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- Convenors:
-
Isabella Soi
(Università degli Studi di Cagliari)
Filippo Petrucci (Università di Cagliari)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- KH111
- Start time:
- 29 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel analyses the relationship between religious minorities and urban dynamics, with a special but not exclusive focus on Jewish and Muslim minorities. Papers using different disciplinary approaches are welcome, especially those offering a critical analysis within a comparative perspective.
Long Abstract:
Through the study of African cities we can observe how different social groups mingle and merge, whilst protecting their own space. The experience of religious minority groups has been emblematic of processes of segregation, integration or separation that many societies in the continent are experiencing or have experienced. Urban areas represent in some way both the division and sharing of power, resources and public space. Urban space becomes a symbol of the social, political and economic roles of all groups that live in it. It can be a source of new cultures, languages and identities, as much it can serve as a paradigm for building national identity. Although urban areas may create a 'trap' when minority groups are forced to live in the same neighbourhood, they are often the only refuge for those minorities otherwise at risk. They often represent a shelter but also a place where they can be visible, affording a tool that they can use to safeguard their identity and ensure their survival. The spatial and performative aspects are lived out in daily life and in a complex relationship with the efforts of municipal authorities to plan and to regulate. The panel aims to analyse the relationship between the various religious minorities and urban dynamics in Africa, with a special focus on Jewish and Muslim minorities, but without excluding other religious realities. The goal is to discuss different cases using a multidisciplinary approach, proposing a critical analysis of historical political and economic legacies in a comparative perspective.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses puritan Indians attempts to add a social category on the basis of religious purity so as to exclude Indian Muslims and ‘Indo-Africans’ from puritan schools and social circles in colonial Bulawayo, resulting in wrangles as the puritan Indians appeal for separatism.
Paper long abstract:
Indians were among the earliest immigrants to enter Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). The Rhodesian colonial social and education system followed a strict hierarchical racial segregation system comprising the Europeans, 'Coloureds' and Africans in that order. Indians and other 'Asiatic' immigrants were categorised under Coloureds. The Indian immigrant population was diverse and differentiated mainly along religious and racial lines. The paper analyses how this diversity of the Indian immigrant population generated conflict. The paper pays particular attention to the influence of religion on racial relations between Indians, African, 'Indo-Africans' and 'Coloureds' in the colonial Bulawayo, and how the immigrant Indian population residing Bulawayo used education and religion to negotiate the urban colonial terrain. This paper analyses the appeals by 'puritan' Indians to the colonial administration to add a fourth racial category on the basis of religious purity, which would exclude Muslim Indians, whose religion allowed them to marry outside their race. In the resultant controversy the colonial government threatened to withdraw funding to the school if the principle of racial purity was applied. The paper will analyse the effects of European ambivalence to the Indian population on race relations in general , and more particularly on relations with African nationalist who were calling for end to racial discrimination.
Paper short abstract:
This paper opens up perspectives on urban/rural dynamics organized by the Ahmadiyya movement to legitimize their religious minority in the public space. It investigates the ways by which the movement’s vision of a modern society accompanies the constitution of an formalized normative system.
Paper long abstract:
The religious movement of the Ahmadiyya was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, an Indian Muslim scholar (1835-1908). It reached West Africa in the 1920s, but it grew more important in French-speaking West Africa only in the 1990s. In this paper, I will use the example of Burkinabe society to analyze how the Ahmadis are negotiating their place in the urban space of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso with the objective to achieve social recognition of their religious group while helping those in need.
