Negotiating secular boundaries: Pious micro-practices of Muslim women in French and German public spheres

Abstract

This article discusses how religious Muslim women negotiate Islamic prayer and Islamic dress within French and German public spheres where Islamic connoted bodily practices are not easily accommodated. While these women perceive their practice first and foremost in terms of devotional practices with the objective to fashion and strengthen a pious self, within the context of these secular public spheres they also get entangled in (re‐)signification processes. In order to grasp these specific shifts in the religious practices in question, the article discusses approaches that emphasise the role of corporeality in the shaping of religious subjects with those conducted in the field of performance theory.

Veiled Nannies and Secular Futures in France

“…38 Thus, the introduction of Islamic religious practices into the public sphere, most visibly embodied through the headscarf, denotes a de facto questioning of the definition of the secular public sphere (Jouili 2009) of the unitary Republic. The suspicion generated by assimilationist citizenship and the juridification of religious freedom is further intensified by shifts in geopolitics and the 'war on terror', shifts which have propelled a 'securitisation of Islam' (see Cesari 2009) and brought new political urgency to the perceived need to control religion in the public sphere (see Bubandt and van Beek 2012).…”

Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion

“…For example, in an analysis of how Bangladesh-origin Muslims in Britain and the U.S. view and understand revivalist Islam, Kibria (2011) emphasizes that for migrant youth who face marginalization and stigmatization in both the dominant society and the immigrant community, revivalist Islam may offer a powerful means to assert a positive and distinctive sense of identity. On the other hand, in her discussion of how religious Muslim women negotiate Islamic practices within French and German public spheres, two national contexts where prayer is not easily accommodated, Jouili (2009) shows how this Islamic ritual is decontextualized and emerges as a site of difference and of contestation. According to Jouili, 'a "de-contextualised" salat questions norms external to itself.…”

Secularism, Assimilation and the Crisis of Multiculturalism

“…Hybrid popular cultures are emerging that mock overly-zealous Islam, but also assimilationist practices such as the promotion of the 'right to insult'. According to contemporary anthropologists and sociologists such as Agnus Marsden (2005), Sindre Bangstad (2009), Jeanette Jouilli (2009, and Annelies Moors (2011), Islamic identities can be hybrid and simultaneously pious or orthodox, underlining the complexity of these notions themselves.…”