Throughout paper. 1 page

Unveiling the global spectacle: Difference, identity and community

Astrid Kersten∗ and Christine Abbott

La Roche College, 9000 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

(Received 20 May 2011; final version received 26 May 2012)

This paper analyzes the ‘seeing’ of difference, and its relation to identity and community. It argues that Western images of the Other are part of an obfuscating global spectacle and it explores ways in which this spectacle manipulates and diverts our perceptions of difference, obscures social and political contradictions, and blinds us to the possibilities of an inclusive, democratic and pluralistic society. By examining the complex ways in which vision and identity are shaped by social narrative and esthetic cravings, we show how traditional views of identity and community can be altered for the better by interrogating and reimagining visions of self and Other.

Keywords: ideology; spectacle; diversity; identity; culture; inclusion

The challenge for [Organization Theory] is to peer beneath the inter-spectacle veil of promised utopia to fashion democratic and ecological ethics. (David M. Boje 2001)

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions – everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses. (Juvenal, Satire 10.77 – 81)

To walk through the marketplace of any major city is to experience globalization from a sensory perspective, one that combines the rich smells, sights, sounds and textures of culturally diverse foods, objects and adornments. On the surface, this exquisite blend of artifacts reflects a seductive image of global social and cultural unity, an image that manipulates basic human desires for beauty, connection and possession. Under- stood as spectacle, however, the image of the global marketplace effectively obscures the exploitative relations required for its existence. It wants to make its rapt audience – and those clamoring for audience seats – forget that this world of marketplace abun- dance exists only within its privileged symbolic and physical boundaries, leaving the rest of the world depleted and deprived.

Most often associated with the work of Debord (1983), the concept of the spectacle emphasizes the way in which social images not only reflect existing norms and beliefs, but also operate politically to reinforce existing social relations and structures of power: ‘the most important role of the spectacle is obfuscation . . . encouraging passivity and consumerism’ (Markovitz 2011, 4). Thus, like the Roman circuses of old, the

ISSN 1475-9551 print/ISSN 1477-2760 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2012.705532 http://www.tandfonline.com

∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Culture and Organization Vol. 18, No. 4, September 2012, 323 – 335

purpose of spectacle is to redirect citizens’ attention from structural inequalities to spec- tacular events designed to subdue social criticism.

The spectacle of globalization – with its image of the marketplace and supporting storylines, like liberty and justice for all – functions to mask ongoing exclusion, oppression and exploitation. It uses constructed differences among people (the indus- trious rich vs. the lazy poor; the ‘developed “first” world’ vs. the ‘underdeveloped “third” world’) for its naturalization and justification. The spectacle’s ubiquity is also its power, for it moves almost invisibly between the world of culture and the world of nature, slowly weaving a cultural fabric of ‘common sense’ that presents corporately narrated and politically legitimated storylines as genuine descriptions of the world. In this sense, ideology works a powerful alchemy. It has the ability to turn something natural into something artificial and then code that reversal as ‘common sense’ – creat- ing a new natural, as it were. ‘The spectacle’s storylines and images of popular culture proscribe a philosophy of progressive life and work that makes the inter-spectacle organization forms seem “common sense”’ (Boje 2001, 2).

Human beings are vulnerable to the currents and influences of these narratives and images, and over time, the ‘spectacle storylines and images of popular culture’ have the ability to put us to sleep (Boje 2001, 10). As Debord describes it, ‘[t]he spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains and ultimately expresses nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep’ (Debord 1983, 12). While this propensity for sleep has always been a barrier to human growth and evolution, remaining asleep at this particular juncture in human history is to put all earthly life at risk – literally and figuratively.

Rather than focusing on all of society as spectacle, this paper uses the concept to explain how social images and events are ‘spectacularized’ (Markovitz 2011, 4) and to critically analyze its ‘contested terrain’ (Kellner 2005). To expose the social and pol- itical contradictions spectacle is designed to obscure, we seek to disrupt the contempor- ary spectacle of globalization, a masterful, enticing, distracting construction that forms and manipulates both our gaze and concept of the Other. To wake up the spectator – and break the spell of the global spectacle – requires that we open our eyes to a more critical understanding of globalization. We must be prepared, however, for a rude awakening. The actual process of socially and structurally integrating cultures and differences is jarringly different from the ‘beautiful’ spectacle of food, music and dance. We must explore the tensions between our varied visions of diversity and uniformity, difference and sameness, inclusion and exclusion, and identity and control. By exploring the ways in which ideology mediates these tensions, it is possible to deconstruct the spectacle and investigate the struggles it conceals.

