Epistemic Violence and Resistance: Migrant Muslim Mothers’ Practices of Care in Hijab

This article is a Foucauldian study of the biomedical sway over US migrant health care, foregrounding how Guruprasad Kaginele’s 2020 novel Hijab uncovers the “medical gaze” that regulates the ethnic practice of fictionalized Sanghaali Muslim mothers against cesarean sections. By drawing on thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Judith Butler, and Mary Louise Pratt, the article shows how South Asian “model minority” physicians become instrumental in waging epistemic violence, induced by Western rationality and bioethical relativism under the pressure of assimilation, on holistic Sanghaali motherhood practices and fertility taboos. The article looks at the text through a polyvocal framework, reshaping the novel’s dialogic flair and reasoning of Dr. Mohammad’s advocacy for cultural sovereignty. It takes into consideration the background of the contentious “contact zones” of female genital mutilation and misrepresentations, where hybrid identities navigate power polarities. While espousing a relational ethic in redistributing “emotional capital” to recognize migrant agency and advancing a decolonial demand, the article mirrors Sanghaali resistance in reassessing the notion of motherhood as a locus of biopolitical conflict, prompting hybrid care models that deconstruct surveillance in favor of compassionate interventions.