Concealment and Revealment

Abstract

Analyzing ethnographic data of the Pakistani Punjab, the essay argues that the meaning of the concept of veiling is inseparable from its multiple and apparently unrelated expressions of shame and honor beyond the normally identified contexts of dress and female concerns. Muslim veiling is described as a fundamental value, as concealment counterpoised to the relative value of revealment, forming a permanent ontological statement of one’s being in the world, that is, an ethical relation of the self with the other, while recognizing its nonethical aspects—the non-values. Thus it cautions against interpretations of the veil as a symbol representing something else, entailing implicit dualities like semiotic–practice, subject–object, category/rule–action, instrumental–religious. At the same time, the essay questions the imposition of the self, posits the other, and rethinks differences between cultures, integrations of minorities, ethics, freedom, tolerance, and recognition.

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