Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Abstract: Based on interviews with a group of Amsterdam-based headscarf-wearing Dutch students of Turkish origin this research revisits the emancipation discourse that surrounds this issue and Muslim women and girls. The paper argues that the Muslim headscarf prohibition in the Dutch context, rather than contributing to Muslim girls’ and women’s emancipation, is viewed by many of them as a ‘cultural control’, that is, they experience it as another form of prejudice and stereotyping. Drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 30 14-24 year old headscarf wearing Muslim girls and women attending school and university in Amsterdam, the findings show that contrary to many popular conceptions, they do not see the headscarf as restrictive of their freedom.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper presents a module design and implementation strategy for use in an undergraduate course on globalization, international political economy, or related topic. Students are first asked to conduct research on their wardrobe and its origins by country, allowing for classroom discussion of research methods and designs. Results are submitted, along with a short response essay. This is evaluated in conjunction with a case study short-reading and shared discussion, followed by a short video/multimedia presentation on free trade and labor issues.
I argue that this presents a more cohesive approach for engaging students in the material on a substantive level, while at the same time allowing them to actively appreciate and understand such diverse concepts as commodity chains, free trade zones, fair trade vs. free trade, gendered divisions of labor, consumer responsibility, research methodologies, and macroeconomic shifts in employment across nations. Preliminary data and classroom results are discussed, as are additional strategies for lesson development.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: Journalism and Gender in “The Devil Wears Prada”
Matthew C. Ehrlich

Popular culture has long told tales of young, idealistic male journalists confronting the harsh cynicism of newsrooms overseen by tyrannical male editors. The 2006 movie “The Devil Wears Prada” puts a distinctively feminine twist on that story while offering a complex and contradictory depiction of journalism and gender.

The film tells of recent journalism school graduate Andy Sachs. After finding no other suitable news job in New York, she becomes an assistant to Miranda Priestly, editor of the fashion magazine Runway. Andy learns to cope with the impossible demands Priestly makes of her and with cruel comments about her weight and attire. She becomes a fashion maven and embraces the glitzy world she had initially scorned, much to her boyfriend’s consternation. Eventually, Andy comes to see the error of her ways. She abandons the magazine, returns to her boyfriend, and assumes a position with a “respectable” newspaper.

In many ways, the movie reproduces familiar themes in movies about journalism. The idealistic young journalist emerges wiser and less naïve following the confrontation with the cynical world of the big-city press; “good” journalism is embraced whereas “bad” journalism is rejected. In other ways, the movie presents a comparatively progressive portrait of the female journalist, ultimately granting her both a happy personal relationship and a satisfying job. However, the movie also subverts its message by making its fashion editor an icon of power and independence and raising the question of whether the young journalist’s decision to reject that world may have been a mistake.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While institutional scholars cite France as having a low level of rights consciousness stemming from seemingly unchangeable and daunting institutional structures, a degree of rights consciousness has developed among some of the French Muslim community in France (Provine in Jacob et al., 1996, p. 179-180). This has occurred particularly around the issue of the hijab, the headscarf that some Muslim women wear to cover their hair. This garment was banned from public schools in 2004 as contrary to the nation’s practice of laïcité, loosely translated as secularism. A study of legal institutional structures cannot explain this development in rights consciousness, but legal mobilization theory can; legal mobilization theory also explains how rights consciousness led to and fed on repeated rights claiming in courts.
The logic of opportunities that drives the legal mobilization process model helps us to understand this relatively uncharacteristic legal behavior in France. In this paper, I argue that the confluence of political opportunities posed by the ongoing debate over laïcité, socioeconomic change experienced in the increasingly discriminated French Muslim community, and organizational resources in the form of a multitude of French Muslim NGOs has led to this change in legal behavior – in short, this French Muslim legal mobilization and rights consciousness. I explore how this sort of “bottom up jurisprudence” approach offers a better explanation of the dynamism of rights consciousness than institutionalism, and conclude with a critical discussion that questions whether rights claiming is indeed “bottom up” in light of neo-liberal governmentality literature’s intellectual contributions.