Papers by Martijn de Koning
Political Muslims: Understanding Youth Resistance in a Global Context, 2018
In Dutch counterradicalization policies and the debates on Islam today, the focus is almost entir... more In Dutch counterradicalization policies and the debates on Islam today, the focus is almost entirely on the phenomenon of foreign fighters who left the country to go to Syria to join the Islamic State or other factions. In these debates, the young men and women who traveled to Syria are often linked to Salafism: an Islamic trend. Salafism, however, is much more than the foreign-fighter phenomenon.
This chapter examines the dominant factions within Dutch Salafism before 2013, when the foreign-fighter phenomenon became a contentious issue. In September 2012, I attended a meeting in Utrecht titled “Salafisme---een kennismaking” (Salafism---an Introduction), organized by a Dutch student union. At this meeting, Abu Yasin, a prominent Dutch Salafi preacher, talked about what Salafism meant to him. After a lively debate, Abu Yasin told a number of us that after a terrorist attack a journalist asked him if he was a “Salafist.” “No, I’m not a Salafist,” he replied. But why would a preacher who is happy to speak at a public meeting on Salafism and identifies himself as “someone following the Salafi manhaj [method]” deny his affiliation to a journalist and then recount this story to others?
In this chapter I analyze different styles of activism---transcendence, reversal or inversion, and escape---to explain the various modes of engagement in a type of resistance Michel Foucault (1982) called “counterconduct.” In so doing I will explain how the “No, I’m not a Salafist” as well as other responses by Dutch Salafi networks become a mode of resistance challenging accepted and anticipated answers to questions such as “Who am I?” and “What am I supposed to be?”. As I argue, this type of counterconduct is closely related to Dutch integration policies and the “Dutch Islam” debate, both as the locus of resistance and as a method of determining the terms that make resistance possible and meaningful.
De kloof tussen het zelfbeeld van een open en tolerante natie terwijl tegelijkertijd racisme weli... more De kloof tussen het zelfbeeld van een open en tolerante natie terwijl tegelijkertijd racisme welig tiert, genormaliseerd is en zelfs onderdeel is van beleid, is het idee achter het boek White Innocence van Gloria Wekker dat ik hier zal bespreken (ik ga uit van het Engelstalige boek, niet de vertaling). Zij kijkt niet alleen hoe het onvermogen van witte Nederlanders om het koloniale en racistische verleden te herkennen en erkennen een rol speelt bij het instandhouden van racisme. Het gaat er ook om hoe dat verleden ‘witgewassen’ wordt waardoor we ons geen rekenschap hoeven te geven van dat verleden en waardoor we ook nog eens trots kunnen zijn op de VOC-mentaliteit en onze tolerantie.
Dutch researchers and activists have drawn attention to the huge number of Islamophobic events ta... more Dutch researchers and activists have drawn attention to the huge number of Islamophobic events taking place; ranging from degrading remarks to violent attacks. In this article I look at the work of anti-Islamophobia initiatives within the broader framework of the racialisation of Muslims. Firstly, I argue that racialisation interpellates Dutch Muslims as an unacceptable “Other.” Secondly, I illustrate how anti-Islamophobia activism is informed by, and at the same time challenges, the racialisation of Muslims. In so doing I want to contribute to the debates about how Muslims are able to claim a ‘Muslim voice’ in a context in which racialisation seems all-encompassing.
Since 2012 about 250 Dutch Muslims have joined Islamic State (IS), Jabhat al-Nusra and other fact... more Since 2012 about 250 Dutch Muslims have joined Islamic State (IS), Jabhat al-Nusra and other factions in the Syrian civil war. Much of the debates concerning these foreign fighters has revolved around the question: why do they go. Certainly in public debates the motives as explained by the foreign fighters themselves are taken for granted. In this article I will propose a different approach of these motives. I will argue that they should not be seen as causal factors explaining why people join the war but as stories through which they explain, legitimize and rationalize their choices and through which they construct and perform their identity. I will do this by analysing three types of narratives (socio-emotional, socio-political and religious-ideological) that constitute the life story of Abu Muhammed; one of the Dutch foreign fighters. I will show how, within a particular socio-political context, he constitutes himself as a steadfast Muslim fighter. Figuur 1 Flyer met, en verspreid door, Abu Muhammed, Aleppo (Syrië) / Den Haag, 2014 * Martijn de Koning is als cultureel antropoloog verbonden aan de afdeling Islam en Arabisch van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen en de afdeling antropologie van de Universiteit van Amsterdam.
