New Publication: Being Young and Muslim – New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North

Posted on August 19th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, ISIM Leiden, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Oxford University Press: Being Young and Muslim: Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat

Being Young and Muslim
New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North
Editors: Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of interest in youth issues and Muslim youth in particular. Young Muslims have been thrust into the global spotlight in relation to questions about security and extremism, work and migration, and rights and citizenship. This book interrogates the cultures and politics of Muslim youth in the global South and North to understand their trajectories, conditions, and choices. Drawing on wide-ranging research from Indonesia to Iran and Germany to the U.S., it shows that while the majority of young Muslims share many common social, political, and economic challenges, they exhibit remarkably diverse responses to them. Far from being “exceptional,” young Muslims often have as much in common with their non-Muslim global generational counterparts as they share among themselves. As they migrate, forge networks, innovate in the arts, master the tools of new media, and assert themselves in the public sphere, Muslim youth have emerged as important cultural and political actors on a world stage. The essays in this volume look at the strategies Muslim youths deploy to realize their interests and aspirations.

The volume explores the ways in which the young, both in Muslim majority societies and Muslim communities in the West, negotiate their Muslim identity in relation to their youthful desires – their individuality, the search for autonomy and security for the future. Due to a combination of the shifting moral politics at home, the relentless process of cultural and economic globalization, the rise of a civilizational discourse in which “Islam” is positioned in opposition to the “West,” sluggish economies and wide scale unemployment, youth cultures and politics are developing in novel yet little understood ways. Their interests, aspirations, and socioeconomic capacities appear to be producing a new cultural politics: the cultural behavior of Muslim youths, the authors say, must be understood as located in the political realm and representing a new arena of contestation for power. While often referred to as the “builders of the future” by the power elite, the young are also stigmatized and feared as disruptive agents who are prone to radicalism and deviation. The essays in this volume look at the strategies Muslim youths deploy to realize their interests and aspirations, including music and fashion, party politics, collective violence, gang activities, religious radicalism and other forms of expression.

Linda Herrera, Senior Lecturer in International Development Studies, is Convenor of the Children and Youth Studies M.A. specialization at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Asef Bayat , Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies, holds the chair of Society and Culture of the Middle East and Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the author of Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (2007) and Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (2010).

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgements
  • 1. Introduction: Being Young and Muslim in Neoliberal Times by Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera
  • Politics of Dissent
  • 2. Muslim Youth and the Claim of Youthfulness by Asef Bayat
  • 3. The Drama of Jihad: The Emergence of Salafi Youth in Indonesia by Noorhaidi Hasan
  • 4. Moroccan Youth and Political Islam by Mounia Bennani-Chraibi
  • 5. Rebels without a Cause? A Politics of Deviance in Saudi Arabia by Abdullah al-Otaibi and Pascal Menoret
  • 6. The Battle of the Ages: Contests for Religious Authority in The Gambia by Marloes Janson
  • 7. Cyber Resistance: Palestinian Youth and Emerging Internet Culture by Makram Khoury-Machool
  • Livelihoods and Lifestyles
  • 8. Young Egyptians’ Quest for Jobs and Justice by Linda Herrera
  • 9. Reaching a Larger World: Muslim Youth and Expanding Circuitries of Operation by AbdouMaliq Simone
  • 10.Being Young, Muslim and American in Brooklyn by Moustafa Bayoumi
  • Strivings for Citizenship
  • 11. ‘Also the School Is a Temple’: Republicanism, Imagined Transnational Spaces, and the Schooling Of Muslim Youth in France by Andre Elias Mazawi
  • 12. Avoiding Youthfulness? Young Muslims Negotiating Gender and Citizenship in France and Germany by Schirin Amir-Moazami
  • 13. Struggles over Defining the Moral City: Islam and Urban Public Life in Iran by Azam Khatam
  • Navigating Identities
  • 14. Securing Futures: Youth, Generation, and Muslim Identities in Niger by Adeline Masquelier
  • 15. “Rasta” Sufis and Muslim Youth Culture in Mali by Benjamin F. Soares
  • 16. Performance, Politics and Visceral Transformation: Post-Islamist Youth in Turkey by Ayse Saktanber
  • 17. Negotiating with Modernity: Young Women and Sexuality in Iran by Fatemeh Sadeghi
  • Musical Politics
  • 18. Fundamental’s Jihad Rap by Ted Swedenburg
  • 19. Maroc-Hop: Music and Youth Identities in the Netherlands by Miriam Gazzah
  • 20. Heavy Metal in the Middle East: New Urban Spaces in a Translocal Underground by Pierre Hecker
  • 21. Music VCDs and the New Generation: Negotiating Youth, Femininity and Islam in Indonesia by Suzanne Naafs
  • 22. Conclusion: Knowing Muslim Youth by Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat
  • References

