This article explores ways to think of religion using Zygmunt Bauman's concept of liquid modernity. The concept of liquid religion opens up perspectives for both "new" and "old" social forms of religion that seem to fiourish within a liquid milieu. Attention is also drawn to three types of relationship between solid and liquid religion. The first type consists of liquid phenomena in the religious sphere: religious events, small communities, global religious networks and virtual communities. The second type consists of phenomena on the boundaries between the religious and the secular sphere, such as religious services in a hospital or a prison. The third type consists of meetings and collective activities outside the religious sphere, such as those in the political and cultural spheres, which nonetheless have important religious qualities. This typology is used to make general observations on the basis of empirical research, mainly conducted in the Netherlands.
What position does organized Muslim chaplaincy in Dutch prisons take with respect to the prevention of radicalization and to the de-radicalization of detainees with a Muslim background? After describing the process of securitization of Salafism in the Netherlands, discussing the use of context-related concepts as radicalization, extremism and terrorism, and sketching the context and the making of Muslim chaplaincy, the article provides a brief overview of recent research on the relation between detention and (de)radicalization. Then, the stance of Islamic prison chaplaincy towards (de)radicalization of Muslim prisoners is described and analyzed in terms of goals, policy and practice. An expansive oligopolistic system of chaplaincy, representing various organized religions, seems to facilitate a relatively apolitical type of Islamic chaplaincy, which often acts as a countervailing force to the dominant trend of securitization.
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