In this article I explore Foucault's notion of counter-conduct to make sense of the types of acti... more In this article I explore Foucault's notion of counter-conduct to make sense of the types of activism and resistance among Dutch Salafi Muslims. Salafism, a utopian trend within Islam, has become the main target of the Dutch counter-radicalization policies and the debates about Salafism are dominated by ideas about integration, security and secularism. By focusing on three modes of activism (spiritualisation, reversal and exit) I explore how Salafi Muslims try to escape the regulation of Mus-lims while at the same time trying to become steadfast and pious Muslims; it is this attempt to de-regulate the regulation of Muslims that makes them radical. I will argue that although the state cannot fully control the Salafi Muslims, Salafism in turn is not immune to the dominant discourses on Islam and Salafism either. On the contrary, their resistance is enabled, informed and limited by oppositions such as religious vs secular and by Islamophobic tendencies in the public debate and while they indeed destabilize the regulation of Muslims, at the same time they enforce it.
The increasing number of women migrating to Syria from Europe has not only drawn the attention of... more The increasing number of women migrating to Syria from Europe has not only drawn the attention of the media and the security forces but also of researchers. Publications often either undervalue or overvalue women's agency, presenting them as victims of unscrupulous men or foregrounding their militant activism. As many authors work in the field of radicalisation and terrorism studies and use public online posts, they focus on the more radical, activist women who are keen to present themselves to the world at large. In our research project we work with a different focus and employ a different method. Our interest in how these women arrange their marriages and our use of private chatting produces other kinds of knowledge. In contrast to what labels such as 'jihadi brides' suggest, the women themselves desire to live under IS rule, while IS increasingly regulates these marriages. Rather than desiring to become female fighters or recruiting others, they see themselves as responsible for domestic life and attempt to normalize life under IS rule
Even though it is beyond doubt that the once virtually omnipresent churched Christian religiosity... more Even though it is beyond doubt that the once virtually omnipresent churched Christian religiosity has lost much of its former appeal in particularly the Northwestern-European countries (eg, Norris and Inglehart, 2004), there are other and arguably more interesting stories to tell about the fate of religion in the West than that of its inevitable decline. These other stories address the changing shapes of religion among the remaining faithful, and the younger generations among them in particular (eg, Achterberg et al., 2009).
A World of Insecurity: …, Jan 1, 2010
Together with Marleen de Witte (University of Amsterdam) and Thijl Sunier (VU University Amsterda... more Together with Marleen de Witte (University of Amsterdam) and Thijl Sunier (VU University Amsterdam) I edited a special volume of the journal Culture and Religion on the aesthetics of religious leadership. The different contributions were presented earlier in 2012 in the seminar Aesthetics of religious leadership at VU University:
Seminar: Aesthetics of religious leadership – C L O S E R
Religious leaders of different backgrounds across the world increasingly manifest themselves in the public sphere. Through public performances and modern social media they build communities, create audiences, and convey their messages. On Friday the 21st of September 2012 the anthropological department of the VU University in Amsterdam, in cooperation with the Radboud University of Nijmegen organizes a one-day symposium on the ‘aesthetics of religious leadership’. The aim of the meeting is to explore how recent international scholarly discussions on aesthetics, mediation, and the senses can contribute to our understanding of the role of sensory modes (image, sound and performance) and experiences in the development of new forms of religious persuasion, new modes of religious performance and shifting sources of authority.
