The intimate and the stranger: Approaching the "Muslim question" through the eyes of female converts to Islam

Drawing on an ethnography among Quebecois and French female new Muslims, I consider how converts epitomize and embody the "encounter" between Muslim and western societies. By choosing Islam, converts position themselves on the margins, giving them a unique perspective on the "West.&qu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mossière, Géraldine 1975- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage [2016]
In: Critical research on religion
Year: 2016, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, Pages: 90-108
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Province (Province) / France / Woman / Conversion (Religion) / Islam / The Other
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
BJ Islam
KBQ North America
ZB Sociology
ZC Politics in general
Further subjects:B Islam
B Converts
B Anthropology
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Drawing on an ethnography among Quebecois and French female new Muslims, I consider how converts epitomize and embody the "encounter" between Muslim and western societies. By choosing Islam, converts position themselves on the margins, giving them a unique perspective on the "West." My participants' reflexive narratives hinge on continuity/disruption dialectics that dissolve the commonly held dichotomy between Sameness and Otherness. In analyzing these narratives, I view subjectivity as a rhetorical construction and elaborate upon converts' daily intimate encounters and dialogues with Otherness in social spaces. In light of Simmel's figure of the Stranger based on distance and proximity, I show that converts' experiences echo the "pacific coexistence" that Muslim and European populations have experienced historically. I argue that narratives are crucial to understanding how Islam-as a political and symbolic language of Otherness-can help frame and profile emergent western subjects and identities.
ISSN:2050-3040
Contains:Enthalten in: Critical research on religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/2050303216630067