The Woman in Hijab: A Performance Autoethnography of Intersecting Identities in Arabic Language Teaching

Authors

• Sayonara Tomoum, University of PennsylvaniaFollow

Abstract

This performance autoethnography inhabits the pedagogical encounter between a North African Muslim woman in hijab teaching college-level Arabic and an African American Muslim student whose Islam traveled a different racial and geographic history. Race and religion move through every exchange, shaping who holds authority, whose Arabic counts, and how bodies are racialized and read through religious markers. This work draws on Della Pollock’s (2007) concept of error as a site of possibility and her performative question “What now?” to name pedagogical rupture as the moment when the conditions shaping the encounter become legible as knowledge. Through performative writing, this autoethnography treats being inside the encounter as an epistemological condition. The author’s positionalities form the ground through which the writing becomes possible.

Recommended Citation

Tomoum, Sayonara (2026) "The Woman in Hijab: A Performance Autoethnography of Intersecting Identities in Arabic Language Teaching," Journal of Educational Research and Innovation: Vol. 14, Article 2.
Available at: https://digscholarship.unco.edu/jeri/vol14/iss1/2