exploring muslim identities in europe & north america

Pierre-André Taguieff   is director of research at the French  National Centre for Scientific Research  in CEVIPOF. He is also a member of the  Cercle de l'Oratoire  think tank.Taguieff is the author of a number of books and papers on racism and antisemitism, including  The Force of Prejudice: On Racism and Its Doubles  (2001) and  Rising from the Muck: The New Antisemitism in Europe  (2004).

Being Muslim in France means having to navigate through a complex terrain informed by an aggressive secularism, sponsored by the state, a hostile to Islam public opinion (as the recent successes of Marine Lepen in the opinion polls suggest) and a sectarian Muslim communal life. The following text by Giles Kepel that appeared in Le Monde on 01.11.2013, provides an interesting take on the transformations taking place within French Islam but also reflects aspects of the official discourse on the relationship between Islam and the French state. The translation is my own. On 15 October, for the first time in the history of the Republic, an incumbent Prime Minister visited the Great Mosque of Paris , on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, the great feast of the Islamic calendar. In a brief statement, Jean-Marc Ayrault spoke to millions of our fellow believers in what he called "a great religion of France" to extend his wishes. He reminded them of "the government's determi

The debate about the face veil is not a novel one. Muslim notions of modesty, have often been subverted and colonized by patriarchal practices seeking to restrict women's autonomy. As such, the veil issue has mobilized social forces inspired by liberalism and Western feminism and generated valuable criticisms of patriarchy in Muslim communities. On the other hand, Muslim women in Europe (but also in parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia where secularist forces have been able to inform or determine state policy) who choose or are forced to cover their bodies and faces are often subjected to state regulation and disciplining. Focusing on Europe, it is undeniable that the 'out of place' look of veiled women in public spaces all over the continent has provided fertile ground for the transformation of the veil issue into a potent mobilizing symbol for xenophobic, right-wing forces only too happy to jump into the bandwagon of the secular, liberal and feminist oppositio

Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks Spyros A. Sofos and Roza Tsagarousianou Published by Palgrave Macmillan (October 2013) ISBN 9781137357779 Islam in Europe delves into the daily routines of European Muslim communities in order to provide a better understanding of what it means to be a European Muslim today. Instead of positing particular definitions of being Muslim, this volume invites and encourages a diverse body of 735 informants from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK to reflect on who they are and on the meaning and place Islam has in such considerations. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and suggesting novel ways of seeing the phenomenon of European Islam and the continent's Muslim communities, Islam in Europe examines how through their practices, discourses, face to face and mediated interaction, European Muslims construct notions or identity, agency, solidarity and belonging, or how they negotiate and redefine religion, tradition, authori

by Marc Krupanski and Zsolt Bobis             Open Society Justice Initiative Adji Ahoudian is a French citizen, and an elected member in the office of the mayor of the 19 th arrondissement in Paris. He proudly remembers the day he received his new official I.D., with the Republican motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. But then, after attending a council meeting one day, he was stopped by the police for an identity check, for no reason. Except maybe that he was black. “It is then that you realize that you belong to the Republic, you live in the Republic, but you aren’t actually a full citizen,” he says. “Instead you are a second-class citizen. You are continually reminded that due to your face, due to your skin color, due to your appearance that you are not really from here—even when you are an elected official of the Republic.” Adji’s story is told in a new report by the Open Society Justice Initiative that looks into the human reality of the grim fact that the police in