Joas Wagemakers & Martijn de Koning (red.), Islam in verandering: Vroomheid en vertier onder moslims binnen en buiten Nederland, 2015
De islam is één van de grote wereldgodsdiensten met ruim 1,5 miljard gelovigen en is verspreid ov... more De islam is één van de grote wereldgodsdiensten met ruim 1,5 miljard gelovigen en is verspreid over alle landen in de wereld, ook binnen Europa. Van 711 tot 1492 hebben de Moren in het hedendaagse Spanje een niet te onderschatten invloed gehad in Europa die nog lang heeft voortgeduurd. Vanaf de tiende eeuw hebben de Tataren de islam naar Oost-Europa gebracht en zij hebben nog steeds hun plek in Finland, Polen en Litouwen. In de veertiende eeuw veroverden de Osmanen aanzienlijke delen van Oost-Europa en na de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn grote groepen moslims naar Europa gekomen als koloniale migrant, gastarbeider of vluchteling; we spreken in sommige landen inmiddels al over de derde generatie. Daarnaast zijn er in alle perioden ook bekeerlingen geweest; iets dat in de periode tussen de Eerste en Tweede Wereldoorlog zelfs een beetje modieus was. In het algemeen kunnen we stellen dat door de eeuwen heen de relatie tussen moslims en Europa werd gekenmerkt door inburgering, dialoog, handel en kruisbestuiving op het gebied van politiek, technologie en maatschappelijke ordening, maar ook door conflict en competitie. Zeker in de recente geschiedenis ligt de nadruk in veel discussies vaak op het idee dat er een conflict is tussen Europa en de islam.
In March 2014, the Dutch parliament, following Denmark, passed the Combatting Forced Marriage Act... more In March 2014, the Dutch parliament, following Denmark, passed the Combatting Forced Marriage Act in which consanguineous marriages are equated with forced
marriages. Why are cousin marriages, practiced worldwide and a recognized marriage pattern in the Netherlands, high on the political agenda nowadays? We will argue that a ban on consanguineous marriages should be seen within the context of the debates and policies about migration, citizenship and transnationalism. Our argument is threefold: first, the current debate is focused on consanguineous relations among
migrants and is making use of particular definitions of women’s freedom. Secondly, the different ideas about women’s freedom are the product of, and reproduce the “culturalization of citizenship.” Thirdly, the process of “othering” that occurs through the “culturalization of citizenship” in relation to consanguineous marriages, is partly based upon a politics of indignation and disgust; modes of othering that are often
neglected in the analysis of culturalization discourse.
The global Islamic Salafi movement has slowly but surely established itself in the Netherlands ov... more The global Islamic Salafi movement has slowly but surely established itself in the Netherlands over the last 30 years. One of the features of Salafi religiosity is the often very strict interpretation of particular Islamic traditions, one which is sometimes regarded by other Muslims, and nonMuslims, as anti-Western and at odds with European secular freedoms.
During the last ten years the Salafi movement also has become the main target of the counter-radicalization policies of the Dutch state. In this article I address the following question: How do Dutch Salafi Muslim youth practice a morally strict version of Islam that is rejected and considered suspect by many other Dutch Muslims as well as wider Christian-secular
society? I explain how individual Salafis attempt to realize their desire of becoming pious Muslims and embodying the example of the first generations of Muslims, in a society which they experience as unpredictable, crisis-ridden and frequently hostile. I argue that Dutch Salafis combine two related, but sometimes contradictory, styles of moral reasoning: an ethics
of duty and an ethics of pragmatism. I will show that this results in a type of religiosity based upon the idea of struggle. The experience of being part of a struggle, and living through that struggle, provides people with strong incentives to continuously reflect upon and improve themselves as part of
their moral ambition. This article provides insight into a modern day Islamic movement and its participants and how people’s religiosity is shaped by present-day political and societal contexts and religious teachings.
In this article I focus on the self-understanding and related moral reasonings at the intersectio... more In this article I focus on the self-understanding and related moral reasonings at the intersection of religious and national belonging of Dutch Salafi Muslims; these relate to the question: how should one live as a ‘true’ Muslim in contemporary Dutch society?
To explore this issue I draw on my own research on Dutch Salafis as well as the theoretical perspectives on ‘regimes of living’ (Lakoff and Collier 2004). This latter term is used to explore the different ethical formations of Salafi Muslims in the Netherlands that provide an answer to the question 'How should I live as a 'true' Muslim?'.
