Swedish social media becomes battleground over Muslim dress and national identity
A new study shows how Instagram amplified a 2021 school veil ban debate into a broader clash over what religious practices align with Swedish values. The research reveals social media's dual role: it can entrench majority assumptions about gender and religion, but also empower marginalized voices to reshape public understanding.
Originaltitel: Veiling as free choice or coercion: Banal religion, gender equality, and Swedish identity on Instagram
<p>In this article, we analyse implicit connections between gender equality and particular forms of religion in Sweden, as expressed in political discourse and social media debates. Instagram posts responding to the Christian Democrats [Kristdemokraterna] political party's proposal to ban the wearing of veils in Swedish primary schools in 2021 were analysed through methods of co-occurrence analysis and feminist critical discourse analysis. By applying the concept of banal religion from mediatisation of religion theory, the results reveal how implicit connections between veiling as opposed to gender equality in the proposal turn into explicit debates on Instagram regarding what kind of religious practice is compatible with Swedish identity and values. This reveals the ambiguous nature of Instagram as a digital platform that may enhance hegemonic ideas of gender, ethnic, and religious identities, but that may also enable Muslim women to challenge understandings of Islam and gender equality in the public debate.</p>