Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that the emergence of a normative dichotomy in Portugal between the “good” and the “other”, the “foreigner” or the “immigrant” Muslim is a process of “othering” that relates to citizenship, national identity, colonial legacies, and cultural assimilation.

Paper long abstract:

In the early 2000s, Nina Clara Tiesler showed that Muslims and Islam in Portugal were invisible in comparison with other European contexts. Ever since things changed considerably. Not only there has been a growing islamization of the public debates around Muslims but, at the same time, the new Islamic presence in Portugal went through several changes. Besides the increasing diversification in terms of national, linguistic, social, and doctrinal backgrounds, one of the major changes in the past years is the emergence of a normative dichotomy between the “good” and the “other”, the “foreigner” or the “immigrant” Muslim, a discourse that is reinforced by non-Muslim actors and that becomes increasingly visible in the public sphere. Based on a research about public debates on Muslims and immigration, this paper argues that this is a process of “othering” that consubstantiates a moral hierarchy in which many de jure Portuguese citizens are categorized as foreigners and subjects of suspicion in the public sphere. The objective of this presentation is to explore this process of “othering” and how it relates to citizenship, national identity, colonial legacies, and cultural assimilation