132 European Muslims and the Re-Conceptualization of Citizenship: From Marginality to Agency

Thursday, March 29, 2018: 4:00 PM-5:45 PM
Holabird (InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile)
This panel examines the ways in which European Muslims re-conceptualize and enact citizenship, moving the lens of analysis from understanding marginality to agency. Specifically, our panel evidences that that Islamic revivalism is not simply a response to marginality, but also a way in which Muslims collectively foster inclusion, representation and equality. The four papers on this panel focus on Muslim agency or agentive capacities in response to experiences of marginality, inequality or “incomplete” citizenship—from France to Great Britain to Germany. The additionally illustrate the intersectionality of Muslim identity in Europe (informed by religion, race, ethnicity and gender), including a study of racial social control and cultural citizenship in Paris and beyond; the role of a Muslim elite in the Union of Islamic Organizations in France; how representative mosques in London and Berlin have been transformed into civic spaces; and the capacities of British Muslim cultural expressions in the age of Prevent. These diverse case studies reveal the agency of Muslim communities/movements/ organizations in effecting trajectories of integration, contestation and participation, by drawing on multiple, intersecting identities in the enactment of European Islam(s). They push us to reconsider how—and why—the study of diverse Muslim collectivities can help us to re-conceptualize citizenship in a period of divisiveness and instability in Europe.
Chair:
Mabel Berezin
Discussant :
Erik Bleich
British Muslim Cultural Expressions in the Age of Prevent
Jeanette S Jouili, Pittsburgh University
Islamic Revival and Class in France
Margot Dazey, University of Cambridge
See more of: Session Proposals