Global flows, local appropriations: facets of secularisation and re-Islamization among contemporary Cape muslims

This is the first ethnographic study of muslims in Cape Town, South Africa at this level in 25 years. It explores processes of secularisation and re-islamization among Cape Muslims in the context of a post-apartheid South Africa in which liberal and secular values have attained considerable purchase in the new political and social elites. Fractured by status, ethnicity and religious orientation, Cape muslims have responded to these changes through an ambiguous accomodation with the new order. This study explores this development through chapters on conversions to Islam among black Africans in Cape Town, Cape women's experiences with polygyny, Cape muslims and HIV/AIDS, the status of Islam in a prison Cape Town in the post-apartheid era and on contestation over rituals among Cape muslims

The Qur’an Burnings of SIAN

Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have in recent years seen a wave of Qur’an burnings, a subset of Qur’an desecration, involving largely non-religious fringe actors. Desecrations of the Qur’an are nothing new, but their mode of articulation in the present requires attention to both context and the actors involved. In this article we examine the Qur’an-burning events of the Norwegian organization Stop the Islamisation of Norway (SIAN). The article draws on media events theory, paying attention to how the symbolic and ritual dimensions of such spectacular mediated events generate both cohesion and conflict among globalized audiences. Informed by both on- and offline ethnographic fieldwork, we explore the mediated ritualization of smaller-scale urban events involving staged Qur’an burnings by this far-right fringe group in Norway in recent years. We demonstrate how a relatively small and marginal far-right political actor succeeds in being foregrounded by the media, creating polarization, capturing free speech, and racializing Muslims by desecrating the Qur’an

‘Anthropologists Are Talking’: About Anthropology and Post-Apartheid South Africa

In 2010, South Africa hosted the first World Cup in soccer ever to take place on the African continent. Twenty years after the fall of Apartheid, South Africa presents a series of fractured and contradictory images to the outside world. It is, on the one hand, an economic powerhouse in sub-Saharan Africa, but on the other hand a society in which socio-economic inequalities have continued to flourish and increase. What can anthropology tell us about contemporary South Africa? As part of an ongoing series in public anthropology, Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Postdoctoral Fellow Sindre Bangstad sat down for a public conversation with Professors John L. and Jean Comaroff in The House of Literature in Oslo, Norway, on 28 September 2010.African and African American Studie

The racism that dares not speak its name: Rethinking neo-nationalism and neo-racism in Norway

In contemporary Norway, the mere referral to the term racism has for all practical purposes become taboo in the public sphere. This is both the result of a strategic far-right distancing from classical forms of racism and a conscious effort by numerous Norwegian academics and public intellectuals to restrict its meaning and reference in the course of recent decades. Norway has a comparatively weak tradition of social science scholarship on racism, and persistent claims to the right to name racism on the part of minorities in Norway often come up against social and political imaginaries in which Norway and Norwegians are cast as ‘exceptional’ and ‘virtuous.’ In this article I contextualize Norwegian neo-racism with reference to persistent fears about lack of social and national cohesion arising from modern mass immigration and an increasingly multicultural Norwegian society. Using the methodology of critical discourse analysis, I take as my empirical starting point media and popular discourses on Islam and Muslims in Norway from c. 1987 to 2014. The rise of far-right political formations in Norway, I argue, must be understood not primarily through economic determinants, but seen as a result of a successful ‘culturalization of politics’ characteristic of neo-liberalism more generally

Rasebegrepets fortid og nåtid

Det er en etablert sannhet i de fleste samfunnsvitenskapelige kretser at begrepet ʻrase’ er forankret i sosiale konstrukter. Like fullt synes det problematiske begrepet ʻrase’ med relativ regelmessighet å vende tilbake i offentlige diskurser også i en norsk og europeisk kontekst. Uavhengig av den etablerte begrepsforståelsen i samfunnsvitenskapene, har begrepets ʻetterliv’ og de populære forestillinger som knytter seg til begrepet den dag i dag materielle konsekvenser for minoriteter som utsettes for prosesser av rasialisering. I denne artikkelen vil jeg se nærmere på det problematiske ʻrase’-begrepets historie og samtid. Dette er en teoretisk artikkel, og i det tilfeldige utvalget av litteratur er det lagt vekt på samfunnsvitenskapelig litteratur som kan bidra til å belyse problemstillingen i en norsk, europeisk og amerikansk samfunnsmessig og politisk kontekst. Det argumenteres for at utfordringene til den diskrediteringen av ʻrase’-begrepet som har funnet sted i en norsk og europeisk kontekst etter nazismen, 2. verdenskrig og Holocaust, skriver seg fra det man kan karakterisere som en ny ʻbiologisme’, samt fra den langt mer utbredte og legitime bruken av ʻrase’-begrepet i en amerikansk akademisk kontekst og litteratur – og fra enkelte anti-rasistiske strømningers insistering på nødvendigheten av å opprettholde et begrep om ʻrase’ for at rasisme i ulike former i samtiden skal kunne anerkjennes og adresseres. Den faglitteraturen på ny-rasisme og/eller kulturell rasisme som vokser frem på 1980-tallet, gir imidlertid grunn til å stille spørsmålet om ikke underliggende ʻrase’-begreper i vår tid først og fremst kommer til offentlig uttrykk gjennom såkalt rasialisering av minoriteter

Global Flows, Local Appropriations

Global Flows, Local Appropriations; Facets of Secularisation and Re-Islamization Among Contemporary Cape Muslims is the first ethnographic study of muslims in Cape Town, South Africa at this level in 25 years. It explores processes of secularisation and re-islamization among Cape Muslims in the context of a post-apartheid South Africa in which liberal and secular values have attained considerable purchase in the new political and social elites. Fractured by status, ethnicity and religious orientation, Cape muslims have responded to these changes through an ambiguous accomodation with the new order. This study explores this development through chapters on conversions to Islam among black Africans in Cape Town, Cape women's experiences with polygyny, Cape muslims and HIV/AIDS, the status of Islam in a prison Cape Town in the post-apartheid era and on contestation over rituals among Cape muslims