Constructing Sahra’s uniform

I begin this section with Sahra’s reflections on wearing a uniform whilst working in ASDA.51 _{Although the ASDA uniform policy was meant to regulate how bodies}

could/should be presented as belonging to this corporate identity, Sahra’s experiences question how belonging to the corporate identity takes place. After all, Sahra remains aware of how her headscarf and Blackness marks her visibility within this workplace. This is evident through the conversations she had with her (white) co-workers about where she could potentially be from.

After a couple of like weeks of me working there, they were like "oh, so are you Pakistani?" and I was like "no" and they were like "are you Indian?" and I was like "no" and they were like "so what are you then?" and I was like "I'm Somali" and they were like "so is that in Asia?"

Noooooo

And I was like "no, it's Africa" [she laughs] That's not the worst, somebody once actually said "oh, so what part of Islam are you from?"

Noooo, no

And then they got really embarrassed and they were like "I thought Islam was a place" and I was like "No, Islam" - I feel like I'm educating them a bit - but I was just like "No, Islam is a religion [she laughs] actually"

(Sahra, 19, uniform worker at ASDA)

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It is interesting to place her relaying of this encounter to me as a Black Muslim woman who expresses surprise (and annoyance) at the questions that she has to respond to. Her presentation marks her body as not quite able to fit into the corporate uniform, whilst also positioning her as a part of the monolith that becomes Islam. In comparison, her relaying of this tale to me (as someone that also positions themselves as a Black Muslim woman) enables us to situate this process of misrecognition as the spectacle (rather than our bodies). This can be reflected upon with laughter, whilst

acknowledging the burden of representation that is placed on Sahra’s body through these encounters to represent “Islam” and to take on the role of educator as a foreign body within this (supposedly) uniform workplace.

This speaks to the layers used to negotiate performances across different spaces. Sahra’s interactions with her work colleagues were negotiated alongside interactions with other Black Muslim women (including myself) wherein there was an opportunity to look back at her colleagues and centre her own presentation. As was mentioned in the previous chapter, our visibility is not fixed but shifts in relation to the different gazes and spaces that we are navigating. Layering moves away from fixing one’s presentation as deviant in relation to any one space: instead, there is an understanding of how presentations and experiences are built through relations across multiple spaces.

Despite this layered understanding of our visibility, there are still particular negotiations that occur through the workplace that must be uncovered. For Sahra, negotiations of how to present herself within the workplace began when she found out that trousers had to be worn as part of the uniform:

When I first went to work I'd never really worn trousers before and my mum was kind of like, “don't take this job.” Well she wanted me to take it because I'd been looking for work for so long, but she was like “it's trousers though, can't you wear a skirt?” So I went and asked. Because they said on the form that you could get wide leg trousers, like, if you were Muslim. So I asked for a wide leg trousers uniform but they gave me the regular trousers. And I was like, “don't you do wide leg?” And she [manager] was like, “no, this is the only trousers we do,” and I was like “But it says on there that you do wide leg” and she was like “No, this is the only trousers we do.” […] So I was just like, “ok.” But like, now I've like gone out and bought my own wide leg trousers

(Sahra, 19, uniform worker at ASDA)

Although she had asked for wide leg trousers, her interactions with her manager exemplified how we can become aware of which bodies are accommodated (or not) within these public spaces. Through the denial of her request to wear wide-leg trousers, Sahra notes the boundaries of performances regulated through the

workplace, and how her own presentation can be positioned as deviant from this. This is reinforced through her manager’s insistence that an accommodation cannot be made: there is a repetition of the social norms regulating how one’s body (and through this, which bodies) should exist within the workplace.

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However, she is also able to push against the boundaries of the workplace uniform, wiggling to present her body in the uniform as visibly Muslim. By using her workplace dress code, she presents her body in a manner she assumes was built for other

Muslims. Through wearing wide leg trousers, her visibility within the workplace is still connected to an explicitly Muslim performance which provides a sense of ease.

This positioning as Muslim was particularly important because of the negotiations made with her mother around presentations outside of the home. Trousers deviated from her mother’s understanding of how to present one’s body as a Black Muslim woman. Yet for her mother, this was also considered alongside Sahra’s need to find a job after ‘looking for work for so long.’ In working through how to fit into the work outfit, Sahra was also negotiating her mother’s expectations of how she should present herself in public spaces.

This marks a shift in the way audiences and gazes have been discussed within this chapter – not only are we seen in relation to unknown audiences or starers in public spaces, we also negotiate the gazes of people intimately connected with the way we learn how to present our bodies (including mothers). By asking whether it is possible to wear a skirt as part of her uniform, Sahra’s mother attempts to instruct her on how to present one’s body as a visibly Muslim woman whilst also finding a way to fit in the workplace.

Although her mother’s gaze is explicitly reflected upon, the implicit social norms attached to the uniform (and the need to wear trousers) is pushed to the background. Thus in understanding how gazes are valued, we also see how gazes might be

highlighted or neutralised. In the following section, I explore how presentations in uniforms are developed in relation to mothers. This illustrates how an economy of gazes is negotiated by Black Muslim women.