| Summary: | Magister Artium - MA === This thesis explores how the hijab fashion market has emerged in Cape Town and
how Capetonian Muslim women are appropriating hijab fashion as a means of
redefining themselves as Muslim South Africans instead of ‘Cape Malays’, the ethnic
label given to Muslims in the Western Cape during the apartheid era. I argue that
through self stylisation Cape Malay women are performatively rejecting the
ethnicisation of Islam during apartheid. I show that ‘Cape Malay’ women are using
hijab fashion to perform their ‘Muslimness’ in order to claim a positive and legitimate spot in the ‘rainbow nation’ as Muslims as a religious-cultural category, and not as ‘Malays’, an ethnic category, while simultaneously claiming their belonging to the global umma (Muslim community)
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