Terminology of dress. Given the importance of language to how dress is used to enact gendered religious identities in my primary sources, positioning my use of terminology about clothes and other bodily adornments, in both academic debates and ones on the blogs, was an important early consideration. These considerations were drawn both from academic sources and from the language used on the blogs. For instance, while I use the term ‘veil’ in the title, as a reference to covering and uncovering, I use the term hijab, both to denote spiritual modesty and the actual hair covering worn, because it is most closely aligned to the language used on the blogs. Similarly, I predominantly use the terms sheitel and tichel for wigs and head scarves for the Jewish bloggers, especially when those terms are used in the blogs. Hence, I made an early decision to avoid the term ‘garb’, because of its potentially derogatory overtones, perhaps best illustrated in my research by the subtitle of an ironically activist Tumblr, Muslims Wearing Things, being ‘Muslims Dressed in their Garb’.32 ‘Costume’, while the title of the academic journal Costume,33 is more frequently used to describe clothing that disguises people’s identity or in playing a role – as in theatre productions – unlike its early association with folklore and ‘traditional’ dress. The term ‘fashion’ occasionally surfaces in my primary sources as an indication of how dress is produced on rapid, time-based cycles and of how different styles of dress (that include both religious and ‘fashionable’ considerations) are perpetuated. This reflects Xxxxxx’x (1988) and Xxxxxxxx’x (2004) use of the term ‘fashion’ as being associated with novelty and the study of elite structures, such as haute couture. I also consider the term fashion in connection with the useful concept of ‘anti-fashion’ (Tarlo and Moors, 2013) which, while in dialogue with or explicit reaction against the fashion industry, is nevertheless accounted for within the same neoliberal framework (Xxxxx, 2015). The timeliness of fashion and consumerism is sometimes actively rejected by some of the bloggers as a way of describing their dress, while others, such as Xxxxxx at Fashion-Isha,34 are comfortable enough with the term to include it in the name of her blog. Consequently, ‘fashion’ is therefore a term I use carefully.