In so doing, I argue that, despite the strong Manichean rhetoric
coming from different sides, the self-understanding and the related moral reasoning of Dutch Salafi Muslims can best be explained as the result of three distinct, mutually constitutive,
but highly ambivalent, relationalities: ‘true’ Muslim versus infidel, loyalty to Dutch society versus global umma and Muslim versus Dutch society.
Report in Dutch with English summary. In our IMES Series Report ‘Islands in a sea of unbelief’ – ... more Report in Dutch with English summary. In our IMES Series Report ‘Islands in a sea of unbelief’ – The resistance of activist daʿwa networks in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the sort of activism employed in networks like Sharia4Belgium and Sharia4Holland is analysed. We address how the resistance, analyzed in terms of counter-conduct, of such networks interact with practices of the government and media during the period 2009-2013. We argue that the actions of the da’wa networks in the public space and the reaction of the government to those actions, rendered visible the tensions that already existed in these societies such as: distrust of the government, Islamophobia, the position of the established Muslim organizations, the position of religion and militant-political forms of religion in the public domain, the idea that freedom of speech for Muslims is limited and international military interventions.
Tijdschrift voor Recht, Religie en Beleid, 2009
In deze bijdrage wil ik een alternatief kader geven voor radicalisering waarmee volgens mij de sa... more In deze bijdrage wil ik een alternatief kader geven voor radicalisering waarmee volgens mij de salafi‐beweging beter begrepen kan worden en waarin ik vooral inzoom op de processen
van betekenisgeving. Allereerst bekijk ik de opkomst van het selefienetwerk, een quiëtistische salafistroming die loyaliteit aan de Saoedische autoriteiten propageert en zich in Nederland afzijdig houdt van politieke kwesties. Als tweede ga ik
in op de ontwikkeling van het radicale gedachtegoed van het Hofstadnetwerk. Tot slot komt aan bod hoe het Ahloe Soennah-netwerk – waartoe ook de As-Soennahmoskee van imam Fawaz Jneid, de Amsterdamse El Tawheed-moskee en de stichting
ISOOK van imam Ahmed Salam behoren – probeert het dagelijks leven van zijn participanten te beïnvloeden. In alle drie de zojuist genoemde punten gaat het om de rol van religie in de salafibeweging en om vier verschillende dimensies van betekenisgeving onder participanten: legitimering, mobilisering, empowerment en transformatie.
Fieldwork in Religion, 2012
In this chapter we will discuss the consequences for doing research in the case of a topic and fi... more In this chapter we will discuss the consequences for doing research in the case of a topic and field that has become subject to intense public debate. In three cases involving research on Islam and Muslims we will take up questions pertaining to intersubjectivity, and show how research on public issues, the relation between the worldviews of informants and those of the researcher, and processes of inclusion and exclusion during fieldwork are influenced by the politicization of Islam. We show how sudden changes in the societal context influence local identifications and allegiances. In our cases these changes produced a politicization of the field which, in turn led to
the construction of the researchers as “natives” by the informants. We argue that a reflection on this construction is necessary in order to better analyse processes of signification among informants and render a more adequate representation of those researched.
Contemporary Islam, 2013
The Salafi movement presents itself as a moral guardian of Muslims in a world that, according to ... more The Salafi movement presents itself as a moral guardian of Muslims in a world that, according to many, is filled with moral crisis, temptations and anti-Islam tendencies. Salafis claim that it is essential to return to the community of the pious forefathers seen as the most outstanding community of all times with the highest absolute moral standard. In this article I will show how individual participants engage with this idea of a moral community of believers yet remain vulnerable to the ambiguities and ruptures inherent in everyday life and within the Salafi movement. By exploring how Salafis passionately try to search for the ‘correct’ knowledge and strive to maintain a unity between knowledge, conviction and behavior, and the role of friendships therein, I argue that Salafism does not remain separate from the troubles of everyday but that these issues enter into and exist in Salafi thought and practice, not by being resolved but by being transformed into personal struggles. These ambiguities and ruptures may cause problems but also provide an incentive for Salafis to continuously work at the self-improvement of one’s piety, authenticity, and sisterhood and brotherhood.
