Expression of Fashion or Subculture ?

The concept of dramaturgy and subcultures are almost intertwined. From previous knowledge and from class discussions, I decided to visit an English speaking school to see if there was any sort of subculture or if I could apply the sociological concepts I learnt in class. I decided to visit a high school, keeping in mind that most youth subcultures are formed when they are separated from their primary socializers, their family, and not under the influence of the dominant culture. Therefore, for this blog post, I wanted to study whether there was a subculture amongst the students from the way most Muslim girls wore their school uniforms and adapted to a westernized environment.

As I was walking through the playgrounds at break time, I noticed how most Muslim girls had their hairs covered with the hijab. The normal school uniform was a polo shirt and a pair of trousers. The girls wore both long skirts and long sleeves, or simply long sleeved shirts with pants. In a sociological perspective, this can be seen as a bricolage. In this case, bricolage is how the young girls adapt to the western style fashion, but at the same time respect their religious beliefs by wearing the hijab.

The theory of commodity was present as Dick Hebdige describes it as “the conversion of subcultural signs into mass-produced objects.” It was tough to determine if the girls were expressing their sense of modesty in Islamic clothing, or conveying their sense of belonging to a certain subculture. Some of the girls had hipster looking glasses, converse shoes and even wore revealing clothing with their hijab on. Some also wore high-rise leggings with their uniform tucked in, which could be another indication of a hipster style.

On the other hand, some girls were holding designer accessories, for example; Chanel, Gucci and Burberry handbags, while others were wearing punk looking bracelets and shoes with spikes on them.  In the end, it is up to us to decide if they belong to a certain subculture, or whether its jut a form of commodity Hebdige refers to.

The world is mediated. In other words, corporations and the media normalize what was once a shock to us. Probably, the way most of the girls were dressed was once considered socially unacceptable, but through media and the fashion industry, these forms of clothing have become acceptable and normalized. Nowadays it is not out of the ordinary for a Qatari girl to wear revealing clothing, where it was contemplated deviant two years ago.

If I were to apply the dramaturgy theory by Erving Goffman, I would say that these girls are all actors on the front stage of a theater. In this case, the stage would be the school. The students, principals, cleaners, security and the teachers are the actors playing set character roles as part of their performances. The students managed their setting, clothing, language, and gestures to correspond the image they tried to project. Nevertheless, this is impression management. For instance, the girls were presented differently on front stage than if they were to be in their comfort zone, the back stage. At one point, the girls took off the hijab and started singing when they were in the classroom alone, and put on their hijab and acted all reserved once they walked out.

The female students could be part of a larger subculture or they could just be consumers of style through the mediated world. 

Taqwacore, the subculture of the Muslim punks

As I was researching about punk rock in the Middle East, I came across the Taqwacore subculture which I had no idea existed. Taqwacore is punk rock movement that has emerged following the publication of Muhammad Michael Knight’s 2003 novel, The Taqwacores, depicting a fictitious Islamic punk rock scene. The word has been derived by combining two words – “taqwa”, an Islamic concept of love and fear for Allah, and “hardcore”, the punk rock subgenre. In other words, Taqwacore can be viewed as a punk music with a Muslim connotation.

According to Hebdige, “spectacular subcultures express forbidden contents in forbidden forms. They are profane articulations and they are often and significantly defined as unnatural…” This can be applied to the Taqwacore subculture where express ion of forbidden content in forbidden forms is regular (e.g. expressing frustration of 9/11 attacks in their lyrics; women-led prayers). The basis of the subculture that is the merging of two seemingly incongruous identities contributes to the spectacular nature of the subculture. Punk rock, as a subculture and musical style actively resists mainstream society and embraces a marginalized identity and role in society. Punk rock blurs traditional boundaries between audience and performer and questions traditional or accepted norms and values. In stark contrast, Islam is a structured religion founded on a deeply personal and individual belief in God and is characterized by selflessness, devotion, and devout sense of social responsibility. From this we can call Taqwacore as a bricolage where the combination of various objects and ideas (in this case punk rock and Islam) appears nonsensical but makes perfect sense to the people involved in the subculture. For the Muslim punks, Taqwacore serves as a platform where they can embrace their own interpretations of Islam via punk rock and use internet to build communities and spread the message.Some of the popular Taqwacore bands are The Kominas, Al - Thawra and Vote Hezbollah.

