To understand the politics of recognition, one must conceive of it as a politics of representation. Like representation, recognition proceeds at once in a constative and a performative mode, whereby they bring into being what is simultaneously represented or recognized. This structure has paradoxical implications. The politics of recognition is also a politics of representation in the sense that it always involves questions such as, Which representations are recognized? Whose representations are they? The reverse is also true: the politics of representation involves recognition because representatives and representations must be recognized in order to gain authority. In short, we can examine recognition as representation, and there is no recognition without representation, and vice versa. This is demonstrated through a reading of a recent British legal case, Begum, where the issue at stake concerned which representation of Islam should form the basis for the recognition of Islam in the school uniform policy.
Thanks to Peter Bloom, Ingrid Creppell, Lincoln Dahlberg, Sam Dallyn, Elena García Guitián, Sean Phelan, Lars Tønder, the anonymous reviewers, and, in particular, Mary Dietz for their comments on earlier drafts. I presented earlier versions of the paper at CEPC; CSSGJ, University of Nottingham; Örebro University; The Seminar in Political Theory, Stockholm University; the Intercultural Justice seminar, CSIC; and at the APSA Annual Meeting 2009.
2.
The Queen on the application of Begum v. The Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2004] EWHC 1389 (Admin) (hereafter Begum HC); The Queen on the application of SB v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2005] EWCA 199 (hereafter Begum CA); and R (on the application of Begum) v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2006] UKHL 15 (hereafter Begum HL). I follow the convention in the legal literature and refer to the case as Begum. For a good summary of the case, see Dominic McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford: Hart, 2006), chap. 6. The case did not go to the European Court of Human Rights, but, given the Court’s rulings in similar cases, it is likely that the ECHR would have found in favor of the school. Subsequently, the Begum decision was quoted in the "Guidance to schools on school uniform related policies" from the Department for Education and Skills, March 20, 2007.
3.
In online chat at IslamOnline.net, March 17, 2005, at http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=KbLTbk .
4.
For instance, Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," in Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25-73; and Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Toleration as Recognition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
5.
In analyzing the case, I have relied on the court decisions and on academic and newspaper articles. The school’s views are mainly found in the court decisions. The bulk of Shabina Begum’s self-representations are found in electronic media, including the online chat at IslamOnline.net; a TV interview on GMTV Today, March 22, 2006, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 9hN-vAb4dQg; and two public statements, March 2, 2005, and March 22, 2006, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_4310000/newsid_4311500 /4311509.stm?bw=nb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1 and http://news.bbc.co .uk/player/nol/newsid_4830000/newsid_4832800/4832834.stm?bw=nb&mp =wm&news=1&ms3=6&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=2. Cf. also the radio program "Symbol-ed Out," presented by Shabina Begum, BBC Radio Asian Network, May 12, 2008, http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/documentaries/symbol-edout.shtml.
6.
Joan Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes toOffer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press , 1996), 16-18, 174.
7.
Alexander García Düttmann , Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle for Recognition, trans. Kenneth B. Woodgate (London: Verso, 2000); and Patchen Markell, Bound by Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), especially chap. 1.
8.
García Düttmann, Between Cultures, 120.
9.
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). On the understanding of the performative and the constative defended here, see Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc, trans. Samuel Weber (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988); and Jacques Derrida, "Declarations of Independence," trans. Tom Keenan and Tom Pepper, New Political Science 7, no. 1 (1986): 7-15.
10.
García Düttmann, Between Cultures, 44.
11.
Ernesto Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996), chap. 6; Brian Seitz, The Trace of Political Representation (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995); and Lisa Disch, "Representation as ‘Spokespersonship’: Bruno Latour’s Political Theory," Parallax 14, no. 3 (2008): 88-100. Jacques Derrida, "Sending: On Representation," trans. Peter and Mary Ann Caws, Social Research, 49 (1982): 294-326; and Derrida, Of Grammatology. For related treatments of representation in different contexts, see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 1988), 271-313; and Linda Alcoff, "The Problem of Speaking for Others," Cultural Critique 20 (Winter 1991-1992): 5-32.
12.
See, e.g., Baroness Hale in Begum HL, §§92ff; and Christian Joppke, Veil: Mirror of Identity (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), chap. 4.
13.
E.g., Joppke, Veil, chap. 4; and Shabina Begum in Dilpazier Aslam, "I Could Scream with Happiness. I’ve Given Hope and Strength to Muslim Women," Guardian March 3, 2005, at www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/mar/03/schools.faithschools; and Shabina Begum at http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_4310000/newsid_4311500/4311509.stm?bw=nb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1.
14.
Begum HL, §80 (Lord Scott). See also Begum HC, §68.
15.
E.g., in online chat at IslamOnline.net.
16.
Cf. the discussion in Gareth Davies, "Banning the Jilbab," European Constitutional Law Review 1, no. 3 (2005): 511-30 at 519-22.
17.
On recognition and autonomy, see Düttmann, Between Cultures, 214-16. There is something im-proper about recognition: both authenticity and autonomy refer to something that is proper to the self, but neither of them can function as origins, or teloi, of recognition. See Markell, Bound by Recognition, 63f.