Whatever Happened to the Islamists?: Salafis, Heavy Metal Muslims, and the Lure of Consumerist Islam. edited by Amel Boubekeur en Olivier Roy. New York / London: Columbia University Press / Hurst Publishers., 2012
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Jun 2013
Many anthropologists have voiced concerns about an apparent lack of influence the discipline has ... more Many anthropologists have voiced concerns about an apparent lack of influence the discipline has on current debates about culture, identity, religion, globalization, and other topics. For some, blogging is held to be a particularly suitable avenue for extending the anthropological voice to a broader public (e.g. Hawks 2011; Price 2010; Sabloff 2011). For over a decade, blogs have been used as a means for anthropological outreach. Many are well known within the field: Savage Minds, Neuro-anthropology, Culture Matters, Antropologi.info, Anthropology Report. The positive aspects of blogging seem clear – it allows anthropologists to share and promote their work and exchange ideas in multiple ways for publics who are often not exposed to such knowledge. However, is blogging really a solution for the lack of influence of anthropological knowledge? I will explore this issue by focusing on two questions: why do people blog and who is the audience of anthropology blogs? Based on the contributions of several blogs, including my own, I've come to the conclusion that our reach is limited to the extent that we appear mostly to attract fellow anthropologists in the West and that our blogs are Western-orientated.
In this chapter we analyze the shift from a politicized identity to a radicalized identity of (me... more In this chapter we analyze the shift from a politicized identity to a radicalized identity of (members of) the Hofstad network. Our findings are based on an analysis of texts written by the Hofstad network by Meijer who acted as an expert witness at one of the trials involving the network. We also include observations and transcripts of chats and online debates.
After introducing the Hofstad network, we provide an analysis of the “assimilationist” discourse and the rise of the Salafi movement as a background for the politicization and radicalization of the members of the Hofstad network. This process is analyzed from a social movement perspective, following Gamson (1992), by focusing on their perception of injustice, the agency of the people, and their identity.
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Papers by Martijn de Koning
This chapter examines the dominant factions within Dutch Salafism before 2013, when the foreign-fighter phenomenon became a contentious issue. In September 2012, I attended a meeting in Utrecht titled “Salafisme---een kennismaking” (Salafism---an Introduction), organized by a Dutch student union. At this meeting, Abu Yasin, a prominent Dutch Salafi preacher, talked about what Salafism meant to him. After a lively debate, Abu Yasin told a number of us that after a terrorist attack a journalist asked him if he was a “Salafist.” “No, I’m not a Salafist,” he replied. But why would a preacher who is happy to speak at a public meeting on Salafism and identifies himself as “someone following the Salafi manhaj [method]” deny his affiliation to a journalist and then recount this story to others?
In this chapter I analyze different styles of activism---transcendence, reversal or inversion, and escape---to explain the various modes of engagement in a type of resistance Michel Foucault (1982) called “counterconduct.” In so doing I will explain how the “No, I’m not a Salafist” as well as other responses by Dutch Salafi networks become a mode of resistance challenging accepted and anticipated answers to questions such as “Who am I?” and “What am I supposed to be?”. As I argue, this type of counterconduct is closely related to Dutch integration policies and the “Dutch Islam” debate, both as the locus of resistance and as a method of determining the terms that make resistance possible and meaningful.
Seminar: Aesthetics of religious leadership – C L O S E R
Religious leaders of different backgrounds across the world increasingly manifest themselves in the public sphere. Through public performances and modern social media they build communities, create audiences, and convey their messages. On Friday the 21st of September 2012 the anthropological department of the VU University in Amsterdam, in cooperation with the Radboud University of Nijmegen organizes a one-day symposium on the ‘aesthetics of religious leadership’. The aim of the meeting is to explore how recent international scholarly discussions on aesthetics, mediation, and the senses can contribute to our understanding of the role of sensory modes (image, sound and performance) and experiences in the development of new forms of religious persuasion, new modes of religious performance and shifting sources of authority.