Human beings have a long history of simply obliterating that which is different, but how we see difference – how we construct ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ – is often rooted in fear, a fear that is neither reflected upon nor discussed. This paper analyzes the ‘seeing’ of difference, and its relation to identity and community. It explores ways in which Western images of the Other are part of an obfuscating global spectacle, manip- ulating and diverting our perceptions of difference and blinding us to the possibilities of an inclusive, democratic and pluralistic society.

Liberating ourselves from the spectacle requires that we understand how Otherness is culturally coded and socially deployed. Because so much of identity perception oper- ates unconsciously, a critical deconstruction of cultural images and narratives is needed to bring this process into awareness. To do this, the paper examines the complex ways in which vision and identity are shaped by social narrative and esthetic cravings (Kateb

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2000, 2006a, 2006b), and how alternative views of identity and community (Benhabib 2002; Maalouf 2000; Zolberg and Woon 1999) can alter our vision. In this article, we want to show some specific ways in which we can become more conscious of the process of seeing; the ways in which what we see either aids or undercuts human under- standing; the complex consequences of constructed vision; and, perhaps most impor- tantly, ways to generate and enact alternative ways of seeing and being.

Because all of us are caught up in a spectacle, because our own experiences are also shaped by ideology, and because our vision too is distorted, it is essential that we reflect on everyday perceptions and constructions. In this article, we use the controversial example of the hijab – the ‘veil’ or headscarf – that has become ‘the single, all-con- suming image, word and concept’ representing Muslim women in the West (Tarlo 2010, 2). We use the hijab not to present an argument for or against its wearing, but because we view it as a prime example of spectacle. In its media representation as a dark, austere and uniform image of the Islamic Other, the hijab has come to symbolize much of the current social tensions around identity and inclusion in the West. As Tarlo observes, the image ‘functions as some sort of visual shorthand for “lack of integration” or threat . . . [feeding] fear of otherness’ (103). Furthermore, the spectacularization of the hijab ‘has produced large areas of collective visual and conceptual blindness’ (Tarlo 2010, 4) contributing to oppositional stereotypes and negative perceptions. We use a number of different examples related to the way hijabs are perceived and con- structed in everyday life to demonstrate the role spectacle plays in contemporary culture, to show how vision is diverted by spectacle, and to highlight the role critical vision can play to interrupt the spectacle.

Seeing difference: on (not) seeing the other

Perceptual struggles around identity and control are taking place all over the world. In the US, tensions around immigration and border patrol are giving new life to old debates around race, ethnicity and representation. In Europe, the unifying effects of the EU are counteracted by frictions around cultural identity, tolerance and national self-determination. In Asia, new conflicts have emerged not only around religion, poli- tics and national identity, but also around basic issues of economic and political survi- val. These contests are mirrored in the rest of the world and are accompanied by widespread concerns about terrorism, political antagonism, economic viability and the environment.

Globally, we wrestle with the question of who and what we are, collectively and individually. What defines identity, and what determines citizenship, rights, partici- pation and survival? At the national level, we struggle with how far we can or want to go in incorporating the ‘Other’ without losing our sense of cultural identity and self. At the individual level, our sense of self is often challenged as we confront an ever-changing world. Organizations have become a primary site in which all of these questions are confronted on a daily basis. In the workplace, the macro-level forces of globalization link with the micro-level challenges to integrate difference, be that difference in culture, dress, lifestyle, thought, religion or approaches to work itself. At each of these levels, our sense-making process is shaped by symbols, images and narratives.

In Western society today, there is probably no better symbol to illustrate ideological and cultural contestation than our perception of the Islamic Other. The spectacle known as ‘Islamophobia’ is a widespread but under-recognized Western narrative that projects

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Islam as ‘a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change’ (Runnymede Trust 1997). Within the spectacle, Muslims and Westerners are portrayed as ‘separate and “other”’. Islam is seen as not having ‘values in common with other cultures’, as ‘inferior . . . barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist’ as well as ‘violent, aggressive, [and] threatening’. Western hostility towards Islam continues ‘to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and to exclude Muslims from mainstream society’. In fact, too often anti-Muslim prejudice is not recognized as an enactment of this ideological narrative; instead it is perceived as a ‘natural or normal’ interpretation of contemporary Islamic life and values (Runnymede Trust 1997).

