Religión y espacio público: el conflicto en torno a la regulación del velo integral islámico

Abstract

This article focuses on the rising controversies about religious symbols, in particular the debates about the prohibition of the Islamic full-face veil (burka, niqab) in public space. Starting from the case of a Catalan city, we examine the sources of this controversy at the local level and analyze the discourses mobilized by different actors in the field. Through the empirical analysis, we scrutinize how discourses on religious freedom and secularity are articulated with particular notions of public space to frame this specific conflict. The analysis shows that the rise and the evolution of these controversies must be situated beyond the religious-secular binary, and that this confrontation cannot simply be read as a consequence of a presumed opposition between Islam and the secular state. Therefore, while the majority of existing studies examines the (lack of) compatibility of the full-face veil with certain concepts of secularity, we show that different concepts about public space and its uses are a much more promising starting point for understanding conflicts about face-veiling.