An anthropology of Muslims in Europe - A modest attempt by Martijn
Naar aanleiding van de overlast van Marokkaans-Nederlandse jongeren ging eerst PvdA-er Ahmed Marcouch op werkbezoek en vandaag was het Geert Wilders die Helmond vereerde met zijn aanwezigheid. Een korte impressie van die wijk en de creatie van tegenstellingen door het wegwissen van diversiteit.
In the aftermath of the killings by Breivik in Norway the New York Times had an article on the rise of hostility to Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands, the position of anti-islam populist Geert Wilders. Here is my view on that article and on the situation here.
Een filmpje laat Salahedinne zien tot welke hilarische toestanden het vasten en de belangstelling daarvoor van niet-moslims tijdens de Ramadan kan leiden. Omdat het multiculturele drama hoe irritant ook, soms ook best grappig kan zijn.
Het reduceren van de rellen tot of of criminaliteit, uiting van een stel verwende straatjochies, of morele verloedering van de samenleving, of rassenrellen of wat dan ook, is een versimpeling die een goed begrip van deze rellen in de weg staat. In dit blog een kleine verkenning.
Filmmaker Arda Nederveen and anthropologist Marina de Regt have made a short documentary about Ethiopian and Somalian women who work as domestic workers in Yemen. Many families in economically developed countries make use of migrant women as domestic workers and cleaners. But even in a relatively poor country such as Yemen, migrants and refugee women do paid domestic work. The majority of these come from the Horn of Africa. Why do these young women come to Yemen and what are their living and working conditions? Instead of portraying the women as victims, the film gives them a face and lets them show their resilience.
Sexual violence against men is used as a weapon of wartime or political aggression in several countries. Men as victims, it often remains taboo among victims, perpetrators and their families and friends. Attention to this provides us with more insight into how gender and conflict are related.
Jasmijn Rana voerde in opdracht van Forum onderzoek uit naar kickboksende Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes. Onlangs verscheen bij Boom Lemma Uitgevers ‘Chicks, Kicks & Glory. De betekenis van kickboksen voor Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes’. In dit blog geeft ze een impressie van dat onderzoek.
On March 11, 2011 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, as part of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) in NYC. John Greyson, Judith Butler and Jasbir Puar discussed new forms of activism in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The debate focused on both the cultural and academic boycott and the importance of queer BDS activism in Palestine and elsewhere. “How Now BDS” centered on how BDS is done now, and what must still be done.
It is important I think to see how Breilvik’s ideas (but not his actions) not only are derived from bloggers and politicians but also who they resonate with and are grounded on a grassroots everyday level. I also think the Netherlands can give some clues to that and is relevant here since Breivik partly derived his inspiration from Wilders’ Freedom Party ideology. In this blog therefore I will present some material of the Dutch section of the Ethnobarometer research in which we held focus group discussions on issues of security and culture after 9/11, the murder of Van Gogh and the French riots and Muhammad Cartoons. It shows how people struggle with tolerance on the one hand (seen as an important part of Dutch identity) and fear of Islamization and Muslims on the other hand expressed by different modalities of culture talk. While in the case of Bawer, Breilvik and Wilders the presence of Islam and Muslims are seen as the cause of conflict and by definition leading to conflicts, the Ethnobarometer research also revealed mechanisms that can de-escalate conflicts.
In this chapter of A world of insecurity: Anthropological perspectives on human security edited by Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Ellen Bal, we (your blogger, Edien Bartels, Oscar Salemink and Kim Knibbe) take up the discussion of cultural identity as a dimension of security. We show how minority identities may enhance the internal sense of security in the group, but may lead to anxieties and (subjectively experienced) insecurity in greater society. Both majorities and minorities are inclined to feel insecure about their belonging and sense of identification in contemporary Western European societies.
