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“Hijab Is My Identity”: Beyond the Politics of the Veil: The Appropriations of the Veil in an Inner-City Muslim Area of Accra (Ghana) since the 1980s

Abstract:The object of this ethnographic study is to assess the contemporary debates surrounding the veil (hijab) and the cultural reinterpretation of the hair in Maamobi, an inner-city Muslim area of Accra, Ghana. Instead of reproducing the Orientalists’ view of the veil as oppressive to women in Islam, the paper analyses the significance of the veil and its appropriation within the Islamic faith in recent times. I maintain that in the midst of religious plurality and the widespread perception of a fast-declining morality in urban Accra, the “traditional” role of women as gatekeepers of religious values has been refashioned in the veil debate. This study is based on my position as a resident of Maamobi for more than three decades as well as twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in 2018 and 2019 to discuss the history and social use of the veil from the 1980s to contemporary times.