The intimate and the stranger: Approaching the “Muslim question” through the eyes of female converts to Islam

Abstract

Drawing on an ethnography among Quebecois and French female new Muslims, I consider how converts epitomize and embody the “encounter” between Muslim and western societies. By choosing Islam, converts position themselves on the margins, giving them a unique perspective on the “West.” My participants’ reflexive narratives hinge on continuity/disruption dialectics that dissolve the commonly held dichotomy between Sameness and Otherness. In analyzing these narratives, I view subjectivity as a rhetorical construction and elaborate upon converts’ daily intimate encounters and dialogues with Otherness in social spaces. In light of Simmel’s figure of the Stranger based on distance and proximity, I show that converts’ experiences echo the “pacific coexistence” that Muslim and European populations have experienced historically. I argue that narratives are crucial to understanding how Islam—as a political and symbolic language of Otherness—can help frame and profile emergent western subjects and identities.

When sharing religion is not enough: A transregional perspective on marriage, piety, and the intersecting scales of identity transmission among female converts to Islam in mixed unions

“…because Quebec had no particular colonial history with Muslim populations. France, meanwhile, has had past experiences of conquest and competition with Muslim populations and has traditionally made Muslim people into the ultimate figure of Otherness (Mossière, 2016). In the last decade, however, in the course of public debates influenced by overall tensions over the presence of Muslim population in Western countries, Islam has turned into a stigmatized religion associated with many stereotypes regarding women's subjugation (Benhadjoudja, 2017).…”

The Interior Frontiers of Germany

“…In recent years, scholars from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical positions have called attention to the formation and appearance of the 'Muslim Question' (Meer and Modood, 2009;Norton, 2013;Farris, 2014;Mansouri, Lobo, and Johns, 2015;O'Brien, 2015;Mossiere, 2016), a series of debates and polemics problematising the existence of Muslims as 'Muslims' in Europe and in the 'West' . The 'Muslim Question' appears as an analytical lens through which to assess systematic characterisations of Muslims and their faith and practices as problems to be pondered, debated and eventually resolved through a myriad of policies and interventions.…”

Blessing or burden? Paradoxes and traps of female spatial emancipation

“…Это неудивительно, учи-тывая мнение, что «неких «прогрессивных сил», «сил добра», в капита-листической системе не может быть по определению [24].…”