For this blog article I will be examining the dressing styles and choices by the Muslim punks by viewing it from the two forms of incorporating a subculture – (a) the commodity form & (b) the ideological form. In the Subcultures Reader, Hebdige refers to the commodity form by mentioning that the subculture is communicated through commodities even if the meanings attached to those commodities are purposefully distorted. For the punk rock scene, this commodity form is represented in through the use of spikes, chains, mohawks and dyed hair. Interestingly enough, the Muslim punks combine both the usual punk rock associated styles (use of mohawk and spikes) and Arab traditional wear such as hijabs and the traditional Palestinian checkered scarves which can be seen in the below pictures.

The ideological form occurs when the subcultural style becomes more accepted through the labeling and re-defining of deviant behavior by dominant groups such as the media or the police, through various forms of communication technology. Before the use of pins and spikes on clothing was unheard of and would probably be labeled as fashion disasters. But now, it has become a part of mainstream media and hence has become acceptable. Even in the Qatari society, you can see young females wearing abayas with spikes and pins.

Glocalization: Muslim Women and Sports

Once again, here I am writing another blog post relating to what we recently discussed in Sociology class about globalization and glocalization. Globalization can be defined as the flow of goods, services, money, people, information and culture across political borders, while, glocalization is a combination of globalization and localization. In other words, glocalization is established and disseminated globally, but also recognized to remain the local customs and traditions of a particular setting.


The beauty of sociology is that whatever theory or concept we learn, we could apply it to nearly every aspect of our society. I will be applying the concept of glocalization and globalization to the Qatar Women’s Sport Committee and specifically, Qatar’s National Team of Table Tennis for women, as I am a former player.

When it gets to glocalization and globalization, we should consider the multi-national corporations involved, governments, resistance and the consequences. Multi-national sports corporations such as Nike, Stiga and Adidas will benefit by increasing their markets and increase their profits from supplying the players and the teams with shoes, equipment’s and clothing. Also, governments and the Olympic committees will get involved in this matter when deciding on whether which countries should play against each other. For instance, when the Third Muslim Women’s Games was taking place in Iran in 2001, the Table tennis team had to get the approval from the Olympic Committee on whether they could participate in the games. In addition, I always had the sense of resistance while playing table tennis. The more conservative women and the more traditional locals were against playing. For example, one my friends had to stop playing because her family did not allow her to due to the societal norms and culture. On the other hand, some girls were conservative and played with their hijab on. Another form of resistance I noticed was segregation. Most of the time we were playing tournaments with only females, as most players and officials were uncomfortable in an environment with men. Lastly, consequences were evident when most parents and elder people were complaining about the loss of traditions and culture. The players spent more time in school and then playing table tennis, while barely making enough time with the family. The way the girls used to dress was westernized; the language we communicated in was English rather than Arabic. At one instance, one of the officials questioned me on why I don’t speak Arabic when I’m a Muslim and live in Qatar. All of these cases could be a representation of material and non-material cultural loss. At the end of the day, it depends on the individual and how they allow globalization influence their life and what they do.

At most times, I felt like I’m playing table tennis, but the Arabic version in respect to the Qatari and Islamic traditions and customs.

"Don't let a few people shape your view on an entire faith."

I just recently watched a film about Muslim Americans and how 9/11 took a toll on their lives. The film, Mooz-Lum, was released in 2010, and was written and directed by Qasim Basir . It is one of the few American films that don’t portray Muslims in the usual light that they are put in, as terrorists. I noticed several things regarding to the storyline of the film and how it was produced. It explores ingroup and outgroup functions, cultural criminology and the culture of fear.

The film fights everyday notions that we see in Hollywood movies. To begin with, we see two groups. Muslims represent the ingroup and non-Muslims represent the outgroup. The outgroup is the group toward which members of an ingroup feel a sense of separateness, opposition, or hatred. We see this grouping when Tariq(Evan Ross)’s classmate makes fun of his Muslim name in class and everyone starts laughing.

The media creates a cultural criminology. Cultural criminology is the study of crime and deviance that places criminality and its control in the context of culture. It injects people’s brains with ideas that certain people what them to believe in. Cultural criminology against Muslims was even more evident in movies after the 9/11 attacks, when Muslims started being seen and represented as terrorists. In one of the scenes, we see Tariq’s own friends trying to attack his sister and her friend because they are both Muslim. Mooz-Lum demonstrates how even Muslims were chocked from the attacks that happened in New York City and it is unjust to punish them for what a group of extremists did.

The media also created a culture of fear, it created exaggerated threats in the public’s mind that some believe are designed to achieve political goals. Politicians create the fear of Muslims in the minds of the public and that can give them the rights to start wars under the name of defending their people.

Marriages in our World

Arranged marriages (family choose the bride)
- Family choice from along time, when bride and groom where children. They might be related in a way or two families are friends.
- Or they choose the bride whenever the groom wants to get married she can be a cousin relative or anybody.
- Or the family chooses depending on specific things the groom wants in the bride. Ex (physical appearance, or social role, education..etc.)