In the European context, Islamophobia clashes with images of EU tolerance. Simi- larly, in the US, the narrative that produces Islamophobia sharply contrasts with the ‘official’ narrative of American pluralism. As articulated passionately by then President Bush (2002),

America rejects bigotry. We reject every act of hatred against people of Arab background or Muslim faith . . . America values and welcomes peaceful people of all faiths – Chris- tian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and many others. Every faith is practiced and protected here, because we are one country.

This shining image of equality and opportunity serves to conceal the inequalities and tensions churning beneath.

While the image of equality and its functions have long-standing roots in US culture, noticeable changes have occurred over time and many of these were the result of media-driven spectacles. Marvasti and McKinney (2004) note that in the US, after September 11, there were two notable cultural effects produced by dominant media constructions: first, the minimization of internal differences within American identity and, second, the magnification of differences between a newly configured ‘us’ and those ‘Middle Eastern outsiders’ (75). Suddenly, Americans were portrayed as unified, no longer separated by race and class, but sharing a common experience and identity. Unfortunately, this so-called unity grew out of both the traumatic experi- ence of September 11 and a newly constructed common enemy: Islamic terrorism.

Effective intercultural discourse requires that people struggle for a heightened and collectively considered consciousness that has been trained to scrutinize images of self and Other. Without this struggle, we tend to see the cultural Other as absolutely differ- ent – a position from which another human being can be constructed as ‘the person (object) who can be treated in any manner – with an unlimited degree of hostility and brutality’ (Ani, quoted in Marvasti and McKinney 2004, 83). This dehumanizing process can be compared to a ‘cortical cataract’ that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. When we internalize a self-righteous hatred of perceived enemies, we come to view them as deserving of torment, torture and even annihilation. Today in the US, even so-called mistakes like racial profiling are conveniently blamed on those suffering their effect: ‘the unfortunate and unintended consequence of a community being constantly under the threat of out- siders . . . [is] not laid at the feet of hysterical community members or overzealous law enforcement, but blamed on evil outsiders’ (Marvasti and McKinney 2004, 82). Inci- dents like the prison abuse in Abu Graib, the indefinite detention of Arab people in ‘the new war prison’ (Butler 2004, 99) and, most recently, the Marine abuse of Taliban corpses, provide sad but clear examples of the destructive effects of such images.

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To interrupt this spectacle, we need to ask those questions ‘the voices of authority [are] not asking’ (Zinn 2003, 31). In our case, it seems valid to ask how the hijab – the Islamic headscarf or ‘veil’ – has become such a prominent symbol of the Islamic other, and an issue of contention and discomfort in much of the Western world. The conflict first came to a head in France in 2004 with a ban on ‘conspicuous signs’ of religious affiliation in public schools, a ban that was focused particularly on hijab wearing by school girls. Similar bans have been proposed (and some enacted) in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and there have been and con- tinue to be many instances of conflict over the hijab in organizations, both in Europe and the US.

To perceive the hijab with Western eyes is to see not only difference but a difference that is loaded with symbolic and political meaning. The hijab is ‘sticky’, to use Ahmed’s (2004) term, and this quality makes it particularly well suited to cultural pro- jection through spectacle. At one level, it is simply a headscarf, a small piece of cloth with a long history dating back to Judaic, pre-Christian female garb that finds contem- porary expression in many different cultures and religions, including the Catholic scarf, the Jewish skullcap and the Eastern European babushka. At another level, the hijab as worn by Islamic women today connotes to the Western eye female inequality, gender- based segregation, resistance to modernity, and of course, Islam – and the many emotional, fear-laden responses that have come to be connected with it. Instead of being seen as a relatively benign element of the female esthetic, the hijab is positioned as strange, dark, uniform and ugly and, more disturbingly, as a threat to freedom.

The ‘stickiness’ of the hijab becomes even more clear when we follow its links to identity construction and contestation. How we see self and Other are key elements of identity and difference, and the first component of identity construction is the social production of self – a shaping of identity, values and esthetics that occurs initially within our family and socio-cultural group. In a multi-cultural society, this process becomes more complicated because mainstream identity can and often does conflict with non-mainstream identities, something we explore in this paper through selected examples.