18.
Markell, Bound by Recognition. For this critique of recognition, see also Wendy Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), chaps. 3 and 5; and Elizabeth A. Povinelli, "The State of Shame: Australian Multiculturalism and the Crisis of Indigenous Citizenship," Critical Inquiry 24, no. 2 (1998): 575-610.
19.
García Düttmann, Between Cultures, 111; and Estelle Ferrarese, "‘Gabba-Gabba, We Accept You, One of Us’: Vulnerability and Power in the Relationship of Recognition,"Constellations16, no. 4 ( 2009): 604-14.
20.
The same goes for "the school," which also consists of a number of agents: the head teacher, the deputy, the governors and their lawyers.
21.
For this view of the subject, see Parveen Adams and Jeff Minson, "The ‘Subject’ of Feminism," in The Woman in Question: m/f, ed. Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 81-101.
22.
Martha Minow, Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). See also García Düttmann, Between Cultures, pp. 125f; Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer; and Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), chaps. 8-10. Neither Minow nor Scott links their analyses explicitly to the constative/performative structure, but their analyses stress how (claims for) rights do not merely reflect preexisting identities, but also constitute these, in particular in the context of the relationship between norm and difference.
23.
Begum HC, §84, no. 27.
24.
Ibid., §82, no. 51. For the judges’ confirmation of this view, see ibid., §§39-40; and Begum HL, §34.
25.
Begum HC, §82, nos. 15-16, §83, nos. 17 and 20; and Begum HL, §65 (Lord Hoffmann). For an example of the slippery slope argument see Madeleine Bunting, "Hijack Averted," The Guardian, March 22, 2006, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/2006/mar/22/hijackaverted. Bunting writes that the hijab is "well within the comprehension of Western traditions," but she puts Shabina Begum’s demand to wear the jilbab on a slippery slope towards the "nightmare" of the niqab.
26.
García Düttmann, Between Cultures, 3f.
27.
E.g., Begum HC, §84, nos. 23-24. She is symbol-ed out, cf. "Symbol-ed Out," BBC Asian Network.
28.
Minow, Making All the Difference, 53ff.
29.
In online chat at IslamOnline.net.
30.
Ibid.
31.
"Muslim Schoolgirl ‘Objected to Uniform of Non-believers,’"The Guardian, February 8, 2006, at www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/feb/08/schools.uk2.
32.
This is how it is referred in the deputy head teacher’s statement. Begum HC, §84, no. 26.
33.
For instance, Fareena Alam, "Style and Substance,"The Guardian, March 22, 2006, at www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/mar/22/usingmyreligion.
34.
Likewise, one of her solicitors says: "I don’t see why it is a big issue . . . this is a dispute over 11 inches of hem." Anushka Asthana, "Teachers Warn of Crisis over Muslim Girl’s Uniform Fight," The Guardian, March 19, 2006, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/mar/19/politics.schools.
35.
Davies, "Banning the Jilbab," 530.
36.
Afsaneh Najmabadi , "Gender and Secularism of Modernity: How Can a Muslim Woman Be French?"Feminist Studies32, no. 2 (2006), 239-55 at 248. For Shabina Begum’s views on how veiling contributes to Islam’s economy of interaction between men and women, see online chat at IslamOnline.net.
37.
Derrida, "Declarations of Independence."
38.
Boris Johnson , "The Shabina Begum Case Never Had Anything To Do with Modesty,"The Telegraph, March 23, 2006, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3623879/The-Shabina-Begum-case-never-had-anything-to-do-with-modesty.html .
39.
Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), chap. 5; and, more generally, Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), chaps. 8 and 11, Conclusion.
There was no challenge to the genuineness of Shabina Begum’s religious beliefs, although at times the judges and others insinuate that she was under the influence of her older brother. Begum HC, §68; Begum HL, §§79-81.
42.
The Guardian, September 15, 2005, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/15/religion.uk .
43.
In online chat at IslamOnline.net."I do have a mind of my own and I can choose what I want to wear," Shabina Begum says in another place. Joshua Rozenberg, "The Family That Put Child’s ‘Rights’ before Education,"Daily Telegraph , March 23, 2006, at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1513727/The-family-that-put-childs-rights-before-education.html .
44.
Begum HC, §§17, 82, no. 45.
45.
E.g., ibid. §§60, 73, and Annex nos. 16-17.
46.
See the detailed discussion in Begum CA, §§31-49. Compare ibid., §93; and Begum HL, §21.
47.
Begum HC, §67; Aslam, "I could scream with happiness"; and online chat at IslamOnline.net.
48.