Certain Choices can be affected sometimes by the family trying to:
- Maintain their social class with choosing the bride from the same class or higher.
- Keep the family name.
- Keep the blood in the same family (tribe point of view)
- Keep certain relationships.



Groom choice but arranged by family:
- Groom knows her (from work, seen her, can be a relative of his choice.. etc.)
He can even just have seen her for once and even never talked to her.
The grooms family proposes and after the acceptance they get engaged and then married.
The family for lots of different reasons can maybe sometimes refuse the groom’s choice. So that can cause a huge conflict with his family.


Self chosen and arranged by the groom:
Can be in reaction to social pressure and society and social constrains on his choice. Sometimes a one wants to get married to girl with different ethnicity, nationality, or religion..etc. So he finds a big rejection from his family and it causes conflicts with his society as well. Social pressure and constrains limits the boundaries of a grooms choices either by tribe or other differences.


Marriage in Islam

Islam on the other hand considers it Haram to force a couple to marry each other. It advises people to get married to people from outside the extended family to avoid negative genetics and other negative affects.


Abu Hurairah related that the Prophet said: “Men choose women for four reasons: for their money, for their rank, for their beauty and for their religion, but marry one who is religious and you will succeed” (Bukhari, Muslim).
This of course, applies to women as well.

My big fat Arab wedding

Family and marriage are two aspects that are very important in most cultures. In most societies marriage is defined as being a group’s approved mating arrangements marked by a ritual, such as a wedding ceremony, that indicates the couple’s new status to the public. Many people are familiar with the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It revolves around two people overcoming their cultural, racial and social class differences and getting married. The family portrayed as the Greek family of the bride, in the movie, reminds me of Arab families quite a lot. The large, loud and opinionated extended family that somehow always comes as a package.

Most of the time people tend to get married to others who are similar to them in age, education, social class, race, and religion. When someone decided to break that norm and get married to someone with different customs, both partners will receive some form of cultural shock when they meet both the nuclear and the extended family. Exogamy is often not encouraged in Muslim families, as they believe their sons/daughters should marry within the social group in which they belong to, and continue to pass on the traditions and customs of Arab cultures.


This summer my cousin got married to an English guy, who she met while she was studying in London. A small number of the groom’s family and friends flew out to Amman to attend their wedding. The wedding incorporated traditions from both sides of the bride and groom’s traditions.

At the beginning of the ceremony there was the Arab norm of the bride and groom’s nuclear families standing at the entrance to greet their guests. When the bride and groom later arrived they came down an aisle separately and were accompanied with their best man and made of honor, and bridesmaids. My younger cousins even had the roles of being flower girls and the bride’s niece was the ring bearer. After the newlyweds had their first dance together, the Arabic traditions began to kick in. There was the traditional palestinian zaffeh, where men dressed in traditional clothes play instruments and dance Dabke, and later on there was a belly dancer in the center of the stage.

I talked to the groom’s dad and asked him what he thought of the whole ceremony, he was really surprised with the large number of family members and how close everyone was to one another. Having a belly dancer and a Dabkeh dance at a wedding was also an experience that was quite foreign.

Segregation or integration

After attending a female only festival just a few days ago, I have noticed how much of what we do or say is socialized. We never notice how we categories ourselves into gender groups, how we categorise ourselves in order of race or ethnicity. No. This blog post is not about racial profiling. It’s the differences between genders. People always speak of gender equality; the difference between men and women, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. In Qatar, there’s a different story. Men are more likely to be sanctioned for crossing the gender line than women. Men are not allowed in areas where women gather and once the line is crossed in this situation, women can be come ruthless to the offender.

While at the Islamic festival, many women had not had their regular Muslim cover-up on due to a huge gathering of women in the area and it being okay for a woman to show her hair to another woman in Islam. When a male technician had entered the hall to fix a problem with the speakers, almost all the women covered up. As he left, all those bright colour dresses and fancy hairstyles were revealed again. The festival went on for a while being completely harmonious and very entertaining, when suddenly, a male driver entered the hall. Screams and panic shook the hall from the women. The man at this point freaked out and ran out of the hall. Seeing the faces of the women in charge of the event, I knew something interesting was about to go down. I followed the women as they followed the newly disturbed driver outside the hall. This is where the ruthless part came about happening. The women yelled at the driver in Arabic all at once and the driver looked completely puzzled.

The constant sanctioning and the importance of respecting the gender boundary in Doha made me realize how everything in our life is socialized. Studying sociology is really an eye-opener to much of what is going on in life that is right under our nose, but we never realize it.