Whereas the hijab should be understood in the complex context of individual and collective identity, politics, ideology, religion and esthetics, ‘[r]epresentations of Muslim women are dominated by one single all-consuming image, word and concept – the veil’ (Tarlo 2010, 2). In fact, the hijab often functions as an element in the expression of individual identity, as Tarlo notes: ‘far from promoting an image of dull uniformity, the headscarf is often the most self-consciously elaborated element of an outfit . . . [it is a] new form of Muslim personal art . . . the aesthetic focal point on a young woman’s appearance’ (Tarlo 2010, 1). The popular, and we argue that the spectacularized, image of the hijab, however, is very different. Confus- ingly referred to as ‘the veil’, a word that adds colonial, exotic and other connotations to an already murky field, the popular image of the hijab conflates such varied gar- ments as niqabs, burkas, jilbabs and hijabs1 into one, dark, uniform symbol that oblit- erates both the variety and the varied esthetics that figure into contemporary hijab wearing (Guindi 1999; Tarlo 2010). In this ideological remaking, the veil becomes a spectacularized image that deliberately places the Islamic other on the outside, as that which cannot be integrated into the ‘happy’ global marketplace. Muslim women have been and continue to be manipulated and disempowered in the hijab debate by both sides, and without critical vision, hijab-as-spectacle will be nearly impossible to interrupt.

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The media controversy that erupted in Great Britain in 2006 offers a viable example of this spectacle-making process. When Labour MP and cabinet minister Jack Straw published a column to voice his discomfort with the niqabs worn by members of his local constituency in Blackburn, Northern England, he explained that when Muslim women came to see him ‘conversation would be of greater value if the lady took the covering from her face’. For Straw, when Muslim women insist upon wearing the full veil, it is bound ‘to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult’ because it is ‘such a visible statement of separation and difference’ (Straw 2006, October). Straw’s remarks caused instant media response, with every British newspaper transforming his comments into a single command: ‘Take off your veil!’ Accompanying this media spectacle were pictures of darkly veiled Muslim women and heated debates on both sides:

Suddenly, the minority practice of face veiling had become the carrier of the nation’s ills. Everything from education, multiculturalism, security, and the law seemed to hinge on this piece of flimsy fabric which was presented as the ultimate symbol of the incompat- ibility of Muslim and Western ideals. (Tarlo 2010, 145)

Because spectacle employs cultural narrative to achieve its purposes, teaching our- selves to read against the grain of spectacle-driven stories is a vital component of sus- tained critical reflection.

From early childhood, dominant cultural narratives are woven into our sense of self and Other, and these stories intertwine with images to become ‘systems of ideas’ that order and rationalize both individual and cultural life. Through narration, symbolism and affective engagement, we are seduced into conflating stories and ‘reality’, and the seductive risk is especially high once we have bought into an image of the Other as a dangerous enemy. The spectacularized image becomes so emotionally charged that it is nearly impossible to see beyond this image to the real people it serves to obscure. The chief challenge in working through our understanding of cultural differences rests in being able to acknowledge and resist the powerful influence of ideological indoctrination, especially when it is contained and promoted in spectacles like the one described above.

Seeing difference: beauty and the beastly other

As people, we make reality meaningful to ourselves through stories and images. Nar- rative imagery, however, is not only creative and constructive; it is also ideological in that it shapes our desires, our identity and our understanding of what is right, proper and good. When narrative images move from explanatory descriptions of the world to esthetic images of what the world ‘should’ be, however, they become seductive, con- trolling and suspect because they draw upon our ethnocentric tendencies to normalize and idealize our version of the world. Kateb (2000, 2006a ) explains that people’s ten- dencies to elevate one culture over another, to impose their own traditions on those of others, and to destroy entire societies and peoples labeled ‘other’ are not just esthetic images; they are ‘esthetic cravings’ and these behaviors permeate human history. When we preserve and advance a distinct group identity (be it tribe, race or nation) as an end in itself, it is done in the name of these cravings, whether we are aware of the nature and dangers of the process or not.