“This is an excellent collection of essays on youth in a number of Muslim majority (and minority) societies in the context of globalization and modernity. A particular strength of this volume is its ability to highlight the multiple and contested roles of religion and personal faith in the fashioning of contemporary youthful Muslim identities. Such insights often challenge secular Western master narratives of modernity and suggest credible reconceptualizations of what it means to be young and modern in a broad swath of the world today.”

— Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Islamic Studies, Indiana University

Knowing the work of both editors and having read some of the early versions of different chapters, I would highly recommend this book. It engages with important questions, challenges existing definitions and interpretations without being apologetic. The variety in topics and regions provides the reader with a very rich source of contemporary debates, repertoires and interpretations of being young and Muslim.

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Faithworld – Scholars petition Netherlands not to close leading institute on Islam

Posted on December 26th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM Leiden.

Reuters religion reporter Tom Heneghan writes:
FaithWorld » Blog Archive » Scholars petition Netherlands not to close leading institute on Islam | Blogs |

Religion reporters often get asked how they keep up with developments in different faiths. One way is to read the leading publications in the field. Keeping up with the latest trends in Islam is about to get harder for those of us who are regular readers of one of the most interesting journals on Muslim issues, the ISIM Review published in English by the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.Not only is the Review closing down — ISIM itself, a Dutch academic institute set up by the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen 10 years ago — is being closed for lack of funds. […]

I’ve found it (the Review, MdK) very informative as background to the current issues concerning Muslim and a tip-off for scholars to consult when I’m writing about them. There aren’t enough of these publications around and it’s sad to see such a good one, and the institute that produces it, disappear.

Oddly enough, a February 2008 peer review commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Education — the same ministry now pulling the plug on ISIM — gave the institute high marks for its work.

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Announcement: ISIM to be closed as per 1 January 2009

Posted on December 18th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM Leiden.

The International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) will be closed as per 1 January 2009, due to the lack of adequate funding. ISIM was set up ten years ago by the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen, and the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The objective of the institute has been to carry out innovative research into the social, political, cultural and intellectual trends and movements in present-day Muslim communities and societies worldwide.

I will keep you informed of further developments as best as I can.

As testified by the February 2008 international peer-review committee that was appointed at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Education, ISIM has been an excellently performing, internationally leading institute in its field. It has been pioneering in interdisciplinary research of contemporary Muslim communities and societies, and in combining scholarship and societal cooperation.

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Aankondiging: ISIM sneuvelt per 1 januari 2009

Posted on December 18th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM Leiden.

Persbericht Universiteit Leiden: Islaminstituut ISIM stopt per 1 januari 2009

Islaminstituut ISIM stopt per 1 januari 2009

Het internationale instituut voor de studie van islam in de moderne wereld (ISIM) houdt per 1 januari 2009 op te bestaan. ISIM is tien jaar geleden opgericht door de universiteiten van Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht en Nijmegen en het ministerie van OCW. Het instituut heeft vernieuwend onderzoek bevorderd en verricht naar maatschappelijke, politieke, culturele en intellectuele trends en bewegingen in hedendaagse islamitische gemeenschappen en samenlevingen wereldwijd.

