The burqa debate is making headlines throughout Europe, including France, Belgium, Spain and Italy. In this timely book, Sara Silvestri argues that it is time to move beyond the burqa debate to appreciate how complex, multifaceted and diverse the life experiences and identities of Europe's Muslim women are. Building on years of research on Islam in Europe and on recent fieldwork among Muslim women in five European countries, this groundbreaking book offers an innovative comparative perspective on Europe's Muslim women. Between 2008 and 2010, Silvestri conducted on-the-ground research in Britain, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. Through interviews and questionnaires, the author examined the views of a wide range of Muslim women from a variety of backgrounds. This book brings to the foreground the voices, daily concerns, aspirations, and challenges of these women, beyond sterile discussions 'about' them and their clothes. It investigates Muslim women's agency, their position as relational individuals in the family, the community, the society in which they live, and shows the inadequacy of understanding them through fixed typologies and trite discourses of victimhood and oppression. Silvestri offers an unprecedented insight into Muslim women's experiences within Europe (as opposed to the Middle East, Asia or North Africa), which focuses on their personal experiences as women, their relationship to and understanding of faith, their understanding of tradition, their contacts with and perception of their communities of reference, and, most importantly, their views, interaction, and contribution to European society.
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