People seek to satisfy esthetic cravings because we long for beauty, certainty and meaningfulness. Human history is replete with familiar examples of the collective

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conviction that people should look a certain way and behave in a given manner: the Nazi Holocaust, ‘American exceptionalism’, the Rwandan genocide, the Crusades, and so on. Esthetic cravings not only shape our judgment of others, but also our per- ception of ourselves. Our convictions tell us that our group identity has a distinctive shape and form, that all of its traits and qualities fit together in a unique or even superior style, and that our familiar customs, practices, institutions and arrangements are pleasing and well formed. When something does not fit the esthetic image, we work to make it fit. One example of this forced-fit became national news in the US when two young women wearing hijab were asked not to sit behind Barack Obama ‘during a televised speech because of the “sensitive political climate”’ (Norman 2008). The women in question were born in the US and had traveled to downtown Detroit to cheer personally for then Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama. While the Obama campaign issued a formal apology when the incident was reported, one wonders how ‘lowly campaign workers’ had the power to decide that ‘Muslim head scarves weren’t ready for prime time with Barack Obama’. It is also interesting to note the differences between the Jack Straw and the Obama incidents. While the Jack Straw media controversy worked to amplify a sense of Otherness in Great Britain, the Obama incident worked in the opposite direction, making some people stop and question which esthetic images of US society are and are not accep- table and why.

Whereas everyday life is often contradictory and chaotic, our esthetic cravings promise coherence, connection, direction and, ultimately, a sense of ‘beautiful consist- ency’ so often lacking in everyday life (Arendt quoted in Kateb 2006a, 351). No matter how comfortable and comforting these images may appear, in reality they are often divisive and dangerous. When applied to social reality, esthetic cravings can only be satisfied when we mold the world to fit with our esthetic ideal. We fall back on esthetic cravings, according to Kateb, when we want the world to be ‘one way rather than any other’, when we insist it be ‘beautiful rather than not’ at whatever cost (Kateb 2000, 16). Whereas satisfied cravings offer immense satisfaction, unsatisfied cravings are often pursued relentlessly and without mercy.

The frequently unconscious nature of esthetic cravings adds one more layer of com- plexity. Not only are cravings often not recognized as esthetic (i.e. as the desire for form, coherence, security, etc.), they are often presented and justified as something else: tradition, the common good, the search for truth or the will of God. Within this yearning to make the world look ‘right’, lurks a familiar human passion that imagines it is possible to compel the world to make a single perfect sense, if one only applies enough force and finesse.

Kateb notes that the unconscious and uncontrolled aspect of esthetic craving is the most problematic: ‘Armed and aroused, belief can be merciless because the meaning- fulness of the world is at stake’ (Kateb 2006a, 395). When we fail to reflect on the life we are living and on the possibility of alternatives, moral blindness ensues. This blindness has two components. First is our characteristic ‘inability to grant that others are as real as [we] are’, our failure to grant that ‘everyone is as real to himself and herself as one is to oneself’ (Kateb 2006b, 400). The second component is found in our inability to notice sufficiently ‘the overall policy that enfolds one’s own small contribution to it’ (Kateb 2006b, 400). In other words, we are blind to the way in which our own little piece of life contributes to the maintenance of the whole, the way in which structures of exclusion are built on an accretion of small exclusionary acts.

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Seeing difference: art, interruption and critical vision

Art offers us one way to begin to see how esthetic craving operate in everyday life and, beyond that, a way to break through the moral blindness and regain our vision. In this sense, art can serve as an intervention, as a way to disrupt the spectacle and allow the viewer to reconsider how he or she views conventional reality. Here, we will look at two pieces of art, designed to interrupt the spectacularization of the hijab.

A first example is Xavi Sala’s Hijab in Europe, a compelling short film which won the Best Narrative Short at the 2008 Fargo Film Festival (Hijab in Europe 2005). In a mere 8 minutes, the film explores issues of tolerance, difference and power, focusing on dominant cultural constructions of beauty and propriety, and the destructive conse- quences of such constructions for minority identity.

