Carleton students routinely engage in fascinating research projects that allow them to pursue their intellectual and creative interests off campus. Lauren Kempton ’18 chats with Nathaniel Van Wienen '15 to see what he’s been digging into.

Hometown: Sycamore, Ill.

Majors: Religion/ French and Francophone Studies

Internship: The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, Belgium

Project: Talking to Belgians about the burqa ban

Inspiration: “I began my research a couple years ago when I studied in Brussels for a semester. Legislation had passed just a year earlier banning all face coverings in public, especially those worn by Muslim women. I was speaking to the Muslim community about this piece of legislation, which was a giant controversy and a fiercely hostile debate in Belgian parliament. And the question of my research was about the perspectives of the Muslim community, because they were hardly present in the debate at all.”

Highlights:  “I spoke with the authors of both versions of the bill and with a human rights professor at one of the premier universities in Belgium, who conducted the only existing study on the tradition of the burqa in Belgium today. She was the only member of parliament in the history of this legislation to vote no.”

Takeaway: “Many of the Muslim professionals and activists I spoke with felt highly stigmatized by this legislation. Even though it was ostensibly just targeting a small group (Belgian women who wear the burqa, which covers the whole face, as opposed to a hijab, which covers only the head), the Muslim community felt it was allowed hardly any participation in the debate itself.”