marriages. Why are cousin marriages, practiced worldwide and a recognized marriage pattern in the Netherlands, high on the political agenda nowadays? We will argue that a ban on consanguineous marriages should be seen within the context of the debates and policies about migration, citizenship and transnationalism. Our argument is threefold: first, the current debate is focused on consanguineous relations among
migrants and is making use of particular definitions of women’s freedom. Secondly, the different ideas about women’s freedom are the product of, and reproduce the “culturalization of citizenship.” Thirdly, the process of “othering” that occurs through the “culturalization of citizenship” in relation to consanguineous marriages, is partly based upon a politics of indignation and disgust; modes of othering that are often
neglected in the analysis of culturalization discourse.
During the last ten years the Salafi movement also has become the main target of the counter-radicalization policies of the Dutch state. In this article I address the following question: How do Dutch Salafi Muslim youth practice a morally strict version of Islam that is rejected and considered suspect by many other Dutch Muslims as well as wider Christian-secular
society? I explain how individual Salafis attempt to realize their desire of becoming pious Muslims and embodying the example of the first generations of Muslims, in a society which they experience as unpredictable, crisis-ridden and frequently hostile. I argue that Dutch Salafis combine two related, but sometimes contradictory, styles of moral reasoning: an ethics
of duty and an ethics of pragmatism. I will show that this results in a type of religiosity based upon the idea of struggle. The experience of being part of a struggle, and living through that struggle, provides people with strong incentives to continuously reflect upon and improve themselves as part of
their moral ambition. This article provides insight into a modern day Islamic movement and its participants and how people’s religiosity is shaped by present-day political and societal contexts and religious teachings.
To explore this issue I draw on my own research on Dutch Salafis as well as the theoretical perspectives on ‘regimes of living’ (Lakoff and Collier 2004). This latter term is used to explore the different ethical formations of Salafi Muslims in the Netherlands that provide an answer to the question 'How should I live as a 'true' Muslim?'.
In so doing, I argue that, despite the strong Manichean rhetoric
coming from different sides, the self-understanding and the related moral reasoning of Dutch Salafi Muslims can best be explained as the result of three distinct, mutually constitutive,
but highly ambivalent, relationalities: ‘true’ Muslim versus infidel, loyalty to Dutch society versus global umma and Muslim versus Dutch society.
van betekenisgeving. Allereerst bekijk ik de opkomst van het selefienetwerk, een quiëtistische salafistroming die loyaliteit aan de Saoedische autoriteiten propageert en zich in Nederland afzijdig houdt van politieke kwesties. Als tweede ga ik
in op de ontwikkeling van het radicale gedachtegoed van het Hofstadnetwerk. Tot slot komt aan bod hoe het Ahloe Soennah-netwerk – waartoe ook de As-Soennahmoskee van imam Fawaz Jneid, de Amsterdamse El Tawheed-moskee en de stichting
ISOOK van imam Ahmed Salam behoren – probeert het dagelijks leven van zijn participanten te beïnvloeden. In alle drie de zojuist genoemde punten gaat het om de rol van religie in de salafibeweging en om vier verschillende dimensies van betekenisgeving onder participanten: legitimering, mobilisering, empowerment en transformatie.
the construction of the researchers as “natives” by the informants. We argue that a reflection on this construction is necessary in order to better analyse processes of signification among informants and render a more adequate representation of those researched.
After introducing the Hofstad network, we provide an analysis of the “assimilationist” discourse and the rise of the Salafi movement as a background for the politicization and radicalization of the members of the Hofstad network. This process is analyzed from a social movement perspective, following Gamson (1992), by focusing on their perception of injustice, the agency of the people, and their identity.
This chapter examines the dominant factions within Dutch Salafism before 2013, when the foreign-fighter phenomenon became a contentious issue. In September 2012, I attended a meeting in Utrecht titled “Salafisme---een kennismaking” (Salafism---an Introduction), organized by a Dutch student union. At this meeting, Abu Yasin, a prominent Dutch Salafi preacher, talked about what Salafism meant to him. After a lively debate, Abu Yasin told a number of us that after a terrorist attack a journalist asked him if he was a “Salafist.” “No, I’m not a Salafist,” he replied. But why would a preacher who is happy to speak at a public meeting on Salafism and identifies himself as “someone following the Salafi manhaj [method]” deny his affiliation to a journalist and then recount this story to others?
