Stateless groups cling to symbolic dress as substitute for national territory

Evidence

For Palestinian kids in American high schools, their keffiyahs matter. Unlike other kids, they don’t have a country to lay claim to so they hold tightly to their symbols. “Some people have do-rags,” Akram said. “We have our hattas.” — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 486

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ — dress as identity/political signaling — but here the mechanism is reversed: statelessness, not morality panic, drives attachment to sartorial symbols.
• XREF: Echoes the broader theme of symbols of belonging for displaced peoples in The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Home Boy.