In online chat at IslamOnline.net. Here I am not interested in the meaning of "kul" of which "slave" is the translation, but which could also be translated as "subject;" what is important is the way Shabina Begum uses this idea. On Islam, the hijab and agency, see Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, chap. 11, Conclusion; Scott, The Politics of the Veil, chap. 4; Najmabadi, "Gender and Secularism of Modernity"; Nancy J. Hirschmann, "Eastern Veiling, Western Freedom," The Review of Politics 59, no. 3 (1997): 461-88; Lama Abu Odeh, "Post-Colonial Feminism and the Veil: Thinking the Difference," Feminist Review 43 (1993): 26-37; and Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), chaps. 1 and 5, Epilogue. In "Western" discourses on Islam and women, the length of a woman’s dress is often taken as a measure of her agency and unveiling as a measure of choice and emancipation. The result is that you can only choose to unveil, but not to veil (cf. Bunting, "Hijack Averted" for a good example). Conversely, in Islamic discourses, the length of dress is often taken as a measure of (Islamic) religiosity and modesty (for a critique of this in relation to Begum, see Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, "Road to Muslim Dignity," The Milli Gazette, September 1-15, 2004, at http://www. milligazette.com/Archives/2004/01-15Sep04-Print-Edition/011509200402.htm). In both types of discourses, (Muslim) women are reduced to what they wear. For a critique of this in the context of Begum, see Mona Eltahawy, "Will a Muslim Woman Ever Be More Than What She Wears?" Muslim Wakeup, March 3, 2005, at www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2005/03/will-a-muslim-w.php.
49.
In online chat at IslamOnline.net.
50.
Bunting ("Hijack Averted") finds it intriguing . . . that Begum and her brother used Western concepts of individual human rights and choice to fight their case against the school and the local community. Traditionally, Islam has put a strong emphasis on conformity to the community’s rulings-the rights of the collective trump those of the individual-but the Begums were turning this on its head to argue against the majority. Expressing a widely held belief, Bunting reinforces the opposition between "Western" and "Islam" with her surprise that, qua her religion, Shabina Begum is naturally alien to individual human rights and choice. Here paradox is considered to be against the nature of things and so can be criticized on that basis. My point is that, on the contrary, paradox is inherent to the way in which Shabina Begum articulates the different discourses available to her; in short, if anything is "natural," it is paradox.
51.
For media discussions of the authority of the representations of Islam by the school and Shabina Begum, see Eltahawy, "Will a Muslim woman ever be more than what she wears?" Alam, "Style and Substance"; and the discussion at IslamOnline.net.
52.
E.g., in Begum HC (§15, my emphasis), the judge refers to the "independent advice" by the representatives.
53.
The process can be described in terms of the Derridean notion of iterability . Derrida, Limited Inc; and García Düttmann, Between Cultures, 84-95.
54.
Begum HC, §§37, 43; and Begum HL, §§5, 43, 74f; but see Begum HC, §2. In Begum HC (§12) and HL (§§4, 43, 74), they also highlight the fact that several of the school governors were Muslim.
55.
Begum HC, §67. See also Shabina Begum in Alam, "Style and Substance."
56.
Quoted in Alam, "Style and Substance."
57.
Begum HC, §84, no. 26. When pressed on the issue, Shabina Begum (in online chat at IslamOnline.net) is ambivalent about whether other forms of dress are good enough for Muslim women.
58.
Begum HC, Annex, no. 10.
59.
Ibid., §25. Notice the reference to "the Islamic dress code."
Ibid., §23. See Begum CA, §93, for a critique that the "school authorities . . . pick and choose between religious beliefs and shades of religious belief."
65.
Begum HC, Annex §11.
66.
Ibid., §§3, 25.
67.
Note that the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 9 (1) stipulates a right "to change [one’s] religion or belief." For a defense, in the context of Begum, of the view that agents develop over time and that the law must reflect this, see Sheldon Leader, "Freedom and Futures: Personal Priorities, Institutional Demands and Freedom of Religion," Modern Law Review 70, no. 5 (2007): 713-30.
68.
Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition"; and Galeotti, Toleration as Recognition. Critically Markell, Bound by Recognition; Povinelli, "The State of Shame"; Brown, States of Injury, chaps. 3 and 5; Lois McNay, Against Recognition (Cambridge: Polity, 2008); Kelly Oliver, Witnessing: Beyond Recognition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001); and Drucilla Cornell and Sara Murphy, "Anti-racism, Multiculturalism and the Ethics of Identification," Philosophy & Social Criticism 28, no. 4 (2002): 419-49. Their differences notwithstanding, these authors stress the power relations involved in recognition, including the ways in which recognition itself helps reproduce these power relations. My aim has been to stress that this is not the whole story.
69.
Lasse Thomassen , "The Inclusion of the Other? Habermas and the Paradox of Tolerance", Political Theory34, no. 4 (2006): 439-62.
70.
Jacques Derrida, "Hospitality," The Derrida-Habermas Reader, ed. Lasse Thomassen, trans. Barry Stocker and Forbes Morlock( Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 208-30.
71.
Christoph Menke, Reflections of Equality, trans. Howard Rouse and Andrei Denejkine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006); and Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy , trans. Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).
72.
Markell, Bound by Recognition, 188.
73.
William E. Connolly , The Ethos of Pluralization ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), chap. 6. This is analogous to Markell’s proposal to multiply the sites of political recognition in order to weaken the reproduction of the sovereignty of the state through recognition (Bound by Recognition, 188f). I would insist, though, that sovereignty, power and inequality cannot be done away with, only negotiated differently.