The film opens in the middle of a hallway exchange between a school principal and a student, Fatima, a young Muslim teenager who is entering midterm. In the exchange, we see Fatima being persuaded by the principal to remove her hijab before entering the classroom. Assuming Fatima will want to fit in with her peers, the principal tries assorted appeals to conformity: ‘Can’t you see how the others dress . . . have you seen anyone else wear it?’ Fatima’s responses, however, are based in identity, rather than conformity. She says, ‘But I am Muslim . . . I just don’t see myself without [the hijab]’. The principal not only denies the validity of Fatima’s identity claim but reposi- tions it as a cultural threat, saying, ‘I am Catholic, what’s the difference? . . . Imagine if all of us dressed in our religion . . . our freedom would go down the drain’. The scene escalates as the principal betrays her negative assumptions about Islamic life by asking: ‘Do your parents beat you if you don’t wear it?’ When Fatima responds, ‘My parents don’t want me to wear it’, the principal is visibly surprised. Moving swiftly to another tactic, she cajols Fatima: ‘You’d be much prettier without it’, and when that does not work, she grasps for another: ‘You don’t want to be the weird one in the class’. Finally, Fatima responds to the principal’s barrage by hesitantly unwinding her hijab and enter- ing the classroom. In the provocative closing scene, we see the classroom through Fatima’s eyes as she scans the room only to recognize all kinds of ‘weirdness’: head scarves, headbands, kuffiyahs, hats, caps, hair spikes, piercings and more. Along with Fatima, we are left to wonder why, among all this difference, only Fatima’s differ- ence, the wearing of the hijab, is made to appear ‘strange’.

The guerilla street artist known as ‘Princess Hijab’ uses a different approach to her interrogation of what gets culturally coded as normal or strange. Based in Paris, the artist uses fat, black paint markers to put hijabs and niqabs on the barely clad beauty icons featured in subways ads (Chrisafis 2010; Sandels 2009). Like Adbusters, this interventionist art work seeks to interrupt the spectacle of capitalist and sexist advertis- ing. The unique feature of ‘Princess Hijab’s’ work is that the ‘subverting visuals’ are placed in direct ‘opposition to a Western style advertising format, with its images of scantily clad women and underweight men and women used to sell anything from deo- dorant to coffee’ (Sandels 2009). A related piece of artwork features three smiling women in a blue, a white and a red hijab, challenging the viewer to explore the limits of French identity.

The desire to construct reality according to one particular esthetic – in Sala’s film, the principal’s desire not to see hijabs in her school, and in Princess Hijab’s work, the so-called unadulterated image of advertising – creates a politics in which esthetic ideals become disconnected from morality, and ends can be made to justify means. Such a politics seeks to blur the distinctions between personal preference, official policies,

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operational necessity and more. In this sense, it is interesting to compare France’s pas- sionately argued and legally supported prohibition against hijab wearing in schools with Great Britain’s approach, wherein some schools have started to include standard issue hijabs and shalwar kamiz in the school uniform code (News 2006). An additional factor in the esthetic, and one that both shapes and extends beyond issues of clothing and uniform, is created by tolerance, functioning both as a Western, self-conscious nar- rative image and as public performance (i.e. spectacle).

Both Sala’s and Princess Hijab’s art pieces potentially work on the moral blindness issues Kateb identifies. By making visible the experience of the other they restore our ability to grant ‘realness’ to the other, and by forefronting the dramatic impact of every- day reactions they allow us to being to see our own role in creating – and dismantling – structures and processes of exclusion.

Seeing difference: seeing beyond the spectacle

So far we have explored what we argue are spectacled images of self and the Other, and we have analyzed the varied ways these images combine to create a particular sense of reality – esthetically, culturally and politically. At this point, we want to explore an alternate way of seeing difference, one that begins by interrogating ‘tolerance’, a key component of both European and American visions of a diverse society. Wallach Scott (2007) notes that ‘tolerance implies distaste . . . for those who are tolerated’ (19), a limited and limiting position when it comes to creating inclusive community. Much like Kateb and Arendt, Wallach Scott would have us question ‘the certainty and superiority of our own views’. Rather than working on tolerance and assimilation, she suggests that we ‘think about the negotiation of difference’ in order to ask: ‘how can individuals and groups with different interests live together? Is it possible to think about difference non-hierarchically? On what common ground can difference be negotiated?’ (Wallach Scott 2007, 20).

In Wallach Scott’s context, the way we see ‘community’ is vital to the way we see ‘difference’. Contrary to popular conception, thinking of community as ‘shared essence or common being’ does not enhance discussion; in fact, presupposing sameness becomes ‘the closure of the political’ (Wallach Scott, 20). Focusing on commonality directs attention to existing constructs, inclusions and exclusions. But what if our differ- ences are the single shared essence that is ‘common to us all’? Wallach Scott uses Nancy’s phrase ‘being-in-common’ to affirm not only that ‘we all exist’ but that our very existence is ‘defined by our difference from others’ (20).

