of ourselves and others as multiple and for the possibility of a more complex feminist writing of the hijab.