Surveillance and prayer – comparing Muslim prison chaplaincy in Germany’s federal states

Moving beyond approaches that emphasise the influence of national ideologies and transnational frameworks on the governance of religious diversity in Western Europe, recent scholarship has underlined the importance of analysing the impact of concrete institutional settings such as hospitals, schools and prisons on the public incorporation of religious minorities. Building on this approach, the present article analyses the emergence of Muslim prison chaplaincies in three German federal states by focussing on how framing strategies of state- and religious actors accommodate the national state-church framework and prison-related norms. The article thus shows how national ideologies of diversity regulation and prison norms are mutually shaped in the process of the local governance of Islam. The comparative perspective of the article highlights subnational variations regarding actor constellations and strategies and thereby emphasises a multidimensional process of negotiating the national regime of diversity governance

Rethinking the Interplay of Feminism and Secularism in a Neo-Secular Age

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the 'clash of civilizations' thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the 'secularization thesis'. Conflicts between the claims of women's equality and the claims of religion are well-documented vis-à-vis all major religions and across all regions. The ongoing moral panic about the presence of Islam in Europe, marked by a preoccupation with policing Muslim women's dress, reminds us of the centrality of women and gender power relations in the interrelation of religion, culture and the state. Added to postmodern and other critiques of the secular-religious binary, most sociological research now contradicts the equation of modernization with secularization. This article focuses on the challenges that these developments pose to politically-oriented feminist thinking and practice. It argues that non-oppressive feminist responses require a new critical engagement with secularism as a normative principle in democratic, multicultural societies. To inform this process, the author maps and links discussions across different fields of feminist scholarship, in the sociology of religion and in political theory. She organizes the main philosophical traditions and fault lines that form the intellectual terrain at the intersection of feminism, religion and politics in two broad groups: feminist critiques of the Enlightenment critique of religion; and feminist scholarship at the critical edges of the Enlightenment tradition. The author argues that notwithstanding the fragmented nature of feminist debates in this area, common ground is emerging across different politically oriented approaches: all emphasize 'democracy' and the values that underpin it as the larger discursive frame in which the principle of secularism can be redefined with emancipatory intent in a neo-secular age.peer-reviewe

Norway: Religion in the Prison System

This chapter provides a basic overview of the regulation of religion in the Norwegian prison system. After a brief introduction, the chapter maps the role of religion in Norwegian correctional facilities from a historical perspective and examines the changing demography of the prisoner population. In the main section of the chapter, the legal and institutional framework for the management of religion in Norwegian correctional facilities is examined in some detail, with an emphasis on how the regulation of religion during imprisonment interacts with other regulations of religion in Norway, what specific international and domestic provisions regulate religion during incarceration, the role of clergy and other religious leaders, and the management of religion as an operational issue for prison staff, including the growing concern with prisons as hotbeds of radical and violent extremism

The Service Innovation Triangle: a tool to create value through innovation

This paper provides a new framework for service innovation based on structured interviews with some of the best known thinkers and practitioners in the field of innovation, as well as extensive literature reviews, supported through case study analysis, in order to identify the components of service innovation and their interrelationships, especially with respect to creating value through the innovative management of business models, service systems and the resulting customer experience. The result of this research is the Service Innovation Triangle, a simple but rich model, consisting of 9 integrated elements in 3 layers. The Service Innovation Triangle can be applied by businesses to develop value for their customers, as well as providing a foundation for future research in the area of service innovation

To be a true Muslim: online discussions on the headscarf among Moroccan-Dutch women

The headscarf (hijab) and its relation to Muslim identity and gender relations within Islam is a major topic of contention for Muslim women living in Western Europe. One aspect of this is that they have to present an acceptable religious identity vis-à-vis other Muslims. The present study uses membership categorization analysis to examine the membership categories and category-bound attributes used in Internet forum discussions on the headscarf among Moroccan-Dutch women. The analysis shows how the category of ‘true’ Muslim is linked to wearing the headscarf out of religious submission. Women who did not wear the headscarf produced accounts that emphasized personal conviction and religious engagement as additional defining attributes of a ‘true’ Muslim, or emphasized other activities or predicates as being critical for a Muslim female identity. With these accounts, these women negotiated the normative religious context on which categorization practices with fellow believers are based