Paper short abstract:

The discourses on "liberal Islam" in Germany profess it as compatible with western norms & sensibilities, thus as a "good" & docile difference. I explore how Islamic difference is regulated not by revoking its premises, but rather by distinguishing between tolerable & intolerable difference.

Paper long abstract:

Several institutions and public figures in Germany have been lately associated with a "liberal Islam" regarded as tolerant, reform-oriented, and compatible with western norms and sensibilities. Inevitably, public discourses on liberal Islam denotes other forms of Islam as illiberal, suggesting to negotiate the line between the tolerable and the intolerable. By reading them as politically and historically contingent discourses of power, Wendy Brown shows how tolerance discourses construct and position liberal and non-liberal subjects and regulate the presence of the Other inside and outside the nation-state, not only by marking the tolerable objects as marginal, deviant and inferior vis-à-vis those (selves) who practice tolerance but also by circumscribing the limits of tolerance and thus justifying dire actions when these limits are breached. Following this line of argumentation, this article tries to illuminate that difference can be regulated, not necessarily through revoking its premises; but rather by shifting its boundaries; by distinguishing between a "good" difference, towards which the self can be attached and an impermissible one, whose presence triggers fear and thus one must move away from. Taking a cue from Sara Ahmed's work on politics of emotions and based on interviews and field observations, the article addresses how an encounter with Islam in a form and space labeled as liberal is grounded on a conditioned "love for difference" that paradoxically banish other forms of difference.

Paper short abstract:

Anti-terror policies increasingly focus on preventing radicalization. These policies claim the promotion of tolerance and diversity as their goal. However, they also contribute to an othering of Muslims and therefore function as a self-assurance of the liberal-secular paradigm in European societies.

Paper long abstract:

While the "othering" of Muslims in Europe has many facets that are often not immediately visible, in the engagement with Islamist terrorism this "construction of otherness" manifests itself more directly. A growing fear of Islamist terror has led to various political strategies in reply to this security threat. Within the last decade, anti-terror politics in many European states have shifted from exclusively relying on repressive security measures to softer, preventative methods. Consequently, the German government funds a vast variety of civil-society initiatives to prevent radicalization and, by extension, terrorism. While these initiatives claim their goals to be political/democratic education, diversity and tolerance; the policy of prevention reinforces existent and actively creates new differences between the Muslim population and "the rest". By constantly addressing Muslims as one self-contained entity and discursively linking migration with radicalization/terrorism, it is paradoxically strengthening the dichotomy of "us" versus "them" it aims to overcome. Consequently, projects propagating diversity and tolerance often lead to a labelling of Muslims as backwardly, undemocratic and unenlightened. Muslims are invited to actively participate in this battle against radicalization, but only if they act as best-practice examples of "westernized" citizens. Scholars like Schirin Amir-Moazami and Michael Reder argue that it is necessary to overcome the liberal-secular frame, to be able to perceive Muslims not solely as anti-modern, illegitimate actors. Following this approach, this contribution argues that the othering of Muslims within the policy of preventing Islamist radicalization is also a vehicle of self-assurance of the liberal-secular paradigm in European societies.

Paper short abstract:

Building upon the example of debates about the meanings of Islamophobia,the paper explores how difference is produced in contemporary Britain in discourses about the ways in which prejudice directed at Muslims and other groups understood as ethnic or religious minorities could be formally defined.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will contribute to the panel by exploring how difference is produced in contemporary Britain in discourses about the ways in which prejudice directed at specific groups understood as ethnic or religious minorities should (or should not) be formally defined. In the UK, recent years have witnessed intense public and political debates surrounding the development of definitions of Islamophobia, which in their turn have generated a dynamic academic discussion about the potential that such definitions may have for fighting inequality and securing community empowerment (Sayyid and Vakil 2010). The paper will use as its starting point the discussion about the implementation of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims definition of Islamophobia, to contribute both to theoretical research about the construction of difference and to empirical studies on the lived experiences of Muslim communities and other minority groups in Europe. Building upon long-term ethnographic engagement with my UK-based Muslim interlocutors and an analysis of political discourses about formal definitions of Islamophobia, I will explore how diverse accounts of difference are actively managed and mobilised by a wide range of agents, as they navigate through colonial legacies, societal attitudes towards Muslims, and legislative realities pertaining to race based crime in Europe.

