The Routledge international handbook to veils and veiling practices

Veils and veiling are controversial topics in social and political life, generating debates across the world.

The veil is enmeshed within a complex web of relations encompassing politics, religion and gender and conflicts over the nature of power, legitimacy, belief, freedom, agency and emancipation.

In recent years, the veil has become both a potent and unsettling symbol and a rallying-point for discourse and rhetoric concerning women, Islam and the nature of politics.