In het zicht van de afloop van de tijdelijke bijdrage van het ministerie van OCW hebben achtereenvolgens de Radboud Universiteit, de Universiteit Utrecht en de Universiteit van Amsterdam besloten zich terug te trekken. Nadien zijn vanuit de vier instellingen toch nog pogingen gedaan om het onderzoeksinstituut gezamenlijk voort te zetten, maar die pogingen bleven helaas zonder resultaat. De Universiteit Leiden, tevens penvoerder van ISIM, heeft vervolgens de mogelijkheden onderzocht om het werk van ISIM zelfstandig voort te zetten en daartoe een plan voorgelegd aan minister Plasterk. De minister schoof dit plan terzijde. Hij stelt middelen beschikbaar voor de oprichting van een landelijk(e) onderzoekschool/samenwerkingsverband op het gebied van islamstudies.

De Leidse universiteit hecht grote waarde aan het onderzoek naar dynamiek in de godsdienst, maatschappij en recht van moslimgemeenschappen- en samenlevingen. Zij betreurt de opheffing van het ISIM en zal, waar mogelijk met anderen, een substantiële bijdrage op dit terrein blijven leveren.

Een schandalige zaak. Tzt zal ik hier nog eens verder op ingaan. Zie ook het artikel in Trouw:
Een moslimproduct laat zien waar je voor staat | Trouw Idealen, Startpunt voor idealen

ISIM sneuvelt door ’profileerzucht’ universiteiten

Het debat ’Moslims, van alle markten thuis’, vanavond in El Hema, de Arabische variant van het oer-Hollandse warenhuis, in Het Gemaal in Rotterdam, is de laatste activiteit van het ISIM. Na tien jaar stopt de samenwerking tussen de universiteiten van Utrecht, Amsterdam (UvA), Leiden en Nijmegen. Het ministerie van OCW en de universiteiten konden het niet eens worden over de basisfinanciering van 1,8 miljoen euro. „Doodzonde. Het is bij die universiteiten ieder voor zich”, verzucht oud-ambassadeur Niek Biegman, lid van de adviesraad van het ISIM. „Bij de universiteiten heerst ’profileerzucht’. Ze willen zich profileren om geld bij de politiek los te krijgen. Binnen het ISIM voelen ze zich onzichtbaar. Daar willen ze dus niets meer aan uitgeven.”

Biegman roemde het ISIM eerder als vraagbaak in een land waar ’het islamdebat steeds weer wordt aangezwengeld met halve waarheden, leugens en misvattingen’. „Als de BV Nederland juist nu de stekker eruit trekt, lijkt mij dit ongerijmd, absurd en schandalig.”

Biegman hoopt nog op een doorstart. „Het gaat om weinig geld en het ISIM heeft de afgelopen jaren zo’n goede naam opgebouwd dat er vanuit het netwerk buitenlandse opdrachten gaan binnenkomen. Misschien kan het zich over een tijdje wel grotendeels zelf gaan bedruipen.”

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Een keuze uit 10 jaar ISIM Review

Posted on December 18th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM Leiden.

ISIM Home – Booklet ’10 Years ISIM Review’

Een keuze uit 10 jaar ISIM Review

“Hoe denken islamitische geleerden over IVF en spermadonatie? Waarom sluit een man uit Tadzjikistan zich aan bij de Taliban om vervolgens abrikozenschnaps te gaan smokkelen? En hoe wordt de profeet Mohammed afgebeeld op populaire Iraanse posters?”

To mark its tenth anniversary, ISIM issued a selection of ISIM Newsletter and ISIM Review articles published in the past ten years. The celebrational booklet, in Dutch, was presented on the occasion of the ninth ISIM Annual Lecture by Ahmed Rashid on 13 November 2008.

The publication presents thirteen articles from the ISIM Newsletter and ISIM Review 1998-2008. It reflects a decade of innovative, comparative, and inter-disciplinary research on contemporary Muslim societies and communities, and a range of perspectives relevant to the current debates on Islam and Muslims in the Netherlands.

Een keuze uit 10 jaar ISIM Review can be read online by clicking on the image above. Copies can also be requested free of charge – first come, first served – by sending an e-mail to info@isim.nl.

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