Paper short abstract:

Social relations composing the Austro-Lebanese encounter highlight asymmetry and materiality as pervasive properties of the social relations encapsulated in the social situation analysed, informing fluxes of people, ideas, values, dispositions, moods and affects.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation draws on my fieldwork on the Austro-Lebanese encounter, where various social actors interact by localizing and mobilizing significant difference in embodied dispositions, values, affects, and practices as part of their social belonging and identification processes, and in which permanent or contextual relationships between them are significantly informing their agency and perhaps worldviews. My ethnography has highlighted asymmetries, expressed in directionalities and intensities of, and resistances to, the fluxes of people, ideas, values, dispositions, moods and affects, I have been analysing. In addition, social scientists often take the existence of social relations for granted. But actors involved in the Austro-Lebanese encounter, from the Lebanese side, strive to create bonds, especially affective, between Austria and Lebanon, whereas these bonds seem to be quasi-invisible from the Austrian side. Thus, the question of materiality comes tightly knitted to that of asymmetries. In this presentation, both materiality and asymmetries, encompassing intensity, directionality, and resistance, will be treated as a pervasive properties of the social relations encapsulated in the Austro-Lebanese encounter.

Paper short abstract:

In an age of increasingly hegemonic "integration" measures in Europe, it is important to examine seemingly neutral policies. This paper aims to shed light on hegemonic narratives about "refugeeness" and "Austrianness" operationalized through the Austrian Values and Orientation Courses for refugees.

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of the so-called "refugee crisis," the Austrian government enacted a new "Integration Act" in 2017. This law, among other things, requires refugees to take one 8-hour "Values and Orientation Course" (Werte- und Orientierungskurs). These courses are supposed to teach participants about Austrian history, law, and customs, and place particular emphasis on topics such as gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and secularism. By design, refugees may only take the course after being legally granted asylum--a process that often takes years. This, coupled with the fact that the first concept for such courses dates back to 2009 or even earlier, highlights the symbolic nature of such a policy. We carried out fieldwork among refugees and other related institutions such as the primary organizing institute, the Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF), and an Austrian ministry responsible for integration programs. One focal point of our research was not only to look into the policies, politics, institutions, and organizational actors, but we also sought to include perspectives of individuals who are directly affected by the policy. Through interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, we found that the course curriculum creates an essentialized "Austrianness" that is placed against an imagined, homogenous refugee identity--in other words, a non-Austrian identity. These imagined differences that are produced and reproduced by the courses serve to "other" the refugees, contributing to existing power asymmetries. Although just one example of numerous European "integration" measures, these courses serve as a window into understanding hegemonic histories and narratives about "refugeeness."

Paper short abstract:

Based on a generational approach among Egyptians residing in Austria, this paper shows how elements of difference are affectively and/or strategically mobilized in various socio-political contexts. "Difference" hence, is not a characteristic but a mobilizeable notion according to context

Paper long abstract:

The 2010s in Austria saw the return of neo-nationalist and islamophobic societal discourses that created an internal overtly estranged "other" in its residing Muslims, especially in those of Turkish and Arab descent. These discourses prompted affective and/or strategic responses by those whom they mainly targeted. While some developed techniques to elope these effects of othering-politics, others embraced elements of difference and moved toward a strategic essentialism (Spivak 1987). Many, however, found themselves neither nor. Despite the currently particularly harsh context, elements delineating difference had been mobilised for various contextual and affective reasons also before the 2010, as a generational approach can show.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2018 - 2020), this paper investigates how Egyptians of different generations residing in Vienna mobilised shifting elements of difference according to socio-historical and political contexts in Austria within the past 50 years. These contexts where not only shaped by developments in Austria but also by those in Egypt and created affective points of identification or distance, subjectivities and prioritisations. Through the concept of "encounter" (Schiocchet 2019) these shifting notions of differences become visible, which allows us to understand how social actors locate them in their respective contexts.

This presentation will show how notions of difference are never set in stone, even when hardened through power asymmetries. They change and are mobilised around various fault lines that can be seen as significant in various settings. Hence, these findings challenge socio-political reifications of "difference" by avoiding an over-simplistic "ethnic lens" (Glick Schiller & Caglar 2006).

Paper short abstract:

Based on an ethnography of the debates about a new architectural project in Lisbon, this paper addresses the relation between colonial legacies, moralities, difference and the place of Islam and Muslims in contemporary Portuguese society.

Paper long abstract:

In 2012, the Lisbon city hall announced the construction of a new square in downtown Lisbon. Its name - the Moorish square - evokes the heritagization of the Islamic past of the city, a process connected with larger economic dynamics associated with tourism and urban renewal. Simultaneously, this new square will also include the relocation of an existing mosque, created in the early 2000s, and managed by a Bangladeshi-Portuguese Islamic association. This relocation means their recognition as new institutional actors within Portuguese public Islam in a context that has been institutionally dominated by Muslim segments coming from former Portuguese colonial spaces.

The analysis of debates about this project bring to the surface competing and contested ideas about Muslimness, ideas that in their multifarious forms led to a dichotomy between "our Muslims," "the good ones" and the "other," "immigrant," "foreign" Muslim. The latter are frequently perceived as a possible threat and suspicion.

Overall, this paper unearths the complex relations between colonial legacies (L'Estoile 2008), difference, moralities and the place of Islam and Muslims in contemporary Portuguese society.