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...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
[2016]
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| 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
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| 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) |
| 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. |
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| ISSN: | 2050-3040 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Critical research on religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/2050303216630067 |