In this chapter I analyze different styles of activism---transcendence, reversal or inversion, and escape---to explain the various modes of engagement in a type of resistance Michel Foucault (1982) called “counterconduct.” In so doing I will explain how the “No, I’m not a Salafist” as well as other responses by Dutch Salafi networks become a mode of resistance challenging accepted and anticipated answers to questions such as “Who am I?” and “What am I supposed to be?”. As I argue, this type of counterconduct is closely related to Dutch integration policies and the “Dutch Islam” debate, both as the locus of resistance and as a method of determining the terms that make resistance possible and meaningful.
Seminar: Aesthetics of religious leadership – C L O S E R
Religious leaders of different backgrounds across the world increasingly manifest themselves in the public sphere. Through public performances and modern social media they build communities, create audiences, and convey their messages. On Friday the 21st of September 2012 the anthropological department of the VU University in Amsterdam, in cooperation with the Radboud University of Nijmegen organizes a one-day symposium on the ‘aesthetics of religious leadership’. The aim of the meeting is to explore how recent international scholarly discussions on aesthetics, mediation, and the senses can contribute to our understanding of the role of sensory modes (image, sound and performance) and experiences in the development of new forms of religious persuasion, new modes of religious performance and shifting sources of authority.
marriages. Why are cousin marriages, practiced worldwide and a recognized marriage pattern in the Netherlands, high on the political agenda nowadays? We will argue that a ban on consanguineous marriages should be seen within the context of the debates and policies about migration, citizenship and transnationalism. Our argument is threefold: first, the current debate is focused on consanguineous relations among
migrants and is making use of particular definitions of women’s freedom. Secondly, the different ideas about women’s freedom are the product of, and reproduce the “culturalization of citizenship.” Thirdly, the process of “othering” that occurs through the “culturalization of citizenship” in relation to consanguineous marriages, is partly based upon a politics of indignation and disgust; modes of othering that are often
neglected in the analysis of culturalization discourse.
During the last ten years the Salafi movement also has become the main target of the counter-radicalization policies of the Dutch state. In this article I address the following question: How do Dutch Salafi Muslim youth practice a morally strict version of Islam that is rejected and considered suspect by many other Dutch Muslims as well as wider Christian-secular
society? I explain how individual Salafis attempt to realize their desire of becoming pious Muslims and embodying the example of the first generations of Muslims, in a society which they experience as unpredictable, crisis-ridden and frequently hostile. I argue that Dutch Salafis combine two related, but sometimes contradictory, styles of moral reasoning: an ethics
of duty and an ethics of pragmatism. I will show that this results in a type of religiosity based upon the idea of struggle. The experience of being part of a struggle, and living through that struggle, provides people with strong incentives to continuously reflect upon and improve themselves as part of
their moral ambition. This article provides insight into a modern day Islamic movement and its participants and how people’s religiosity is shaped by present-day political and societal contexts and religious teachings.
To explore this issue I draw on my own research on Dutch Salafis as well as the theoretical perspectives on ‘regimes of living’ (Lakoff and Collier 2004). This latter term is used to explore the different ethical formations of Salafi Muslims in the Netherlands that provide an answer to the question 'How should I live as a 'true' Muslim?'.
