Volume 28, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2008
Jan M. Jans
Pages 25-43
Just a Piece of Cloth?
The European Debate on "the Islamic Headscarf" as a Case Study and Paradigm for an Emergent Intercultural Ethics
The point of departure for this essay is a fourfold classification emerging from the European debate on the religious and ethical significance of the so-called Islamic headscarf, also known as hijab. Plurality promises a positive engagement in mapping multiculturalism toward intercultural dialogue and understanding. With a paradigm of an emergent intercultural ethics, the public leadership assumed by women in this debate testifies to the creativity by which imposed patterns of behavior are turned into strategies of resistance and liberation.