Ahmadis combine the will for the restoration of true Islam with active proselytism - which partly resembles the Christian evangelical media campaigns, and the profound veneration for their spiritual leader, who manages the international community on a centralized basis. Since the beginnings of the movement until today the Ahmadis are part of a Muslim elite. Their cosmopolitan urban habitus goes hand in hand with the engagement of the Ahmadi community for rural areas and their poorer inhabitants via community facilities such as schools, tutoring systems for students and development projects. The Ahmadis are negotiating their place in the religious plurality of Burkina Faso by disseminating their message via humanitarian assistance for the rural population, via active proselytism by an integrated global media network which links urban and rural spaces and via education and training particularly for the urban elite.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork and the results of work-in progress, this paper opens up perspectives on urban/rural dynamics organized by the Ahmadi missionaries to establish and legitimize their minority movement in the public space.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the use of urban and rural space by the Senegalese Shi‘i NGO Mozdahir International in the name of material and spiritual development. Strategic use of public space by Islamic minorities facilitates the sharing of resources, bridging Senegal’s urban/rural and religious divide.
Paper long abstract:
Religious minorities are increasingly presenting themselves to the world in the institutional form of NGOs, which allows for access to various public spheres, translocal networks, and resources. Senegalese began to "convert" to Shi'i Islam as a result of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Through the case study of Mozdahir International, a fast-growing Senegalese Shi'i organization, I examine the use of space to consolidate an Islamic minority in the name of material and spiritual development. Many development projects are carried out in Senegal's southern Casamance region, but the Dakar headquarters are used to interact with government officials, access the international airport for business trips and donor visits, spread religious messages through national media, and facilitate interactions between Mozdahir's followers and aid recipients in Dakar's suburbs and the Casamance. Strategically located near the University of Dakar, the NGO office attracts students to its library and Islamic courses during frequent university strikes. Mozdahir's use of rural space is similarly calculated. The organization built a banana plantation with worker housing in a village founded from unclaimed territory and named Najaf al-Ashraf, after Iraq's holy Shi'i city. Successful fundraising among Shi'i businessmen in Kuwait led to last year's opening of a prominent mosque in Senegal's south publicly proclaiming the NGO's transnational influence and regional importance. Senegal's only Shi'i radio station in Dakar spreads religious and development ideologies to listeners near and far. The use of public space thus facilitates the sharing of resources among needy followers, bridging Senegal's urban/rural divide for the Shi'i minority.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the physical presence of the Jews in Tunis, showing where they used to live and examining what is left to testify their past. The paper also aims to highlight the demographic and cultural changes of the city of Tunis.
Paper long abstract:
The Jewish community in Tunis has a long history: Jews have always lived in Tunis, and for a while in Carthage too.
In general, the Jewish presence in Tunisia has always been an urban presence, for safety reasons but also for economic and cultural reasons.
The community lived, for a long time, in a specific zone of the Medina, sharing the same precariousness of the Muslim majority. The markets as well were divided among the communities (and also within the communities, as in the case of the Jewish world itself).
During the 1900s, the Jews "came out" from the Medina and lived also in other parts of the city, building both religious and non-religious buildings.
The physical remains of their presence are still visible in various parts of the city: through those buildings that still remain in Tunis, we will analyse the past, how populations changed and the cultural and demographic variations of Tunis.
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at the different identities of Ugandan Judaism, by way of examining how the different communities relate to each other, to the wider Jewish world, and to the areas they settled in.
Paper long abstract:
The establishment of Judaism in Uganda was a result of the historical trajectory of Uganda since early 1900s. British colonialism, Buganda's regional position and personal aspirations played a key role in the creation of the Bayudaya community in the Eastern region. A distinctively African Jewish community, the Bayudaya settled in a few villages close to Mbale, and its history presents an interesting case to study both in its local and international dimension. Another important element in the study of Judaism in Uganda is the existence of at least one other community: the "expat" Jewish community in Kampala. While different in many ways (more recent and less studied than the Bayudaya) the community in Kampala and its Bayudaya counterpart are both shaping Uganda's new religious landscape. This paper looks at the different identities of Ugandan Judaism, by way of examining how they relate to each other, to the wider Jewish world, and to the areas they settled in. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the debate of African Judaism, looking at its local and international dimension.