In so doing, I argue that, despite the strong Manichean rhetoric
coming from different sides, the self-understanding and the related moral reasoning of Dutch Salafi Muslims can best be explained as the result of three distinct, mutually constitutive,
but highly ambivalent, relationalities: ‘true’ Muslim versus infidel, loyalty to Dutch society versus global umma and Muslim versus Dutch society.
van betekenisgeving. Allereerst bekijk ik de opkomst van het selefienetwerk, een quiëtistische salafistroming die loyaliteit aan de Saoedische autoriteiten propageert en zich in Nederland afzijdig houdt van politieke kwesties. Als tweede ga ik
in op de ontwikkeling van het radicale gedachtegoed van het Hofstadnetwerk. Tot slot komt aan bod hoe het Ahloe Soennah-netwerk – waartoe ook de As-Soennahmoskee van imam Fawaz Jneid, de Amsterdamse El Tawheed-moskee en de stichting
ISOOK van imam Ahmed Salam behoren – probeert het dagelijks leven van zijn participanten te beïnvloeden. In alle drie de zojuist genoemde punten gaat het om de rol van religie in de salafibeweging en om vier verschillende dimensies van betekenisgeving onder participanten: legitimering, mobilisering, empowerment en transformatie.
the construction of the researchers as “natives” by the informants. We argue that a reflection on this construction is necessary in order to better analyse processes of signification among informants and render a more adequate representation of those researched.
After introducing the Hofstad network, we provide an analysis of the “assimilationist” discourse and the rise of the Salafi movement as a background for the politicization and radicalization of the members of the Hofstad network. This process is analyzed from a social movement perspective, following Gamson (1992), by focusing on their perception of injustice, the agency of the people, and their identity.
This book comprises contributions from leading scholars in the field of critical security studies to trace the introduction, adoption and dissemination of 'radicalization' as a concept. It is the first book to offer a critical analysis and history of the term as an 'empty signifier', that is, a word that might not necessarily refer to something existing in the real world. The diverse contributions consider how the term has circulated since its emergence in the Netherlands and Belgium, its appearance in academia, its existence among the people categorized as 'radicals' and its impact on relationships of trust between public officials and their clients. Building on the traditions of critical security studies and critical studies on terrorism, the book reaffirms the importance of a reflective approach to counter-radicalization discourse and policies. It will be essential reading for scholars of security studies, political anthropology, the study of Islam in the west and European studies.
beeld van de stand van zaken op gebied van beeldvorming,
geschiedenis, rituelen en feesten, moraal, politiek, islam als
levensstijl, kunst en cultuur.
De bijdragen zijn van Joseph Alagha, Edien Bartels, Carmen
Becker, Maurits Berger, Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort,
Gert Borg, Marjo Buitelaar, Henk Driessen, Dick Douwes,
Annemarie van Geel, Martijn de Koning, Khadija
Kadrouch-Outmany, Christian Lange, Nina ter Laan, Roel Meijer, Karin van Nieuwkerk, Thijl Sunier, Rachida Talal-Azimi, Claudia Venhorst en Joas Wagemakers.
Deel 2 in de gelijknamige serie Islam in verandering behandelt een breed scala aan onderwerpen en maakt ingewikkelde
thema’s begrijpelijk voor wie zich in de publieke discussie
wil mengen.
Summary: "Based on ethnographic research in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany, this book presents a novel approach to studying Muslim militant activism. While much existing research focuses on the process of radicalization, these authors introduce a different set of questions that investigate specific modes of activism, and their engagement with dominant discourses and practices in media and state policies. Drawing on social movement theory and Foucault’s work on counter-conduct, this research explores how daʿwa networks came about, and how activists developed themselves in interaction with state and media practices. This perspective highlights a form of activism and resistance in which activists turn against policies and debates centring on Muslims and Islam, while attempting to create and protect an alternative space for themselves in which they can experience Islam according to their own perception of it.
The study will contribute to debates about resistance, social movements and militant activism among Muslims in Europe.”
Summary: "“Based on ethnographic research in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany, this book presents a novel approach to studying Muslim militant activism. While much existing research focuses on the process of radicalization, these authors introduce a different set of questions that investigate specific modes of activism, and their engagement with dominant discourses and practices in media and state policies. Drawing on social movement theory and Foucault’s work on counter-conduct, this research explores how daʿwa networks came about, and how activists developed themselves in interaction with state and media practices. This perspective highlights a form of activism and resistance in which activists turn against policies and debates centring on Muslims and Islam, while attempting to create and protect an alternative space for themselves in which they can experience Islam according to their own perception of it.
The study will contribute to debates about resistance, social movements and militant activism among Muslims in Europe.”