Non-documentary burqa pictures on the internet: Ambivalence and the politics of representation.  

Oleh:

Rantanen, Pekka

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: International Journal of Cultural Studies vol. 8 no. 3 (Aug. 2005), page 329.
Topik: ambivalence ; body ; Islam ; West
Fulltext: 329.pdf (318.04KB)

Isi artikel

The article analyses non-documentary burqa pictures that have been published on the internet. A burqa is understood in the article to mean a cloak that has a mesh for seeing through and covers almost all of the woman’s body. The burqa is a specific form of veiling, but is distinctly different from most of the other forms of head cover or female dress in Muslim cultures. Pictures of burqas can be found on the internet especially in relation to the defeated Taliban regime of Afghanistan. However, the spectrum of pictures of burqas on the internet is wider than this. The article discusses whether the images reproduce the burqa as a symbol of women’s oppression and subordination and how such meanings are made with the pictorial material. The article focuses on examining non-documentary pictures from such perspectives as representations of the body and relations between the East and the West. The reason for choosing these themes is that whereas the documentary pictures of the burqa on the internet make the body simultaneously nearly invisible, but significant, many of the non-documentary pictures of burqas create an intertextual setting for the pictorial analysis and make the body an object of significance. The embodiment in the pictures of burqas can be interpreted within the context of western gender discourse, to which the concealing burqa is in a troubled relationship. Although the pictures of burqas easily symbolically maintain categorical conceptions of women’s subordination, non-documentary pictures are used in order to criticize western politics and their use of cultural stereotypes. Such pictures are ambivalent and this makes their absolute interpretation troubled, although the symbolism of subordination associated with the burqa may remain unchanged. Unresolved ambivalence of representations opens, however, a space for critical questioning of cultural stereotypes.

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