An anthropology of Muslims in Europe - A modest attempt by Martijn
Because I don’t exactly know anymore when I started my own website, both the years 2009 and 2010 have been labelled as celebrating 10 years of blogging. In the last two years I tried to re-direct this site into more like a public anthropology website. A process that started in 2009 with the post Public Anthropology – 10 years from Researchpages to Closer (1999/2000-2009/2010). In this post I review the last two years and give an update on the recent publications.
How should a modern secular State respond to the wishes and principles of religious minorities? A debate at Radboud University about implementation of Sharia’s in Europe. In his lecture, John Witte, specialist in family law and religious freedom, gave his views on these matters. Piet Hein van Kempen and Jan Jaap de Ruiter responded.
The Nijmegen research group on Salafism as a Transnational Movement will present itself in a panel at the annual MESA conference in San Diego. We are very pleased that Jocelyne Cesari agreed to be our discussant at this panel. Our focus in this panel will be on the issue of religious authority.
Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, is hardly known among Muslims outside Salafi circles and almost a complete unknown among non-Muslims outside specialists of radical Islam. Still, within those two groups, everybody knows who he is. Today Joas Wagemakers will defend his PhD thesis on Al-Maqdisi, one of the most important scholars about jihad. On Closer a guest contribution by Joas Wagemakers about his research.
Together with Roel Meijer I wrote a chapter Going All the Way: Politicization and Radicalization of the Hofstad Network in the Netherlands. In this chapter we analyze the shift from a politicized identity to a radicalized identity of (members of) the Hofstad network. This chapter will be published in Identity and Participation in Culturally Diverse Societies: A Multidisciplinary Perspective edited by Assaad E. Azzi, Xenia Chryssochoou, Bert Klandermans, Bernd Simon. The book presents an original discussion of how the links between identity, political participation, radicalization, and integration can provide a scientific understanding of the complex issue of coexistence between groups in culturally diverse societies.
Zappers, relishoppers, legobouwers. Jongeren in Nederland; je ziet ze nauwelijks nog in de kerk of de moskee. Toch zijn ze wel degelijk bezig met zingeving en religieuze activiteiten. Ze bewegen zich in diffuse sociale netwerken en zijn moeilijk te traceren, laat staan langdurig te binden. Hoe stellen deze jongeren hun eigen bouwpakket van zingeving samen en waaruit kiezen ze? Uit de tradities van de grote wereldreligies? En waaruit nog meer? Welk effect heeft de religieuze erfenis van ouders op jongeren? Welke bronnen boren moslimjongeren aan voor hun religieuze zingeving? Wat voor adviezen kunnen jongerenwerkers geven aan religieuze instituten? Het Handboek jongeren en religie toont de stand van zaken met betrekking tot onderzoek naar christelijke en moslimjongeren en laat zien welke rol voor godsdienstige instituten als de kerk en de moskee kan zijn weggelegd.
Jokes can be funny, or not. What matters is who has the power to define what is funny and what the position of the target of the joke is. It is the transgressive quality of jokes that makes them funny but also very suitable for political uses. Which jokes are made at the responses to these jokes reveal important processes, hierarchies and discourse in society.
Religious authority – both in its abstract and concrete forms – is the research object of many disciplines, and especially for the academic study of religion, anthropology and sociology. What is religious authority exactly? Which insights are supplied by the academic discourse on this topic? The concepts that we use in studying religious authority offer a rich array of approaches which will be scrutinized in this conference. The extensive debate on concepts, such as charisma, authority, power and status, shows that ‘religious authority’ is a captivating object of research in the academic study of religion.
Although anthropology is by definition ‘public’, the relationship between its practitioners and society, its social relevance and its connections with the wider audience, have always been controversial and complex. This will be the general theme of the meeting on 5 November 2010 at Ravenstein. To be sure, it is a vast and multifaceted topic.
De Volkskrant maakt vandaag melding van een brief van Jason W. waarin hij terugkomt op zijn eerdere denkbeelden en acties. Dit herzienings- of herroepingsdocument is hier volledig geplaatst.
