The Hijab and the Uniform: A Situated Examination of Religious Accommodation

Abstract

Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research on a school-based cadet program in Kerala, India, this article complicates prevailing understandings of religious accommodation. It examines unofficial and tacit sartorial adjustments negotiated by cadets, families, and teachers to enable Muslim girls' participation in the cadet program. These practices demonstrate that religious accommodation is not a unilateral act of a secular state, but a reciprocal, pragmatic process shaped by everyday negotiations in specific socio-political contexts. © 2026 American Anthropological Association.