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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the interplay of aesthetic production, political activism, and religious practices in a contemporary Spanish movement that aims to recover Islamic legacies in present-day Spain, drawing on both the tools of literary-cultural analysis and ethnographic methodologies.

Paper long abstract:

Against the backdrop of a xenophobic Spanish public sphere, contemporary texts depicting migrations from the Middle East and North Africa to Spain such as Lourdes Ortiz's "Fátima de los naufragios" illustrate the role of class and gender in forging Muslim-Catholic solidarities. Narratives such as this one participate in what Charles Hirschkind calls andalucismo, a cultural and political movement whose participants - from intellectuals to musicians and writers -recuperate Andalusia's Islamic legacies obliterated through the racial-religious ideology that culminated in the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain in 1492. Drawing on Hirschkind's insights, I analyze the role of class, gender, and faith in producing solidarities amongst working-class Andalusian Muslims and Catholics. Defiant of conservative iterations of Spanish history, these Andalusian Catholics located on the peripheries of Spain identify neither with the secular left, nor with the Christian right bent on defining Spain in opposition to Islam. Over and above a close reading, I aim for my analysis of texts such as Ortiz's to invite scholars to consider an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Islamic-Christian relations in contemporary Spain, one that combines the tools of literary analysis with the insights of anthropology. By tracing Muslim-Christian interactions, both literary and real, in the context of aesthetic collaborations and pro-immigrant activism taking place in contemporary Andalusia, I show how these figures work to create solidarities in ways that could be viewed as co-constituting a shared Mediterranean sensibility while unsettling linkages between religion and right-wing politics.

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Paper short abstract:

My paper is the result of an ongoing research project focusing on the new associative movements of young Muslims in Spain. Based on a need for building of citizenship along with Muslim identity, their civic engagement contributes significantly to the strengthening of civil society and social change.

Paper long abstract:

Muslim communities in Spain are experiencing a demographic transition from being mainly composed of migrants to a new-born generation of young Muslims grown up in Spain. In parallel to this process, Muslim associative movements are also evolving from the old religious associations started by first migrants in the 90s into a wider spectrum of civic initiatives. Spanish Muslim youth are therefore no longer engaged just in fighting for their religious rights —as their parents generation was—, but they also claim their place in society as full citizens. By leading some feminism, antiracist and anti-islamophobia movements or standing up for their right to access to education and the labor market, identity politics engaged in by these young Muslims are increasingly becoming a driving force for social change within Spanish society at large.

Following this demographic transition and the resulting change in Muslim civic engagement, my work explores the process of building Muslim identity —in terms of both religiosity and ethnicity— along with the building of citizenship. On this regard, I suggest analyzing Muslim youth attitude and discourse facing both Muslim communities in Spain and the Spanish society as a whole. Thus, gender and generational gaps within Muslim communities, the rejection of identity patterns imported from other countries or the Muslim youth leading role in social movements are some of the key elements that play a central role in the process of Muslim identity building within the framework of Spanish citizenship.

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Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines the different expressions of religious activism among young people with Bangladeshi origins in Rome, in order to shed light on the relationship between public sphere and Islam in migratory contexts, with a special focus on the positionalities of the subjectivities involved

Paper long abstract:

This presentation is based on ethnographic research among young people with Bangladeshi origins in the city of Rome (Italy), and examines the different expressions of religious activism in order to shed light on the relationship between public sphere and Islam in migratory contexts. By taking into account the rhetoric and practices of two groups of activists, respectively a group of young people involved in the activities of a migrant madrasah and a group of Italian-Bangladeshi members of a youth Islamic association, I illustrate two differing approaches to public expressions of religion: one that emphasises intertextuality between different ir-religious repertoires and follows a paradigm of interculturality; the other is based on an idea of mutual untranslatability and relies on values typically associated with multiculturalism. Both approaches account for the internal diversity of a Muslim public discourse, highlighting important generational differences, and mobilise the grammar of Islam within civic and political pathways with meanings drawn from the different positionalities of the people and organisations involved. The two groups stage a discourse on public Islam in theatrical forms that highlight deep interconnections between Islam and “modernity”, and therefore challenge the monotheism of reason that tends to exclude Muslim actors from a normative, and ultimately biased, concept of the public sphere.

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Paper short abstract:

British Muslim women are politically active in their local communities, politics and social media platforms. Using qualitative interviews, this paper demonstrates the political action and activities of British Muslim women who are inspired by their faith and ethics to carry out political activism.

Paper long abstract:

There is a plethora of research on Muslim women based on stereotypes and popular discourses where Muslim women are ‘simultaneously and paradoxically both in need of saving and increasingly symbolic of threat’ with their political participation in the West rarely considered (Easat-Daas 2020:1). But recent studies show Muslim women as increasingly politicized and politically visible post 9/11 and 7/11 (Joly and Wadia 2017; Lewicki and O’Toole 2017; Massoumi 2015; Rashid 2014), thus challenging prevalent stereotypes and providing an alternative framing of Muslim women. This paper explores the political activism of British Muslim women using qualitative interview data to demonstrate the increased salience of Muslim women activists in local communities and social media. But why do Muslim women participate in political activism? What are their motivations and how do they do political activism? In their words, British Muslim women hope to ‘create a fairer society’ by participating in different types of political activism from grass-roots campaigns, online social media, creative activities to setting up networks and organisations. They are motivated by their ‘religion’ and seeking ‘justice for people’ and ‘fairness and equality’: they participate in a variety of political activities. Overall, I argue that if researchers want to study Muslim women, they must move beyond the binary frameworks of ‘oppressed’ versus ‘threat’ and recognise Muslim women’s activist role and contribution to British society as informed, interested and empowered Muslim women. This paper concludes that British Muslim women participate in many political actions and activities.

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Paper short abstract:

Drawing from qualitative interviews and ethnographic observation, this research focuses on the analysis of experiences and trajectories of Muslim women who are involved in civic and political participation in Barcelona.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, Muslim women have become more visible in the public sphere through their involvement in civic and political participation in secular countries. In a context of growing religious diversity, Barcelona is one of the cities in which Muslim women are appearing in public events, conferences and demonstrations, and even becoming key figures in political parties. Their participation is challenging normative ideas about the role of religion in the public sphere, while defying stereotypes about gender relations and Islam. Research on Gender and Islam has mainly been focused on issues such as the use of the hijab, forced marriages and female genital mutilation. Despite the relevance of these topics, this centrality has emphasized the vision of Muslim women as absent of the public sphere, and consequently, it has also stressed their supposed incapability of acting as active agents in social or political participation. Moreover, even from some feminist groups, Muslim women have been categorized as oppressed and victims of their religion, negating their capacity of the agency. Departing from all this and drawing from qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, this research focuses on the analysis of experiences and trajectories of Muslim Women who are active in politics and in social activities in the city of Barcelona. The research also includes an analysis of the local structures of opportunities that configure their participation. Among other issues, I explore how Muslim women negotiate their religious identification in their claims for cultural citizenship and their responses to stigmatization.