CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Esmaeili, Faezeh |
|---|---|
| Title | Refashioning the Hijab: Negotiating Public And Private Space In The Material And Virtual Worlds Of Iranian Woman |
| Summary | In this thesis, I explore the commodification of the hijab in Iran through the attempts of fashion designers who are forming a new and growing market for Islamic modesty dress to represent their designs and fashion merchandise in ‘public’ spaces. In particular, I focus on how these designers find ways to circumvent some of the state restrictions by using the virtual sphere, with a focus on how they focus their advertising in “counterpublics” which are in this case social media sites such as Instagram. These forms of media provide a special sphere in which individuals can display another part of their everyday life which they are not able to advertise or even exhibit in Iran’s ‘public’ spaces. The thesis examines the historical context and chronology of modesty-dress regulations and legislations by the Islamic state, and analyses the construction of illegality and how laws that limit and confuse the limits of modesty dress for women operate as part of the government’s use of power to establish order in society. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates how the government controls Iranian women in two ways: first the legal mandates on modesty dress follow the model of “technologies of power” as discussed by Foucault in his work on power - in this case literal state power to adapt laws to their needs; and secondly, the state polices the bodies of women through “technologies of the self” where women fear the undefined boundary of the law and thus self-police their dress as a means of trying not to break the laws. The emerging fashion designers that I discuss in the thesis find ways to actively circumvent these restrictions by using social media as a form of resistance, and also in terms of turning modesty-dress, which has long been a form of enforcement by the Iranian state into an object that can be commodified. My thesis provides a new way of exploring how young women – in this case fashion designers – challenge the state and the legislation put forward by the Iranian government that regulate their bodies by enforcing Islamic coverings in public spaces. |
| Supervisor | Nadia Jones Gailani |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/esmaeili_faezeh.pdf |
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