To explore what ‘being-in-common’ might look like, we turn to Maalouf’s (2000) idea that all of us have multiple identities that are engaged by our shared affiliations of gender, race, class, culture, and more. Maalouf writes, ‘I possess a certain kinship with a large number of my fellow human beings, but because of all these allegiances, taken together, I possess my own identity, completely different from any other’ (19 – 20). For Maalouf, it is possible both to ‘declare one’s ties with one’s fellow human beings and [to] assert one’s own uniqueness’ (20). The struggles involved in this process, however, can be extraordinarily complex, especially when individual identity choices merge and collide with definitions of self that have been imposed upon us by others.

To further examine these issues, Maalouf juxtaposes two possible images of com- munity, one with innate and definitive differences – ‘the same since the dawn of history’ – and a counter image that incorporates the inherent complexity of identity and community (Maalouf 2000, 21). When a narrow view of identity is used to classify

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individuals based on a single affiliation, it often results in sectarian and intolerant cul- tures. In fact, we saw the results of single affiliations in our exploration of Western depictions of the hijab. A broader, more complex view of identity recognizes that everyone’s identity is ‘made up of a number of allegiances, some linked to an ethnic past and others not, some linked to a religious tradition, and others not’ (Maalouf 2000, 31). When we also realize there are many ‘different mixtures and influences’ in the life of a single individual, ‘some of them quite subtle or even incompatible with one another’, these recognitions can help us enter into ‘a different relationship both with other people and with one’s own “tribe”’ (Maalouf 2000, 31).

In order for this more complex view of self and others to work, we do need critical self-reflectiveness. First and foremost, we must acknowledge that ‘[t]here is a Mr. Hyde inside each one of us’ (Maalouf 2000, 28), someone ready to judge, condemn, separate, segregate, exclude, and worse, and recognize that for each of us, we need only the ‘right’ conditions to call forth this monster. Second, we must be willing to explore, col- lectively, questions of identity and community. Zolberg and Woon (1999) observe that some groups are constructed as ‘similar to us’, while others are seen as ‘negative’ groups, not suitable for membership. Thus, social processes of integration, incorpor- ation, assimilation and absorption raise two central questions: ‘How different can we afford to be?’ and ‘How alike must we be?’ (Zolberg and Woon 1999, 8). These are not predetermined positions, but negotiated issues that involve the dialectics of collec- tive identity formation (Zolberg and Woon 1999). Boundaries between ‘self’ and ‘others’ are reconstructed, shifted and changed as part of these negotiations in order to determine ‘who we are’ at any given moment. Obviously, this process is ongoing.

The reconstruction of identity may occur through boundary crossing, blurring and/ or shifting (Zolberg and Woon 1999). Boundary crossing is individual and happens when new immigrants learn the language of the host country or adopt local dress forms, e.g. when Muslim women moving to the West stop wearing hijabs, or when Western women begin wearing hijabs. Boundary blurring occurs when the host country changes its practices, for instance, through allowing dual nationality or by for- mally recognizing other languages or religions. Clearly, France’s ban on hijabs resists such blurring while legal protection of hijab wearing in the US facilitates it. Boundary shifting takes the process one step further through the ‘reconstruction of a group’s iden- tity, whereby the line differentiating members from non-members is relocated, either in the direction of inclusion or exclusion’ (Zolberg and Woon 1999, 9). The issue of boundary shifting is at the heart of both the current US debate regarding immigration and the European debate around national vs. EU vs. ‘immigrant’ identity.

As separate but connected processes of negotiation, boundary crossing, blurring and shifting involve both host and newcomer in relations of power. These relations can be advanced or resisted by both sides, and they unfold differently and unevenly in dissim- ilar societies at various points in time. One illustration of this blurring has been visible in the varied responses to Islam in the US vs. Europe – while both regions struggle with fears and phobias, the US is more comfortable in dealing with religious than linguistic differences, whereas the situation in the EU is somewhat reversed. Nonetheless, bound- ary movement is evident everywhere and negotiation is a much needed, difficult, but necessary relational process (Zolberg and Woon 1999, 20).

