French North African self-representation: visibility in layers and shades

Abstract

The antagonism around questions of conflicting customs of French secularism and Muslim traditions has regularly been re-ignited with political debates on the veil in public spaces since 2010 and the tragic events of 2015 in Paris. In this article French North African women’s own interpretation of their identity is termed ‘cultural layers and historical shades’. The works of writer Nina Bouraoui and graffiti artist Princess Hijab interact with competing cultural codes and create a new identitarian dynamics based not on clearly defined binaries of postcolonial concepts of Self and Other but on layers and shades. The aim of this article is less to focus on the challenges of such dynamics as elements to be resolved as it is to shed light on the ingenuity and originality of Bouraoui’s and Princess Hijab’s artistic interpretations of the veil as a point of contention. It uses translation theory to examine their renewed vision of ‘recognition’ subsequent to the ephemerality and fluidity of their cultural identity and its consequential vulnerability to misrecognition.