However incongruous it may seem, cultures are constituted through contested prac- tices, and even more ironically, global integration proceeds alongside socio-cultural disintegration (Benhabib 2002). As more connections are made, there are also more dis- connects. The charged nature of this widespread (and little acknowledged)

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contradiction has escalated in the past decade, propelling struggles of cultural identity to the forefront of political discourse (Benhabib 2002, viii). We are who we are, not independent of others, but only in relationship with them, through our membership in shared social and linguistic communities, and attempts to resuscitate and maintain notions of cultural purity are not a helpful part of this picture. Social practices of rec- ognition are essential to the formation (or malformation) of the Self, and democratic inclusion, justice, and cultural fluidity have become key components of contemporary democracy.

Further complicating this self-identifying process is that the search for cultural iden- tity recognition on the part of some creates conflict with the rights of others, especially when the issue is equal dignity. A typical example can be seen in the conflict that arises when one culture’s perception of women’s rights is opposed by the actual rights pro- vided by the larger social framework within which that culture exists. Current debates around the form, content and conditions for the education for Muslim girl chil- dren from traditional eastern cultures, living in northern Europe, show the complexity of this process. Rather than suggesting that society must respect all people’s absolute claim to authenticity, Benhabib argues for a politics of recognition that accepts the ‘fluidity, porousness, and essential contestability of all cultures’ (68). She notes that membership in a particular culture or group does not predetermine one’s identity. Iden- tity is dynamic and expressed through the individual, who should have the right to make choices about what identity or culture s/he chooses to maintain. However, instead of groups separately defining who and what they are, the question must be brought back to the collective. Instead of leading to cultural separatism or balkanization, we must ‘initiate critical dialogue and reflection in public life about the very identity of the collectivity itself’ (70). It is through such dialogue and reflection that the ‘inevitable and problematic interdependence of images and conceptions of self and other are brought to light’ leading to ‘the reflexive reconstitution of collective identities’ (70).

Conclusion

As globalization proceeds, we continue to struggle with the authentic integration of difference. This integration requires that we move away from the spectacle of the Other and find a new sense of community. Acknowledging and ‘tolerating’ differences of culture, dress, and lifestyle is not the same as actually honoring and enfolding these differences into community. We need to release the image that successful communities are those that have ‘melted’ their differences into one happy pot. ‘Without community there is no liberation’ writes Lorde (1984),

only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppres- sion. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pre- tense that these differences do not exist . . . It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. (112)

The challenge then becomes for us to reconstruct our sense of community into one that can truly incorporate difference. Along with Marvasti and McKinney (2004), we suggest ‘that if one sense of community can be constructed, so could another. That is, community does not have to have a single definition and entail exclusionary prac- tices’ (84). In a global context, this definition makes clear that it is not enough to merely embrace an image of diversity as plurality (Eck 2006). Much like our

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opening vision of the marketplace, to define plurality as mere observable difference – ‘splendid, colorful, perhaps threatening’ – without asserting the necessity of concomi- tant meaningful engagement or relationship, does not constitute pluralism. True plural- ism requires ‘active engagement [with] diversity’ and knowledge, as well as acknowledgement that real differences exist and require civil ongoing dialogue to address (Eck 2006).

In this paper, we have suggested that becoming aware of our esthetic images and cravings is one move that can assist in the process of understanding self and Other; another is to search for alternative images, ones that contradict existing stereotypes and limitations. Using our example of the hijab, we deconstructed the existing picture of a strange, dark, uniform and threatening head dress – one that is often con- flated with images of niqabs, jilbabs and burkas – as an ideological spectacle, in order to reconstruct it as just one more expression of our collective identity, one more varied image of our collective self that embodies the rights we hold dear.

Today’s global and globalizing society presents a challenge to all of us – a chal- lenge that makes us question identity and community, inclusion and exclusion, self and Other. Often, our struggles with this challenge have not generated authentic knowl- edge; instead, they have been diverted by the circus of spectacularized images and stories. We get stuck in fears and in fantasies of the Other and as a result, we uncritically choose to separate and segregate. We sacrifice civil liberties, new relationships and higher conceptions of our individual and collective Self. We hope that in some small way, this paper contributes to interrupting that spectacle and to exploring new choices that will allow us ‘in unity, [to] turn to the hard ameliorating tasks of planetary citizenship and ecosanity’ (Gioseffi 1993, xii).

Note 1. Hijab: Islamic headscarf; Niqab: head covering that covers the face and hair, but not the

eyes; Burka: loose garment that covers all of the face and the body; Jilbab: outer garment that covers the entire body, except for hand, face and head; Shalwar kamiz: calf-length tunic and trousers; Kurta: loose, long shirt, knee length.

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